Sperg about comic books here

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Humble Architect said:
Like I get wanting to play with an expy of a character, but to do it in a way that is pretty much the same as DC
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Yeah, I get wanting to do an espy of Superman or Spider-Man. But you need an actual fucking point for the version to ultimately be its own thing.

Like Static Stock is clearly the Spider-Man of the Milestone line but done slightly different.
 
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So I caught up with the Batman DC Finest collections, and I want to rant. These three collections represent three years of Batman stories, starting during Crisis on Infinite Earths and running through the Killing Joke.

The stories in these books are... inconsistent. Red Skies, the Crisis volume, is very melodramatic. Batman is in love with Catwoman, but also Nocturna. Catwoman is jealous of Nocturna and also mad at Batman. Robin is jealous of Catwoman. Robin is also very heated about Nocturna, who he views as his mother. There's a lot of drama, and it all amounts to basically nothing. It doesn't help that this volume is an aftermath volume of a storyline that has yet to be collected involving Black Mask and the False Face Society.

Bullock is featured prominently in these stories, being as prominent, if not more so, than Gordon. Bullock is mostly comic relief and a punching bad for Robin's quips, but eventually he starts dating the widow of a murder victim and gets a nice arc in the process.

Best Story: Batman #s 393 & 394 - An attempt at a spy thriller where Batman teams up with a KGB agent to stop a rogue Russian asset from poisoning Gotham's water supply.
Worst Story: Batman #400 - Ra's al Ghul breaks Batman's rogue gallery out of Gotham and then proceeds to do fuckall.

Year One & Two is the first post-Crisis volume. Its in this volume where the difference between Batman and Detective Comics becomes a stark reality. In one book you get wacky throwback stories with Alan Davis art, and in the other you get edgy real crime stories you'd expect from a modern Batman book. You also get Frank Miller's Year One and definitely not Frank Miller's Year Two. I usually shit on the classics as overrated, but Year One is just as good today as when it was originally published 40 years ago. Year Two is what happens if you got super drunk and described Year One to a retard and then asked him to write the sequel. I can't, for the life of me, figure out what they were thinking with Year Two. Its not even a copy or an attempt at recreating Year One. Its just its own awful thing.

Bullock basically vanishes post-Crisis. Catwoman's out of the picture. Its now just Batman, Robin and Gordon making up the main cast.

Best Story: Year One
Worst Story: Year Two

The Killing Joke and Other Stories is more grounded and less wacky than the previous volume. This is easily my favorite of the three volumes. You get Batman: Son of the Demon, a graphic novel where Batman teams up with Ra's al Ghul to fight an ex-Soviet spy who is trying to trigger a nuclear war between the USSR and America with weather satellites. You get a fun Scarface story in Detective Comics. And you my favorite story in the book, the four part "Ten Nights of the Beast" wherein Batman has to stop a rogue former KGB agent from assassinating thirteen Americans responsible for Reagan's Star Wars program.

The Killing Joke is also here. This is Barbara Gordon's first appearance in the three trades. She stopped appearing roughly two years before the start of Red Skies, so there really is no context to her appearance or history leading up to Killing Joke. The Killing Joke is edgy, its meta, it was revolutionary for its time... but its garbage. It commits the fatal flaw of the characters existing not as themselves but as author/audience inserts commenting on the characters. And it inspired a whole lotta shitty comics that focused on metatextual commentary instead of good storytelling. I hope Alan Moore looks back on The Killing Joke and regrets ever writing it.

Best Story: Ten Nights of the Beast
Worst Story: Detective Comics #589 - A barely coherent, badly drawn Poison Ivy story where Batman has to save Poison Ivy from a disease that's killing her and anyone she touches.
 
JDVanceBiggestHater said:
They were always like this, some exceptions include Doug Moench and Chuck Dixon but the vast majority of comic writers and editors from the 60s, 70s and 80s are die-hard leftists that only see art as a means of pushing an agenda. I remember reading some Batman comics featuring a character called Leslie Thompkins (Created By Denny o'Neil, she's basically established as a mother figure for bruce because she was the one who found and rescued him after Joe Chill killed Thomas and Martha in Crime Alley) and every story that she's featured end up with her lecturing Batman about Social issues and whatnot (like when batman was beating the shit out of some thugs that tried to kill her and she gets all butthurt about it because socioeconimic factors forced them into attacking her on the street or something and that he needs help), and it's kind of infuriating seeing the hero that literally dealt with this shit for decades to get a sermon from an old lady with too much white guilt.
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They literally took it to the extreme in Arkham Shadow by making Leslie a nigger.

I don’t like Bruce having a surrogate mom, I don’t like him having much of an anything pre-opening up emotionally as the career progresses. I still think Arkham Origins is the best showing of what early Batman should be, ruthless, unhinged and completly uncaring about criminal “welfare” and anything beyond the mission.

Batman’s lefty writers hate him, not to the extent they hate Punisher-types but a rich white vigilante brutalizing gang-trash is no bueno because it isn’t Italians committing all the crime anymore and Batman realistically would be a class A nigger facewrecker.

The “Batman cares the most about his fellow man” thing from the jerkfest DCAU is gay. Bruce cares about innocents and making sure nobody suffers like he did. Batman is gonna break your hands and then drag you kicking and screaming to a hell-prison designed to punish dogs.

Batman is best when he’s an uncompromising zealot who mantled justice, not truth, not compassion, not hope, brutal and uncompromising justice.
Newcomer 42 said:
This. Current Western writers, be it from media or comics, are all creatively bankrupt, incompetent, egocentric, arrogant, commies, bitter about not being as good as their forebear, (white) man-hating ideologues who wish to use the comic character for politics, or a combination thereof. It's impossible to do a good Batman comic when say the 2025 Bats "reboot" has the second issue the standard inanity of an EEEVIL, violent, racist white cop, with a chivalrous black cop as a companion (who's of course killed by the former), or turning the third Robin gay, and so on.

Lastly, as for Abs. Batman, of course there are few, if any, reviewers criticizing this drivel because they're all part of the cult. Anyone not agreeing with the Party will be accused of many "ist/s" and likely lose his job.
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Absolute Bats lost me when they did the “Joker is Epstein” thing, I don’t like Snyder taking this real thing, the elites being satanic monsters who get off on hurting people and making it a joke for product, it waters it down, makes it a punchline. While at the same time doing the libshit placating with the cop thing.

Also the art sucks dick.
 
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I recently finished my yearly reading of Transmetropolitan and Punisher MAX by Ennis. Both are still as fun as ever.

I'm now re-visiting The Savage Sword of Conan for the first time in several years and will be busy with that one for quite a while. The first volume alone is more than 500 pages and I have at least 15 volumes in my collection.

Sooner or later I need to get back around to re-reading the Judge Dredd Collected Case Files. Last I checked, I had the first 40 volumes of those floating around.
 
Has anyone here read The New History of the DC Universe? Because, man, it became a train wreck for the fourth issue and not even Mark Waid (who despite his reputation on the board, knows his DC history) could compress nearly 90 years of stories into a single coherent timeline. The first two issues were fine enough as I'm a Silver/Bronze Age enthusiast, the third (Post-Crisis) issue was shaky though legible, but the fourth (Flashpoint, New 52, to present) where it all fell apart for me. Here are a couple things to note:

-Darkseid's invasion in the New 52 was canon, but it wasn't the official beginning of the League Cyborg went into stasis and the "real" Apellaxian origin with the Martian Manhunter was restored as the League's first case. Cyborg later came out of the freezer to join the New Teen Titans.

-Supergirl's Silver Age origins are restored to continuity. She died in the Crisis, but 2004's "The Supergirl From Krypton" from Batman/Superman was retconned so that Darkseid resurrected her for his schemes. She's still inexplicably a teenager as she was a young adult when she died and hasn't even aged since then.

It's problem I'm noticing with DC Comics: a compressed timeline where the iconic characters (the Justice League) are forever locked in their mid-thirties to keep themselves in their physical prime. Especially when it comes to baseline human characters like Batman and Green Arrow. Meanwhile, the Titans have aged to their late twenties and are pushing thirty themselves. Young Justice are moving into the college age bracket, and Damian Wayne's in high school and it feels like the West twins (Irey and Jai) aged three years between Jeremy Adams and Si Spurrier's run. It's straining credulity as we know that DC is never going to retire Clark, Bruce, or Diana. They tried it after Future State only to get shot down.

Add to the fact that issue four covered several reality-altering events (New 52, Rebirth/Doomsday Clock, Death Metal, and Dark Crisis) in rapid succession, history suggests that I shouldn't take this new history seriously. Honestly, I think Waid had a decent idea in compartmentalizing World's Finest from the rest of the line as it chronologically takes place before Dick Grayson became Nightwing, and I would hazard a guess that it's before New Teen Titans as the Fab Five (plus Bumblebee) were on the team, Honestly, part of me wouldn't mind compartmentalized titles like a Super Sons mini because the present DCU is so FUBAR at this point.

A friend of mine pushed back on the idea, citing continuity concerns. I never said it outright, but I was thinking that continuity flew out the window a long time ago and DC's mercurial approach does not leave me with much confidence that things will stabilize. Take note that he only reads Green Lantern now and bailed on Superman after Infinite Crisis so I would take a grain of salt with his opinion. It's quickly becoming a matter of accessibility, which manga has edge on because all you need to do is start with volume one.
 
It seems to me that about every six issues is a new story beginning.
So while it may not be completely true, on average you could pickup say #7 and be able to get the jist of it.
Does it help to know what came before? Yes.
But if you pick up #7,#8 and you aren't feeling it then you probably don't care what came before or after.
 
Jetpack Himmler said:
-Darkseid's invasion in the New 52 was canon, but it wasn't the official beginning of the League Cyborg went into stasis and the "real" Apellaxian origin with the Martian Manhunter was restored as the League's first case. Cyborg later came out of the freezer to join the New Teen Titans.
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Wow. That's actually just Triumph's backstory from Justice League Task Force.
 
Jetpack Himmler said:
Has anyone here read The New History of the DC Universe? Because, man, it became a train wreck for the fourth issue and not even Mark Waid (who despite his reputation on the board, knows his DC history) could compress nearly 90 years of stories into a single coherent timeline. The first two issues were fine enough as I'm a Silver/Bronze Age enthusiast, the third (Post-Crisis) issue was shaky though legible, but the fourth (Flashpoint, New 52, to present) where it all fell apart for me. Here are a couple things to note:
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I just wish the book had more time on the stuff between the Golden Age and the rise of the current crop of heroes.

I liked the book over all but I also wish it had actual explanation for how Ted Kord came back then just New 52 happened.

I do wonder how long Barry is going to be depowered because I'm perfectly fine with that.
 
Jetpack Himmler said:
but the fourth (Flashpoint, New 52, to present) where it all fell apart for me.
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The 2010s is when comicbooks fell apart for good. Fitting.

Jetpack Himmler said:
It's problem I'm noticing with DC Comics: a compressed timeline where the iconic characters (the Justice League) are forever locked in their mid-thirties to keep themselves in their physical prime.
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I love how Bats barely ages a year while all of his boys seemingly age 10 or so, which means they keep becoming adults while he barely changes (except when the writer/s makes him edgy and/or retarded). Joker has also gone past the point of being tolerated anymore, as even Superman would kill him twice, or at least lock him in the Phantom Zone so that he doesn't escape that easily.
 
Jetpack Himmler said:
The first two issues were fine enough as I'm a Silver/Bronze Age enthusiast, the third (Post-Crisis) issue was shaky though legible, but the fourth (Flashpoint, New 52, to present) where it all fell apart for me.
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Newcomer 42 said:
The 2010s is when comicbooks fell apart for good. Fitting.
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In a VERY broad strokes way, I considered the "current" DC timeline from its "start" in 1956/Showcase Comics to the New52 to have been... workable, however strained at times it was. I remember doing my best as a then-youngin' to do a sort-of "comic book time/X years to a single year" for at least the major events of important characters and the DCU as a whole for that timeframe and feeling vaguely satisfied with it, but the past fifteen years holding so many events like another sidekick generation starting with Damian put the kibosh on that.

Really, it's not even Dick Grayson's Titans generation growing up that was the issue and Tim's coming to be the new sidekick gen. It's just you can only do that once in a never-ending timeline without straining credibility. When it came to my little self-made timeline condensation I made above? I remember figuring it was just "huh, well, the Justice League generation had to start in their early-mid 20s to let Dick's generation age from 10-12 years onward and then let Tim's start at 12 or so to keep 'em all youthful" which roughly led to.... like 12-15 years for that 1956-2011 timeframe, I forget exactly. But then having to slide in Damian and thus aging up Tim, thus Dick, thus Bruce? Much less Damian and his generation also aging up in just the past fifteen years?

It can't work anymore.

DC in 2011 truly could've bitten the bullet in New52 and do a REAL Year One or at least "Early Years" timeline to reset the clock and let long-fallow concepts like Dick's generation be young again with classic Bruce/Dick team-up stories, fix up the Supergirl/Power Girl mess in Superman's side, a clean origin for Donna Troy, and the like. Streamline the concepts while letting the timeline and singular stories flow on otherwise with new organic ideas and connections, eventually reboot again every 20-40 years or so in the future, see what sticks for that next reboot.

But they won't do that for fear of sales collapsing.

The supreme irony is, comic books as they are either need to do that "reboot" above with an ending to the current 'verse and accept a new version will have to be born every couple of decades, or truly give up entirely on continuity and go back to an "endless present" like superheroes originally were in the Golden and pre-Silver Ages, not the Frankenstein hybrid they've collapsed into. Something changed since Rebirth - much as I liked that era - where it feels like that "nothing matters anymore" for stories and continuity REALLY took hold for readers, even accounting we know the major franchise characters won't REALLY die or anything like that.
 
There's a book coming out on the 17th of this month called Lost Marvels: Savage Tales of the 80s. It is going to reprint the entire 8 issue run of Savage Tales Magazine that ran from 1985 to 1987. It was a black and white war/western/gun violence anthology. I picked it up during it's original run on issue #3 after being shown a copy by a fellow grade schooler during homeroom. I thought it was awesome. It had great art featuring John Severin (my favorite) amongst others, and some teriffic hard-boiled writing. It was in these pages that The Nam comic was birthed. Sadly, sales weren't great as the issues started to arrive late, then after issue 8, they packed it in. I now have the complete original series in magazine form, but this will be a nice convenient format. I really wish that magazine had made it for a longer period of time. It was great.
 
I don't think comicbooks, be it DC or Marvel, can become good anytime soon (outside of the odd exception) due to how current year writers are not only incompetent hacks, but also bitter, cynical, misanthropic, creatively and morally bankrupt asses who believe in nothing, other than the latest thing that The Party tells them to hate. Sure, there were lefties before, but they didn't have the incompetence or sheer hate towards readers that CY writers have today. The Bats cartoon of 2024 has sheer hate towards white guys and former fans as part of its DNA. James Gunn can't and will not be able to make a good Supes movie (or anything) ever because he doesn't believe in goodness or anything. Abso Bats tries hard to be edgy but only against certain people, lest someone gets offended for real, and so on.
 
Rereading Morrison's X-Men for the first time in 20 years. Somehow I hate it even more than I did when it first came out.

Morrison writes every character the same way. They are all smug, violent quip machines. Cassandra Nova and Jean Grey? Same personality. Same way of talking. Same tendency to flex their powers upon being they deem to be inferior. All the X-Men play the victim while lording their immense superiority over their foes.

And this run, this completely tone deaf retarded bullshit, has been the mold writers have adopted for the proceeding 20 years of X-books.

Fuck Grant Morrison, that worthless british cocksucking faggot.
 
I had been thinking about the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, that team of superheros-by-way-of-60s-spy-fiction that Tower Comics debuted under Wally Wood and ended up a casualty of the Silver Age superhero bubble popping. It's in part because I'd come across people discussing them online, and had been inspired a while back to read The Thunder Agents Companion which was a 2005 book from TwoMorrows. It featured interviews with people involved with the original and the attempted revivals over the years at the time, including John Carbonaro who had bought the rights from Tower in 1981 and tried to bring the series back in a deal with Archie Comics. That ended up with two issues and a conclusion published in a "Blue Ribbon Comics" anthology - at the time Archie was trying to bring back their old Red Circle superheroes and one feels the Agents were not quite a priority with them.

During the deal with Archie, Carbonaro had met another fan, David Singer who was working on the launch. Singer had determined that Tower had not properly copyrighted their comic book releases beyond the first issue. Believing he had a shot, he proceeded to set up his own publisher, Deluxe Comics, and started up his own revival of the THUNDER Agents in opposition to Carbonaro’s. Singer was backed well enough at the start by investors that he was able to hire the services of some of the most popular writers and artists in the field to work on his version, including George Perez, Dave Cockrum, Steve Englehart, Keith Giffen and others. Carbonaro quickly sued Singer for copyright and trademark violations, but the case moved through the court system slowly.

Singer proclaimed loudly as a defense that the THUNDER Agents were now public domain, and that anybody could do with them what he was doing. In response, some people believed this to be the case, and either started on their own THUNDER Agents projects or featured the characters in their already-running series. There were these cut-rate THUNDER Agents appearances in the mid-1980s - at one point Dark Horse comics released an issue of their satirical comic Boris the Bear, where the titular figure is visited by THUNDER Agent Dynamo to stop a villain from unleashing a horde of Agents clones; the opening features a couple of graverobbers digging up what turns out to be Wally Wood.

Solson Publications, who in an era of fly-by-night black and white junk comic publishers was the cheapest and sleaziest, put out what was supposed to be the first of a four-issue series, T.H.U.N.D.E.R., set in a grim near future, where only one of the Agents appears and that's halfway through the issue. The creators involved, Michael Sawyer, James Lyle and Ron Wilber never really did anything else of note in comics. Anyways, there was no second issue probably because Carbonaro eventually was able to win in court, establishing the legitimacy of his claim to the THUNDER Agents and awarding him not just cash damages but also all of the rights to all of the THUNDER Agents material that Singer had commissioned and published. Just as swiftly as people started coming up with ideas for knock-off THUNDER Agents stories, they all disappeared as fast. Carbonaro, though, would make deal after deal, some of which got material into publication, some of which did not, he was never quite able to re-establish the Agents as a growing property. This included a brief appearance in Penthouse's Omni Comix, where only part one of a three chapter story from Paul Gulacy and Terry Austin appeared, a DC revival in the early 2000s that he put a stop to because he thought it strayed too far from the original concept, and so on. Now, sometime after the Companion was published, DC published two new THUNDER Agents series, before the license went to IDW.

Also, here's a story from the Companion during an interview with George Perez that struck me:
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