Comics are Awesome III

A general discussion forum, plus hauls and silly games.
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andersonh1
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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DC publishes another "event" that seemingly exists to kill off b-listers. And Wally West. Didn't they just bring him back?

https://www.cbr.com/heroes-in-crisis-ev ... -who-died/

Seems like the opposite of Rebirth's core themes and storylines. DC is schizophrenic. Apparently Tom King insisted on a list of names from editorial on who was supposed to die in the story, so it wasn't "on him".

https://www.newsarama.com/42046-dear-dc ... ilers.html
For now, however, we have been left wondering this – is Wally just caught up in an editorial difference of opinion in regard to his place or lack thereof in DCU publishing and Heroes in Crisis was a vehicle for an argument won? Is the “hope” Wally’s return indisputably symbolized just 20-something months ago already an element of a now expired DC 'era'? Or are there answers we can’t even anticipate coming? Did we have this whole 'hope is back' thing wrong from the start?
But we’re going to keep asking, until DC sending Wally and all he symbolized away … again … so soon ... makes some sort of sense.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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andersonh1 wrote:DC publishes another "event" that seemingly exists to kill off b-listers. And Wally West. Didn't they just bring him back?
Yeah, it seems really dumb to bring Wally back, and then kill him in such a short amount of time. They were still in the process of establishing where he belongs in a continuity that had erased him, which they can't do with him dead. I've seen some speculation that they might undo it by the end of this story, but who knows. DC really has been schizophrenic ever since the New 52 with how quickly they keep changing things.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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I've seen it pointed out that in several other titles following "Heroes in Crisis" that they talk about Roy Harper's death, and in Titans there's even a mention of Dick getting shot recently, but there's been no mention of Wally at all. So despite seemingly confirming his death, maybe Wally isn't actually dead after all?
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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I've seen some of the same articles. I've seen speculation that he's actually the murderer. Either way, I'm starting to believe the notion that someone at DC has it in for the original generation of sidekicks, with Dick Grayson, Roy Harper and Wally West all having something really bad happen to them at the same time.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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So Dick Grayson is, for the moment, apparently "Ric Grayson".

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/10/15 ... htwing-51/

I just have to point out that there are men in politics who still use "Dick" as an abbreviation for "Richard". Anyone remember Dick Cheney? Dick Durbin from Illinois and Dick Harpootlian from my own state are other examples. How about Dick Clark and his "Rockin New Year's Eve"? They're all older men, admittedly, so maybe in addition to the "unfortunate connotations" that BC mentions, it's seen as a nickname of a past generation rather than a young man?

I've heard the same thing about Lois Lane, that "Lois" is a name belonging to an older generation, and is a little dated. Maybe this is one of the problems with characters that stay in publication as long as DC's earliest characters have.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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I'm unhappy with the way DC seems determined to backtrack on the more positive elements they introduced with Rebirth, mainly taking the focal character of Wally West and apparently killing him off in the latest dreary event. And I'm not pleased with how the happy family dynamic over in Superman has seemingly been destroyed as well. I cut both Superman books and Detective out of my monthly pull list, leaving Hawkman, Aquaman and Green Lantern, when it starts up next month. I added Justice League, which has apparently been very good, so I'm down to four books a month. What I don't spend on monthly reading, I can put towards omnibus volumes, and I've been enjoying the old stuff more than the modern anyway, so that's not a bad choice.



Justice League #10

After enjoying Metal far more than I expected, I tried out the first issue of Scott Snyder's Justice League. It was good, but I didn't want to add another book to my reading list. Having dropped three books, now seems a good time to go back and revisit this series. And it's a good issue, kicking off a storyline centered around Aquaman, a character I've grown to enjoy quite a bit in the past year. I'll say this, there are a ton of ongoing storylines so I'm not quite sure what's going on with all the characters, but I love how Snyder just embraces the over the top nature of comic book storytelling and doesn't seem "embarassed" to just go for it. Subplots aside, the main story involves Aquaman, Wonder Woman and Firestorm searching for the graveyard of the gods, thanks to a tip from Poesidon, when they're attacked by an "alien Kraken". Aquaman is pulled to an alien location called the "Blood Reef" where he meets three ocean gods from other planets, who declare their intention to drown the entire Earth. The water they send turns anyone who comes into contact with it into sea-going mutants. Firestorm is affected, along with vast swaths of Earth's population, while Aquaman is imprisoned and can only watch. Francis Manapul is the artist for this issue, and he does everything: pencils, inks and colors. Good stuff.

Aquaman #41
This crossover with Justice League has Mera trying to protect the on the surface Atlantis from the effects of the alien water flooding the Earth, and for a while she's able to use her powers to hold the water back, but in the end she's the only one unaffected as she's able to protect herself. Everyone in the cast, from Murk to Vulko is mutated, so Atlanteans are not immune. Batman convinces Mera that the League needs her to help them stop the threat at the source, so she reluctantly abandons Atlantis and heads out to help.

Hawkman #5
At the end of last issue, Hawkman, who has been bouncing around his own past timeline, ended up in the microverse where he encountered his old friend Ray Palmer, the Atom. This issue gives us a lot of exploration of just what's happening to Carter Hall as he and Ray discuss just how and why he may have been reincarnating across time and space, including the possibility that the various lives he remembers may not have happened in chronological order. It turns out that Carter had left a stash of Nth metal in the microverse, but he and the Atom have to fight a living planet to retrieve it, and the issue ends on a cliffhanger.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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So in a preview for Batman Secret Files #1, DC is introducing platinum kryptonite, a form of kryptonite that can give a human Superman's abilities permanently. Superman offers the kryptonite to Bruce, explaining it'll give Bruce the ability to fight like he should fight with "true strength". Really? I can see Superman offering Batman powers, but not because he thinks Batman needs "true strength" to fight like he "should" fight. Superman is the type of character who understands why Batman fights the way he does, not that he should have powers to do it.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Platinum Kryptonite is a very Silver Age idea. Not sure what I think of it.

PIcked up Justice League/Aquaman Drowned Earth #1 today, and issue 6 and 7 of the main Justice League series. I'll see if I can get caught up on the series since I'm reading it now. Scott Snyder has a real grasp of DC continuity and finds ways to do new things with old ideas, as I found out when reading Metal. Justice League is always one of those series that goes through cycles where a new writer comes on board, does some new things with the team, eventually runs out of ideas, the book gets stale, and then someone else comes along and refreshes it again. This is looking like one of the better runs, and he's doing what Grant Morrison did with JLA, and going big. I'll post some reviews when I get the chance to read the issues.
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andersonh1
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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So I think Grant Morrison may have just clearly expressed who Hal Jordan is better than anyone has in a long time.

https://www.dccomics.com/blog/2018/11/0 ... en-lantern
The Hal Jordan character’s been around since the 1950s, and he’s one of the few characters whose history kept going pretty much unchanged throughout that whole time. So naturally, being handled by a lot of different writers and artists, his personality has changed quite radically through that time. But it was the whole on-the-road-trying-to-find-yourself that I think always rang through various iterations of Green Lantern. He suddenly goes from being a test pilot to an insurance investigator. But then he gets tired of that and he becomes a toy salesman, and none of these things seem to relate to each other at all!

I love that sense of disconnection, of dislocation; and reading up on some of the American astronauts, like Buzz Aldrin and people who have talked about having come back from space finding it really difficult to deal with life on Earth... They’d seen this giant perspective—and that was only from the moon. This is a guy who’d been across the galaxy. He’s seen planets where it’s a utopia and people live thousands of years, the political system is perfect, where they don’t use money, and he comes back to this. How do you really integrate?
"We’re just taking you along on his adventures and showing you how he feels and how he reacts. I think he’s not the man we’ve seen recently. Because, again, the history of that character... He’s died, he’s come back to life, he’s been an inspector. He’s seen everything. So, I think one of the important things is that he’s not traumatized. Right now, there’s a vogue for sort of post-traumatic superheroes, but I just think that is not Hal Jordan. This is a guy that does not need therapy. He’s so far beyond therapy. It ain’t going to work. This is a guy who’s super directed. He gets the job done. He’s really good at what he does. And he’s nothing like me, which is what I love. [laughs]"
And he's mined a lot of the older stories, like he did for Batman. Suddenly those three Green Lantern Silver Age omnibus sitting on my bookshelf could be a lot more relevant.
One of the things I love about the DC Universe is that they do have this history and they do have this depth and span and scope in the outline of human life. It’s kind of like environmental art. You’re going into a place. I love the fact that there are thousands of alien races out there that have maybe been seen in one issue of WORLD’S FINEST in 1970, or some bunch of characters that have only ever been seen in some 1990s comic book, and consolidating all that to say, "Oh, that happened and they’re all still here, and they all still have their own agendas, and they’re all out working and doing things in the universe," and we get to suddenly see them.

There’s a character, Commander Kraak, who I think only appeared in one old comic called "The Interplanetary Batman" [in 1959's BATMAN #128]. We brought him back as a space pilot, and clearly he’s been there since that story. So, that was definitely part of it.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Justice League #11
It might be easier to just summarize everything that's gone on in this series, since it's a very serialized book right now. It all comes out of Metal, and apparently the Source Wall has been torn open, letting whatever is on the other side through, including something (only vaguely explained so far) called the Totality, which crashed on Earth. At the same time, in response to something he's learned, Lex Luthor has formed the "Legion of Doom" consisting of the League members' greatest enemies. It is in some ways a very continuity heavy book, like Metal, but Scott Snyder has fun with this and makes it work. The current storyline is "Drowned Earth" where alien ocean gods have imprisoned Poseidon and are flooding the Earth. This issue has Superman, Mera and Flash headed for the Tomb of Arion to try and find a means to stop the flooding, while Aquaman is rescued from the Blood Reef by Wonder Woman, only to be stabbed by Poseidon's trident when they go to him for help. Meanwhile Batman, healing from having all his bones broken by Lex Luthor and the Totality (seriously) tries to guard it while trapped in the Hall of Justice, underwater, when the Legion of Doom teleport in.

Justice League/Aquaman: Drowned Earth #1
This should actually be JL #11, given where it falls in the storyline, and it's a series of scenes where the various heroes deal with the flooding of the Earth and mass transformation of humans into sea creatures. Aquaman spends the entire issue as a prisoner of the alien sea gods, and has his ability to communicate with sea life taken from him and given to Black Manta by the sea gods. I like the whole concept of alien oceans that have alien "gods", though I'm not sure the concept is being used for much besides another invasion storyline. But as these things go, it's a good disaster story, and I like the focus on Aquaman.

The Green Lantern #1
This book immediately feels much more like retro, classic Green Lantern. Grant Morrison does indeed mine the Silver Age as we get scenes reminiscent of Abin Sur's crash, and a long-abandoned girlfriend of Hal's, Eve Doremus, makes an appearance, as do Hal's past occupations as insurance adjustor and toy salesman. I like the "everything is in continuity" approach that Grant Morrison is taking here, because unlike some other characters, very little of Hal's history on the printed page (apart from his origin story) was changed or jettisoned. The main plot involves three alien criminals that some other lanterns capture with some difficulty, only for the prison ship they were on to crash on Earth, leaving Hal to save the life of the GL pilot and capture the three escapees, which he does rather easily. He is summoned to New Oa (the Corps is no longer on Mogo, I see) where he learns the book of Oa might not be trustworthy any more, and that there is a traitor in the Corps. There's also a Darkstar involved, so there's an immediate connection with the final storyline of Venditti's run.

This book is retro in a very good way, and as much as I enjoyed Robert Venditti's run on Green Lantern, I already like this a lot more. Morrison really seems to "get" Green Lantern and Hal Jordan.
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