Comics are Awesome III

[BWprowl]

Not everyone hates the New 52 as much as you do, and DC didn't throw everything out.

Clearly enough people didn't like it to the point that they're going back on it with Convergence, so.

And Blackest Night did not change up the status quo, nor was it meant to be shock value.

There is a part where a character is possessed by an evil zombie ghost who forces him to use his body's powers to turn his girlfriend into salt and kill her while he watches! What is that ridiculous shit if not horrific shock value? Every issue had scary zombie versions of characters rising and massacring the shit out of other characters in hilariously violent ways. It was "DC Zombies", MADE of shock value!

It ended with a substantial amount of characters dead and another group of previously-dead characters raised. That is textbook "New Status Quo" to the point that they had a series directly after it ('Brightest Day') dedicated purely to exploring that new status quo and what they could do with it!

Are you kidding? Superior Spider-Man was one of the worst offenders. At its core, it really was yet another death of the hero, shock-value as the villain takes over his life, event. And then they put the status quo back by bringing Peter back just in time for ASM2 to come out in theaters. Oh yes, that was such an original storyline and not at all a predicable end. And you're wise to avoid their event story lines. There are a few I thought started out interesting, but the endings left more to be desired.

Six and anderson cover this below, but still: I already admitted that Superior Spider-Man starts with shock-value hype stupidity, hell, it's why I started reading it. But if you actually, y'know, read the comic as it progresses, you see that Slott actually DID something with the idea, managing to cover subjects relevant not only to Otto and super-villainy, but to Peter and how he did things, even with Peter 'dead' at the time. The comic wasn't thirty issues of "Peter is dead Otto is evil ha ha", it actually had a continuous arc and story development and told a story with a beginning, middle, and end, which is something you don't often see with a cape comic, at least not a series that ran as long as that one did.

[Sparky Prime]

Did you even read any of it at all?

I saw some bits and pieces. I stand by what I said.

They may not have thrown everything out, but they threw out a substantial amount of history and characters. I think it would be a real shame if Marvel did the same thing.

But that's the thing, DC has been extremely vague as as to what history still counts and what doesn't. Not to mention the creators and editors seem to have two different opinions as to what counts and what doesn't in some aspects. Admittedly, it's a mess that they should have planned out better, but you have the tendency to take it to the extremes on the negative side.

Clearly enough people didn't like it to the point that they're going back on it with Convergence, so.

4 years later. Sales for the New 52 have actually been pretty good, so. And we don't know what they might do to the DC universe with Convergence yet.

There is a part where a character is possessed by an evil zombie ghost who forces him to use his body's powers to turn his girlfriend into salt and kill her while he watches! What is that ridiculous shit if not horrific shock value? Every issue had scary zombie versions of characters rising and massacring the shit out of other characters in hilariously violent ways. It was "DC Zombies", MADE of shock value!

It ended with a substantial amount of characters dead and another group of previously-dead characters raised. That is textbook "New Status Quo" to the point that they had a series directly after it ('Brightest Day') dedicated purely to exploring that new status quo and what they could do with it!

Zombies is going to involve some horror elements to it, but zombies intent on killing in itself doesn't make it a "shock value" story. Shock value is generally something MUCH more graphic and shocking to the audience. Turning someone into salt? I wouldn't call that graphic, and I can't say I found it shocking. Having the Black Lanterns tearing peoples hearts out to drain them of emotion was more shocking that that scene. Now something like having the Blob EATING the Wasp, and then Giant Man biting his HEAD OFF in retaliation, that's purely shock-value story telling.

Did you actually read Brightest Day? It was it's own self contained storyline, not a new status quo brought on by Blackest Night. It only focused on a few characters that had been resurrected to deal with some every SPECIFIC missions from the Entity in order to save the Earth. A real textbook "New Status Quo" change is something like "No More Mutants" or The New 52.

Six and anderson cover this below, but still: I already admitted that Superior Spider-Man starts with shock-value hype stupidity, hell, it's why I started reading it. But if you actually, y'know, read the comic as it progresses, you see that Slott actually DID something with the idea, managing to cover subjects relevant not only to Otto and super-villainy, but to Peter and how he did things, even with Peter 'dead' at the time. The comic wasn't thirty issues of "Peter is dead Otto is evil ha ha", it actually had a continuous arc and story development and told a story with a beginning, middle, and end, which is something you don't often see with a cape comic, at least not a series that ran as long as that one did.

So you say you dropped DC because you thought it was becoming too much of the shock-value stories but that's exactly why you started reading Superior Spider-Man? Contradictory much? Slott wanted to make Doc Ock a hero because that's his favorite character. He said as much in interviews. Doesn't matter if some of it didn't actually fit with what had already been established with characters. And sure, it covered more just Peter's dead, but that's still what that story was, the heroes "dead" and someone else is running around being Spider-Man until he returns.

[andersonh1]

But that's the thing, DC has been extremely vague as as to what history still counts and what doesn't. Not to mention the creators and editors seem to have two different opinions as to what counts and what doesn't in some aspects. Admittedly, it's a mess that they should have planned out better, but you have the tendency to take it to the extremes on the negative side.

All of the series I listed are gone, and there's nothing vague about it. They never happened in the new continuity.

[Sparky Prime]

All of the series I listed are gone, and there's nothing vague about it. They never happened in the new continuity.

You mean like the friendship between Ollie and Hal? Have we even seen them interact with one another in the New 52 to be able to say that one way or another? Hal really hasn't even spent much time on Earth since the New 52 launched. Sure there is stuff that doesn't exist in the New 52, but it isn't all gone, and they are purposefully vague about some of the details.

[BWprowl]

Zombies is going to involve some horror elements to it, but zombies intent on killing in itself doesn't make it a "shock value" story. Shock value is generally something MUCH more graphic and shocking to the audience. Turning someone into salt? I wouldn't call that graphic, and I can't say I found it shocking. Having the Black Lanterns tearing peoples hearts out to drain them of emotion was more shocking that that scene.

The salt scene was pretty harrowing to me, what with how harshly it was done with the pleading on both sides and all that. It still sticks with me as an example of "Wow, that was in there for no other reason than to shock the audience and make them feel bad."

Something can be 'shocking' without being ultraviolent (and this is Johns, so there's a baseline level of ultraviolence to begin with). The sheer amount of casual killing and maiming in Blackest Night made it clear what they were going for. When you have Kyle Raynor getting killed in one issue (only to be brought back the next, proving his death only happened as a shock-value issue-cliffhanger) prompting Guy Gardner to go crazy and turn into a blood-vomiting Red Lantern going around killing dudes with a blood-vomit-construct chainsaw...the intent is pretty obvious there.

Now something like having the Blob EATING the Wasp, and then Giant Man biting his HEAD OFF in retaliation, that's purely shock-value story telling.

Right, I forgot you were still saddlesore about Marvel 'ruining' your precious Ultimate universe. That happened ages ago, for one, and was ill-advised and outside the norm even at the time. And you can't claim that that's something only Marvel does, when DC is the company that stuffs tiny corpses into matchboxes, has torture technicians feed women parts of their husbands, has flamboyant assassins that eat womens' faces, has temporary sidekicks getting messily eaten by demonic crocodiles, has supervillains stabbing babies to death, and can't seem to go a week without somebody's arm getting lopped off.

ALL comic books have stupid, shock-value shit in them. You can't lay the blame at one company or their policies, you can only read the comics you actually like, and not lump one writer in with another's stupid stuff just because their editors work for the same guys.

So you say you dropped DC because you thought it was becoming too much of the shock-value stories but that's exactly why you started reading Superior Spider-Man? Contradictory much?

First of all, I never said that's why I dropped DC. I dropped DC because Johns's inability to Finish The Fucking Story was becoming too endemic to the line itself, and I was so fed up I quit cold turkey (I also had some financial issues at the time that greatly contributed to the decision).

Second, recall that I initially picked up Superior Spider-Man for those reasons specifically BECAUSE I thought it was going to be horrible. I was expecting a ridiculous, so-bad-it's-good trainwreck. That I ended up getting a solid, entertaining, concept comic that effectively communicated an idea was the most pleasant surprise of my year.

Slott wanted to make Doc Ock a hero because that's his favorite character. He said as much in interviews.

Slott's also a notorious troll who initially said that Miguel O'Hara would be the Superior Spider-Man.

I'm not doubting that Slott used Otto for his idea because he could identify with the character on some level. But how is that different than people who write and read about Peter Parker because they (somehow) identify with him? You write what you know, and Slott happened to have a good idea for a story with a character he also happened to like.

Doesn't matter if some of it didn't actually fit with what had already been established with characters.

Who gives an actual shit? These are comic book characters, they've been written a bazillion different contradictory ways up until now (Stan Lee himself couldn't even keep Peter's name straight in the early issues!), why should this time be any different. We got a great, entertaining, interesting story out of the deal that's what's important.

And sure, it covered more just Peter's dead, but that's still what that story was, the heroes "dead" and someone else is running around being Spider-Man until he returns.

Well yeah, that was the basic framework of the story, but, you could boil literally any story down to basic elements like that and have it sound like as much of a nothing as you try to make it out to be here. "Hal Jordan's dead and someone else is running around being Green Lantern until he returns". Is that really all Kyle's initial turn as Green Lantern was about? Of course it wasn't! If you'd actually read Superior Spider-Man, you'd know the end point of the story was "There are things they might be better at, but in the end, a supervillain would do a terrible job as a superhero. Peter Parker always was the 'Superior' Spider-Man". That's an idea, that's a concept, and it was fleshed out and explored and illustrated wonderfully in the pages of the comic. If Slott had to start with a stupid shock-value gimmick to make it happen, then so be it. It was worth it.

[andersonh1]

All of the series I listed are gone, and there's nothing vague about it. They never happened in the new continuity.

You mean like the friendship between Ollie and Hal? Have we even seen them interact with one another in the New 52 to be able to say that one way or another? Hal really hasn't even spent much time on Earth since the New 52 launched. Sure there is stuff that doesn't exist in the New 52, but it isn't all gone, and they are purposefully vague about some of the details.

Unless I'm mistaken, according to the early issues of New 52 Green Arrow, Hal and Ollie don't know each other. So, no, all those Green Lantern/Green Arrow stories never happened, in any form. More excised history.

edit: Jeff Lemire confirmed it: http://www.newsarama.com/10513-jeff-lem ... arrow.html

To me, Green Arrow in the past, what people loved about Oliver Queen pre-New 52, was his relationships with other heroes. Like his friendship with Green Lantern, his animosity with Hawkman, his romance with Black Canary – these are all the things that sort of defined him. And now all those things are gone. They're wiped clean. So he really is a clean slate.

[Sparky Prime]

The salt scene was pretty harrowing to me, what with how harshly it was done with the pleading on both sides and all that. It still sticks with me as an example of "Wow, that was in there for no other reason than to shock the audience and make them feel bad."

Something can be 'shocking' without being ultraviolent (and this is Johns, so there's a baseline level of ultraviolence to begin with). The sheer amount of casual killing and maiming in Blackest Night made it clear what they were going for. When you have Kyle Raynor getting killed in one issue (only to be brought back the next, proving his death only happened as a shock-value issue-cliffhanger) prompting Guy Gardner to go crazy and turn into a blood-vomiting Red Lantern going around killing dudes with a blood-vomit-construct chainsaw...the intent is pretty obvious there.

Like a zombie killing someone despite people pleading is surprising? It's a fucking zombie whose only purpose is to kill people. I didn't find that scene shocking at all. It was a sobering scene certainly, but I think the real point of it was to show the Black Lanterns are not really the characters because the real Ronnie would never have done that.

Yes characters died and got brought back but it wasn't so shocking or ultra-violent as you're making it out to be. It was a zombie apocalypse type storyline, obviously there is going to be some deaths, but that doesn't make it a shock-value story in and of itself. And Kyle's death/revival and Guy going Red Lantern (which served a purposed given they needed Green and at least one other color of the Spectrum to destroy the Black Lanterns) didn't even take place in Blackest Night itself, that was in Green Lantern Corps, which was written by Peter Tomasi.

Right, I forgot you were still saddlesore about Marvel 'ruining' your precious Ultimate universe. That happened ages ago, for one, and was ill-advised and outside the norm even at the time. And you can't claim that that's something only Marvel does, when DC is the company that stuffs tiny corpses into matchboxes, has torture technicians feed women parts of their husbands, has flamboyant assassins that eat womens' faces, has temporary sidekicks getting messily eaten by demonic crocodiles, has supervillains stabbing babies to death, and can't seem to go a week without somebody's arm getting lopped off.

Ultimatum is the prefect example of shock value storytelling. That's pretty much all that story was. What's it matter how long ago that was? Blackest Night isn't exactly a recent story anymore either you know, yet you seem to love using that as an example.

And I've already said both companies have used that type of storytelling, I'm just disagreeing with what you're using as examples.

ALL comic books have stupid, shock-value shit in them. You can't lay the blame at one company or their policies, you can only read the comics you actually like, and not lump one writer in with another's stupid stuff just because their editors work for the same guys.

I wasn't the one who brought up the Big Two in the first place. I'm not laying blame on either, they both do it, I'm just saying Marvel's made it more of a company policy.

First of all, I never said that's why I dropped DC. I dropped DC because Johns's inability to Finish The Fucking Story was becoming too endemic to the line itself, and I was so fed up I quit cold turkey (I also had some financial issues at the time that greatly contributed to the decision).

This part is really funny to me because it almost perfectly defines DC as I've seen them the last few years. In fact, I initially dropped DC because they were the ones engaging in the behaviors you were describing above ("Blackest Night" being one long conga line of shock value and superficial status-quo shake-ups).

Looks to me like that's why you'd said you dropped DC earlier.

Second, recall that I initially picked up Superior Spider-Man for those reasons specifically BECAUSE I thought it was going to be horrible. I was expecting a ridiculous, so-bad-it's-good trainwreck. That I ended up getting a solid, entertaining, concept comic that effectively communicated and idea was the most pleasant surprise of my year.

And? Just because you ended up enjoying it, that doesn't make it any less one of those types of storylines.

I'm not doubting that Slott used Otto for his idea because he could identify with the character on some level. But how is that different than people who write and read about Peter Parker because they (somehow) identify with him? You write what you know, and Slott happened to have a good idea for a story with a character he also happened to like.

By having the villain "kill" the hero of the story and take over his life. How is the audience supposed to identify with that exactly?

Who gives an actual shit? These are comic book characters, they've been written a bazillion different contradictory ways up until now (Stan Lee himself couldn't even keep Peter's name straight in the early issues!), why should this time be any different. We got a great, entertaining, interesting story out of the deal that's what's important.

Who gives a shit that characters are portrayed CONSISTENTLY? That's storytelling 101. It kind of matters if the characters don't act like themselves. And to me, that IS part of a great, entertaining story. I don't like a story as much when it isn't consistent with what came before it for no reason.

Well yeah, that was the basic framework of the story, but, you could boil literally any story down to basic elements like that and have it sound like as much of a nothing as you try to make it out to be here. "Hal Jordan's dead and someone else is running around being Green Lantern until he returns". Is that really all Kyle's initial turn as Green Lantern was about? Of course it wasn't! If you'd actually read Superior Spider-Man, you'd know the end point of the story was "There are things they might be better at, but in the end, a supervillain would do a terrible job as a superhero. Peter Parker always was the 'Superior' Spider-Man". That's an idea, that's a concept, and it was fleshed out and explored and illustrated wonderfully in the pages of the comic. If Slott had to start with a stupid shock-value gimmick to make it happen, then so be it. It was worth it.

Well first of all, Hal wasn't dead, he went crazy and became Parallax and a couple years later sacrificed himself to reignite the sun. And it would be several more years before Hal would return in Rebirth. Not to mention at that time, DC was known for having LEGACY characters, where as Marvel really doesn't do that so much. I get how you see the Superior Spider-Man storyline, but I don't see it the same way obviously. To me, it really was nothing more than a temporary death of of a character story arc we all knew would end eventually.

Unless I'm mistaken, according to the early issues of New 52 Green Arrow, Hal and Ollie don't know each other. So, no, all those Green Lantern/Green Arrow stories never happened, in any form. More excised history.

Ah, but my point still stands. Somethings may be gone, but not everything, and the rest they remain vague about.

[andersonh1]

Ah, but my point still stands. Somethings may be gone, but not everything, and the rest they remain vague about.

Both points are true, however my point is that some things can be confirmed as gone due to characters being different or missing altogether from current continuity.

[Sparky Prime]

Both points are true, however my point is that some things can be confirmed as gone due to characters being different or missing altogether from current continuity.

Yet somehow that's not true for everything, which is why I said they keep some details vague. Like how Coast City could have been destroyed after Superman's death prompting Hal to become Parallax, despite Hank Henshaw no longer existing as the Cyborg Superman in the New 52.

[BWprowl]

Yes characters died and got brought back but it wasn't so shocking or ultra-violent as you're making it out to be

And current Marvel isn’t so shocking or ultra-violent as you’re making them out to be either.

And I've already said both companies have used that type of storytelling, I'm just disagreeing with what you're using as examples.

So what are we even arguing about here? This started because you jumped down…someone’s throat about liking Marvel, claiming that they were publishing nothing but stupid shock-value events, when as we’ve established through this latest page of idiotic bickering, both companies do that on about that same level, and have for years.

I wasn't the one who brought up the Big Two in the first place. I'm not laying blame on either, they both do it, I'm just saying Marvel's made it more of a company policy.

Really seems like you’re projecting your bad experience with Ultimatum (itself not even ‘regular’ Marvel) onto the company’s current output as a whole. How much Marvel have you read in the last few years that you can confirm that? Because from the books I’ve read (Ms. Marvel, All-New Ghost Rider, Inhuman, Spider-Man 2099, Gillen’s Iron Man, Scarlet Spider, New Warriors), they, uh, don’t really do that all that much.

anderson, you read Daredevil and some other Marvel stuff, right? Was what you read predominantly full of shock-value and over-hyped status-quo shake-ups?

First of all, I never said that's why I dropped DC. I dropped DC because Johns's inability to Finish The Fucking Story was becoming too endemic to the line itself, and I was so fed up I quit cold turkey (I also had some financial issues at the time that greatly contributed to the decision).

This part is really funny to me because it almost perfectly defines DC as I've seen them the last few years. In fact, I initially dropped DC because they were the ones engaging in the behaviors you were describing above ("Blackest Night" being one long conga line of shock value and superficial status-quo shake-ups).

Looks to me like that's why you'd said you dropped DC earlier.

[/quote]
Moreso the status quo thing (John’s mutilply-mentioned issue with not ending things) than the ultraviolence, though I’ll reiterate that the salt scene from Blackest Night turned me off a lot.

And? Just because you ended up enjoying it, that doesn't make it any less one of those types of storylines.

Except for the part where I point out that I ended up enjoying it specifically because it turned out to be more than just ‘one of those types of storylines’.

By having the villain "kill" the hero of the story and take over his life. How is the audience supposed to identify with that exactly?

Why does the audience need to identify with a story in order for it to be good?

Who gives a shit that characters are portrayed CONSISTENTLY? That's storytelling 101. It kind of matters if the characters don't act like themselves. And to me, that IS part of a great, entertaining story. I don't like a story as much when it isn't consistent with what came before it for no reason.

I don’t see how you manage to enjoy comic books, then. Characters are almost NEVER portrayed fully consistently between stories, save for when they’re written by the same writer (and even then…). It’s one THE major faults of the medium, but also one advantage it has, from a certain point of view: Characters are more apt to be used in different ways to tell different kinds of stories with different concepts and ideas.

I get how you see the Superior Spider-Man storyline, but I don't see it the same way obviously. To me, it really was nothing more than a temporary death of of a character story arc we all knew would end eventually.

Maybe if you actually read it you would see something there besides your own projected bad impression of it.