Comics are awesome.

[Dominic]

Giles should have been the one to do it. (I would assume field discipline would be part of the job for him.)

For what it's worth, I was delighted that they brought Bart back. Of course, I would've been happier had they not been asses and killed him in the first place. I think, if anything, his story should've ended with his de-powering at the end of Infinite Crisis. It made me sad, yeah, but it was a really good place for the character's arc to end.

They should have left him dead. It is best to avoid writing the bad idea in the first place. But, once it is out there, "fixing" it just makes it worse. "Armageddon 2001" was another example of this. DC pitched a fit when readers, (somehow, just somehow), figured out it was Captain Atom who was meant to be Monarch. (My guess is that DC was hoping lingering "Crisis" credability would have obscured the pretty obvious reveal.)

So, they changed it to make Hawk Monarch. (Mistake #1.)

Then, that did not work, so they did all kinds of bending and twisting.....and made it Captain Atom again...years later. (Mistake #2.)

And, yes, for those wondering, I would see killing Barry Allen off again as being a similarly stupid fix. (DC really should have avoided the stupid mistake in the first place.)


As for "Final Crisis", Grant Morrison tends to say things with his comics. I may not agree with him. But, he says things. Gonna go out on a limb and say that is what was happening with FC, and that FC at least indicated (if not defined) the direction of current DC.

Dom
-wonders what Denny O'Neil has to say about Jason Todd being back.

[Sparky Prime]

As for "Final Crisis", Grant Morrison tends to say things with his comics. I may not agree with him. But, he says things. Gonna go out on a limb and say that is what was happening with FC, and that FC at least indicated (if not defined) the direction of current DC.

Saying things doesn't mean he's talking about the direction DC is going in. As I see it, FC set some things in motion, but isn't the direction of DC itself...

[andersonh1]

(The fact that Hal Jordan in this role was spouting off what is now DC's current line is perhaps the only justification for bringing him back.)

Can't agree with you here. The hamfisted and idiotic destruction of the Hal Jordan character was a mistake that needed to be undone, and Johns did about as good a job of it as I can imagine. Just undoing Emerald Twilight was justification for bringing him back. For that matter, undoing that Hal Jordan as Spectre nonsense was worth it as well.

Emerald Twilight and Zero Hour are what drove me away from DC comics, and comic collecting in general for a long time. I don't mind characters being put through the wringer if it produces a good story, but I hate character assassination.

[andersonh1]

Given that "Emerald Twilight" was a terrible idea/story, I'll still second this. About Rayner, I mean. While his own book wasn't so hot most of the time, guys like Morrison and Waid were able to do great things with him. And mmmmaybe the "Rebirth" thing was necessary and it did help sales, but the way they went about it just irritated the hell outta me. I'll let the whole "Parrallax" being the evil space-bug go, because they gotta do something, and it was either that or "It was someone else DISGUISED as Hal", so I guess lesser of the two evils.

There was a storyline in Action Comics Weekly where a character named Malvolio had destroyed Hal's ring, and Hal ended up apparently killing Malvolio and taking his ring, which he was still wearing during his third series all the way up to Emerald Twilight. But Malvolio wasn't actually dead, and it was going some kind of plot to get inside Jordan's head and control him, though the story was never finished. Johns could have used that as a jumping off point to explain Hal's apparent insanity, and it would have avoided the "yellow fear monster" and used an actual event from Jordan's past to explain what happened. But how many people read ACW? How many of you even know what story I'm referring to? I'm guessing Johns did the best he could and decided to go epic and write something that would affect the GLC as well as just Jordan, and in that respect it worked.

The whole idea of having one of DC's major characters go crazy and turn into an insane supervillain is just too stupid for words anyway. It was stupid with Hal Jordan, and just as bad with Captain Atom, or Hawk, or Maxwell Lord, or anyone else who has gone bad that I'm forgetting about. I don't see undoing those things as the mistake, but rather the original character destruction was the mistake that should never have been made. Emerald Twilight was trash, written by a hack. The problems it created needed to be fixed, and Johns did a decent job given what he had to work with.

[Dominic]

I am not saying "Emerald Twilight' was perfect. (Why did Sinestro want Hal to give up redundant rings? They would have made no difference in the fight.) But, just undoing an event, (any event), just to 'make things like they was when I was a kid" is idiotic. Hal as the Specter was not bad. The problem was that it just encouraged HEAT and other fanboys to beg and plead for Hal to be back.

I almost could have given it to DC if they just came out and said "Emerald Twilight" never happened. Instead, Johns and DC went and *expanded* on the stupid idea for why Hal "really" went nuts in the first place, adding Ion and then a whole rainbow of stupid corps that would have been recognized as a joke as recently as the early part of this decade.

Marz is a far more credible writer than Johns. (Though, to be fair, Johns is a bit younger than Marz was at the time.) Johns is just writing the ideas that most people out-grew at the age of 14 or so, with a heavy emphasis on "kewl' ways to "fix" things.

I am fine with heroes going bad. I can even forgive mistakes by writers and editors. But, going back just to "fix" them is a bad idea.

To use another example, 'Armageddon 2001" is not a well liked story. But, no matter how one feels about making Captain Atom Monarch, it was a bad idea for DC to change the rules at the last minute, and say it was Hawk.

As bad as that was, it was even stupider for DC to go back and force in a complicated back-story to say why Monarch really was not Hawk at all. Honestly, (and I do not care how much you might have liked Hawk and Dove), do we really need a complicated story that borders on self-parody to bring back (what was at best) a C-lister?

I like the Blue Beetle. But, if DC were to go out of their way to bring back Ted Kord....well, actually, I would not care if only because it would not be the stupidest thing they have done. But, rest assured, bringing back Ted Kord would not earn them any points with me.


Ideally, companies would avoid publishing idiotic comics in the first place. Failing that, they should at least avoid compounding the problems by publishing idiotic fixes, especially when those fixes are primarily to appease fans who want things to be "just like they wuz when I wuz a kid".


Dom
-wants to see a superhero book written like "Doonesbury" or "For Better or Worse".

[BWprowl]

Dom
-wants to see a superhero book written like "Doonesbury" or "For Better or Worse".

FBOFW sucks, Doonesbury rocks, Atomic Robo kinda does that.

[andersonh1]

I am not saying "Emerald Twilight' was perfect.

Everything Hal Jordan did in that story was so far out of character that it robbed the story of any credibility. Details like the number of rings are trivial.

When I was reading Green Lantern and Emerald Twilight occurred I was in my 20s, so it had nothing to do with childhood memories. I never read comics as a kid. For me it was a case of getting into Green Lantern with "Emerald Dawn", growing to really like the character and concept, and then watching all of that crash and burn in three issues in the most unbelievable way possible. And if a decades-old character like Jordan was that disposable, why should I bother getting attached to any DC character? Zero Hour compounded the feeling, and I got out of collecting for a number of years.

I almost could have given it to DC if they just came out and said "Emerald Twilight" never happened. Instead, Johns and DC went and *expanded* on the stupid idea for why Hal "really" went nuts in the first place, adding Ion and then a whole rainbow of stupid corps that would have been recognized as a joke as recently as the early part of this decade.

While I'm not too fond of all the other corps coming out these days, I thought Rebirth was a credible attempt to explain all of Jordan's out of character actions while also exonerating him. There was no other way to do it, unless the audience would have been expected to accept the greatest mass murderer ever as the protagonist of Green Lantern. Parallax killed the entire universe and all of time for heaven's sake... it doesn't get much worse than that.

Simply pretending all of that never happened would have been worse. That would be an insult to the audience and all the Kyle fans who had followed the character for a decade.

Marz is a far more credible writer than Johns.

Marz may have improved, but I found his writing to be very lacking at the time. All of the praise that the long-time heroes heaped on Kyle may simply have been editorial mandate, but it got old really fast. Kyle Rayer was an idiot, the plots were unengaging, and the dialogue was flat and uninspired. And I loved seeing Kyle's girlfriend stuffed in the fridge. Lovely. And of course whenever Hal did turn up, every bit of his dialogue was a parody of Jordan fans. "I'm supposed to be Green Lantern. I'm just supposed to be!"

Kyle's grown into a decent character, and I enjoy seeing him as part of the Corps these days. He had a great role in Rebirth, and I'm glad he wasn't killed off. But in the early days the character was insufferable.

I am fine with heroes going bad.

I'm not. I don't care to invest time and money in following a character, only to see that character flushed down the toilet simply for the shock value of the event as an attempt to generate sales.

It's like your complaint that 'nothing sticks' these days. Stories don't matter and character deaths don't matter, because they'll just be undone down the road. It's the same thing... why invest in a character if that character can be so easily tossed aside during an 'event' storyline meant to draw readers in. What's the point?

[Shockwave]

So what'd y'all think of Mortal Kombat Vs. DC?

[Onslaught Six]

I like the Blue Beetle. But, if DC were to go out of their way to bring back Ted Kord....well, actually, I would not care if only because it would not be the stupidest thing they have done. But, rest assured, bringing back Ted Kord would not earn them any points with me.

This brings up a point with me. If x writer wants to use Ted Kord Blue Beetle that frickin' badly...why don't they just write a story set in a time period where Ted Kord is alive? Isn't that the 'point' of having a history? This kind of thing bothers me 'tons.' Just because a character is currently Not Alive does not mean that, if you *really* want to use them, you have to bring them back to life. They 'were' alive! Tell the story then! Nobody will care!

[Sparky Prime]

Instead, Johns and DC went and *expanded* on the stupid idea for why Hal "really" went nuts in the first place, adding Ion and then a whole rainbow of stupid corps that would have been recognized as a joke as recently as the early part of this decade.

Personally, I liked that Parallax turned out to be a separate entity and the 'real reason' Hal went nuts. It was a smart move that allowed them to expand the Green Lantern mythos, opening up the door to the Emotional Entities and other Corps. I don't know why why say they are "recognized as a joke" when these concepts have been extremely popular among fans. Heck, these days I see people crediting Johns with making GL as popular as the big three.