After some problems with blogger (and just the general clunkiness of it) I've decided to move this blog to wordpress.
You can find it at www.realmenwearmasks.blogspot.com
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
DC is Retconning!! (Part One)
So, DC announced last week (in the oh-so-relevant USA Today) that they will be setting all comics back to issue #1. This was a huge thing for me for several reasons. 1) Detective Comics and Batman were set to hit #1000 in the not-so-distant future. 2) Issue number ones do nothing to attract new readers. I'm sorry, but they don't. And 3) along with the article there was a picture of the new Justice League, with their "fresh and young" (why oh why, DC?!) costumes, and Wonder Woman looks sixteen.
And then I heard about the retconning.
And my blood boiled.
First off, the Teen Titans. I was never a particular fan of Superboy, so I could care less about his role, and I'm relatively sure that the girls at bottom left and far right are new characters. But from the solicitation I read that Tim Drake was never Robin (so goodness knows what happened to Damian--my prediction is that he'll have never existed) and that that lineage ends with Jason Todd (who I will get to in a moment). Aside from the stupid costume, where would a teenage hacker get field training? Second, Wonder Girl. In the quest for young and the ever-wanted "edgy" DC has made her a teenage thief. I'm going to assume she's the Donna Troy version, because a cleaned-up origin would help that character out in current continuity. Again, who knows what will happen to Cassie Sandsmark, or if she'll even exist now.
Then there's Batgirl. I won't post a picture of this one (go to dccomics.com if you really want to see it) but it's basically Stephanie's costume...with Barbara in it.
THEY NULLIFIED THE KILLING JOKE!!! Besides the fact of yet more heroes apparently vanishing (Cassandra Cain, fan favorite, and Stephanie Brown), this--if it is changing continuity and not Barbara somehow healing herself--means no Oracle, no Barbara-as-leader-of-Birds-of-Prey, and none of the later Dick/Barbara interesting relationship dynamics. More importantly, Oracle represented a maturity in the character, and now DC is sending her back to her teenage years.
I also don't know why everyone is suddenly wearing armor. Even Superman seems to have armored boots and gauntlets, though why an invulnerable alien would need them is beyond me. The best--and one of the only good--of the new character designs is Supergirl, whose costume now has a majesty that her old upskirt-shot one didn't.
Even after all this, I took a deep breath and decided that DC had done well so far. They'd made The Return of Bruce Wayne a reasonably good miniseries and the dual-Batman thing work. I even enjoyed the Green Lantern movie (with some reservations, but it didn't deserve the flogging the critics are giving it). So I almost--almost--said oh well, I'll trust them on this one.
And then saw the one thing that could have possibly made angry enough to consider boycotting the whole enterprise.
Remember when they cancelled the Wildstorm imprint, with it's wonderful Warren Ellis titles like my favorites, Authority (which, in all honesty, wasn't much good after Ellis) and Planetary?
Well, they did THIS:
Ignoring Midnighter's (idiotic) new costume, and ignoring Apollo's ridiculous shaven head (you would remember that he was the gentle one, DC, if you cared about your characters as much as your sales graphs), even ignoring the fact that both of these universes have rich backstories that have nothing to do with the other, this is still a godawful idea.
In order to shoehorn the Wildstorm characters into the DC Universe, you have to destroy them. The Authority--indeed, even Midnighter--cannot exist in the DCU, except, perhaps, as villains. The way the universes work are just too different. The Authority could never do what they do in the DCU because the DCU's idea of morality is that the ends do not justify the means. In the Wildstorm universe, they can, and do.
This Midnighter and Apollo will be a weak imitation of the former iterations (I would be surprised if DC even kept the same relationship between the characters). There is no way the ones I knew and loved can function in the DCU. It simply isn't possible--Superman won't let it happen.
Part Two to follow soon.
And then I heard about the retconning.
And my blood boiled.
Then there's Batgirl. I won't post a picture of this one (go to dccomics.com if you really want to see it) but it's basically Stephanie's costume...with Barbara in it.
THEY NULLIFIED THE KILLING JOKE!!! Besides the fact of yet more heroes apparently vanishing (Cassandra Cain, fan favorite, and Stephanie Brown), this--if it is changing continuity and not Barbara somehow healing herself--means no Oracle, no Barbara-as-leader-of-Birds-of-Prey, and none of the later Dick/Barbara interesting relationship dynamics. More importantly, Oracle represented a maturity in the character, and now DC is sending her back to her teenage years.
Even after all this, I took a deep breath and decided that DC had done well so far. They'd made The Return of Bruce Wayne a reasonably good miniseries and the dual-Batman thing work. I even enjoyed the Green Lantern movie (with some reservations, but it didn't deserve the flogging the critics are giving it). So I almost--almost--said oh well, I'll trust them on this one.
And then saw the one thing that could have possibly made angry enough to consider boycotting the whole enterprise.
Remember when they cancelled the Wildstorm imprint, with it's wonderful Warren Ellis titles like my favorites, Authority (which, in all honesty, wasn't much good after Ellis) and Planetary?
Well, they did THIS:
Ignoring Midnighter's (idiotic) new costume, and ignoring Apollo's ridiculous shaven head (you would remember that he was the gentle one, DC, if you cared about your characters as much as your sales graphs), even ignoring the fact that both of these universes have rich backstories that have nothing to do with the other, this is still a godawful idea.
In order to shoehorn the Wildstorm characters into the DC Universe, you have to destroy them. The Authority--indeed, even Midnighter--cannot exist in the DCU, except, perhaps, as villains. The way the universes work are just too different. The Authority could never do what they do in the DCU because the DCU's idea of morality is that the ends do not justify the means. In the Wildstorm universe, they can, and do.
This Midnighter and Apollo will be a weak imitation of the former iterations (I would be surprised if DC even kept the same relationship between the characters). There is no way the ones I knew and loved can function in the DCU. It simply isn't possible--Superman won't let it happen.
Part Two to follow soon.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Series Review: Magdalena
I started reading Magdalena because my mother was reading it. It's by Top Cow, and I never followed Witchblade or any of there other series because I just couldn't get into them. This one, however, was different.
It's not just the subject (more in line with a lighter version of Lucifer than Justice League) or the good art (not excellent, but good and not flawed). There seems to be a lot of thought put into Magdalena from the paper--thick, not at all like the cheap stuff DC uses on their low-end books--to the way they layer the exterior and interior conflicts. While I loved Lucifer, and read all 75 issues of it, it could be a bit heavy-handed around the middle. The writers of the book balance the religious conflict extremely well.
Try Magdalena out, you'll be impressed. Now only if it'll stop being delayed.
It's not just the subject (more in line with a lighter version of Lucifer than Justice League) or the good art (not excellent, but good and not flawed). There seems to be a lot of thought put into Magdalena from the paper--thick, not at all like the cheap stuff DC uses on their low-end books--to the way they layer the exterior and interior conflicts. While I loved Lucifer, and read all 75 issues of it, it could be a bit heavy-handed around the middle. The writers of the book balance the religious conflict extremely well.
Try Magdalena out, you'll be impressed. Now only if it'll stop being delayed.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Flashpoint!
Flash + Elseworld (even if they're not calling it that) = awesome.
I really like the current Wonder Woman storyline, even if the costume takes some getting used to. The Elseworlds line was one of my favorites--it's fascinating to see heroes in different situations than the usual status quo. While there isn't much out about Flashpoint, the brief little character bios (Cyborg, Wonder Woman, the mysterious Outsider) have piqued my interest. Plus, the action figure designs are fabulous, especially the Wonder Woman one. Not sure about Batman, though:
