And yet another reason the world seems to be getting less and less intelligent....

[Starlord]

48 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

 

Even in Miller's classic, Batman doesn't kill. It's my biggest problem with the DC films especially BvS. They didn't take the right lessons from the material.

 

For all their edginess and militaristic combat, X-Force had  a minimal kill count. They did a lot of wounding of people who had regeneration tho'.

 

The Punisher is a villain He's an organized serial killer/terrorist who just happens to target only criminals. Giving him so many appearances was a concession to economics and fandom demand. And they pretty much separated him from the mainstream books and kept him travelling about the country to work it out.

 

I understand your point, but my post wasn't about killing per se.  It was about the 'Iron Age of Comics' ushering in an era of emphasis on grimdark, edginess, extreme vigilantism, mindless badassery and gunsgunsgunsgunsguns.  While the ideals that LL stated were presented as bland, boring and uncool.

[Spence]

18 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

One objection to your analysis, Spence: I specified "comic-book Batman." Various movie Batmans kill. Outside of some "what-if," alternate-world type stories, comic-book Batman never kills. He refuses to cross that line, for fear he'd keep going farther. He won't make any child live the loss that he did. It's one of his defining characteristics, and often puts him at odds with more ruthless vigilantes.

 

I don't collect comics and I really can't recite chapter and verse, but Bats has killed in the comics.  One of those colored newspaper'ery books I got as a teen.  It sticks because it caused a local uproar and I personally thought it fitting to reach back to the original source materials.  It probably was expunged along with many other things along with all the other revisioning that we've seen over the years to the point no one can remember their own names.

One thing I can clearly remember is the panel. 

 

1 hour ago, Starlord said:

 

I understand your point, but my post wasn't about killing per se.  It was about the 'Iron Age of Comics' ushering in an era of emphasis on grimdark, edginess, extreme vigilantism, mindless badassery and gunsgunsgunsgunsguns.  While the ideals that LL stated were presented as bland, boring and uncool.

 

My point, which is different.  Is that superheros are not just super, but also heroes.  When set in modern times a hero doesn't indiscriminately kill.  And yet many of the characters that have been wrapped up into the term superhero do just that. 

 

You'd think they would notice that the movies that feature actual heroes are far out banking the ones that showcase non-heros.  Having a non-hero in a movie with heroes still works out, but there is a very noticeable drop for non-hero movies.

 

Heck I even remember "superhero" lists with movies like Last Airbender and Conan on them.  I have always loved the original Conan stories, but he was never ever a hero.

 

Just because comics went down a grim dark "woot everybody's a murderer/addict/enter evil of choice" doesn't mean that everything printed on paper in color is a superhero. 

 

I personally think that that trend is why superheroic RPGs are in the final stages of dying out.  It is difficult for a genre to exist when current examples no longer exist.  No amount of rhetoric or verbal tap dancing can change that.  

 

The Superhero has died as a concept and been replaced by People with Powers.  Murders and horrific monsters to the front of the line please.   

 

 

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

36 minutes ago, Spence said:

 

I don't collect comics and I really can't recite chapter and verse, but Bats has killed in the comics.  One of those colored newspaper'ery books I got as a teen.  It sticks because it caused a local uproar and I personally thought it fitting to reach back to the original source materials.  It probably was expunged along with many other things along with all the other revisioning that we've seen over the years to the point no one can remember their own names.

One thing I can clearly remember is the panel.

 

As I said, there have been alternate-world comic stories in which Batman has killed. In the character's early history he also killed, and carried guns for a time. The character has evolved greatly since you and I were young.

 

Speaking of alternate worlds and memories, I remember a Batman annual issue from 1991, part of DC's "Armageddon 2001" crossover series, in which Batman appeared to accidentally cause the death of the Penguin, and was charged with murder. Batman turned himself in to the authorities and was put in prison. Even when another vigilante broke into prison to free him, Bats refused to escape because he believed himself guilty. Of course it was later discovered that he'd been set up, at which point he did escape and track down the real culprit.

[Lord Liaden]

52 minutes ago, Spence said:

The Superhero has died as a concept and been replaced by People with Powers.  Murders and horrific monsters to the front of the line please.  

 

While I haven't followed comics much this millennium, I have noticed a resurgence in stories with supers as true heroes, with ideals and principles and a moral compass. Nihilism gets fatiguing after a while, and people start yearning for hope again.   I believe that's also one impetus for the wave of superhero movies we're still riding, which for the most part give us supers as heroes. However, those stories are often more shaded and complicated than the last heroic swing of the pendulum, infused with the awareness of the deconstruction of the genre we got during the Iron Age. I personally think one common designation for this era in comics, the "Steel Age," is apropos for that reason.

 

Of course we have exceptions like Deadpool, Punisher, Blade, Suicide Squad, Jessica Jones. The spectrum of the genre accommodates them, and it's healthy to include them. But they remain outliers in the present day.

[Spence]

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

While I haven't followed comics much this millennium, I have noticed a resurgence in stories with supers as true heroes, with ideals and principles and a moral compass. Nihilism gets fatiguing after a while, and people start yearning for hope again.   I believe that's also one impetus for the wave of superhero movies we're still riding, which for the most part give us supers as heroes. However, those stories are often more shaded and complicated than the last heroic swing of the pendulum, infused with the awareness of the deconstruction of the genre we got during the Iron Age. I personally think one common designation for this era in comics, the "Steel Age," is apropos for that reason.

 

Of course we have exceptions like Deadpool, Punisher, Blade, Suicide Squad, Jessica Jones. The spectrum of the genre accommodates them, and it's healthy to include them. But they remain outliers in the present day.

I haven't noticed much of a change which is probably pretty normal considering how little I look these days.  I may need to check into them again.

 

As for the movies, I believe you are spot on.

I have watched the villain movies and enjoyed them. I just don't agree with the label.  They have pretty much eliminated a customers ability to locate movies, books and so one that they might want to see/read by destroying their descriptors/tags.  these days you cannot search for a superhero book and actually get any.  You'll get hundreds of villains and vigilantes But if you manage to actually find one that contains heroes, you can be sure that it will rapidly devolve into a broken grade school romance. 

 

The movies are what they are.  Not enough of them for you not to be able to locate them by name.  But it is irritating when movies like Brightburn (sp?) keep coming up for keyword "superhero".

 

 

 

 

[Badger]

On 11/7/2020 at 5:21 PM, Tjack said:

How can you hate anything with that soundtrack from Queen and Brian Blessed yelling...”Gordon’s Alive!” ?

Does Brian Blessed ever not tell, though?

Just now, Badger said:

Does Brian Blessed ever not tell, though?

Yell not tell, dam autocorrect

On 11/7/2020 at 3:21 PM, death tribble said:

First can someone correct the title to say world instead of workd ? It is distracting.

 

Second is the article comparing Flash to films of the same period or is it comparing it to things like the current Marvel Cinema Universe films ?

I can say that the 1980s Flash Gordon has one thing in common with the first Avengers film. I can happily rewatch either. They are like, for me, The Battle of Britain, Star Wars A New Hope or The Great Escape. You can just sit back and watch them repeatedly.

 

With Flash Gordon, I get the feeling a certain princess is a big factor for you.

 

Just saying