DC Suckverse?

[Enforcer84]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

The flash's head is HUGE in those drawings. Especially the left one.

His left head?

[Blue]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

Well, duh. He's not showing his right one in thes photos.

[ZootSoot]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

I guess we shall see if the rumor that they are depowering Diana and handing the mantle over to Donna Troy is true or not.

 

 

Or we could see what was done once before. Wonder Woman operating without any superpowers pursuing a pseudo-feminist agenda . . .

[ZootSoot]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

They are corporate owned characters used to generate income, just as creator owned characters are used to generate income. The difference is in the interest the owner has in telling an artistically satisfying story. Alan Moore can allow his version of Edward Hyde to grow as a character, and can eventually kill him off, because, as a writer, Moore’s desire to tell a good story and move on outweighs his need to milk the Hyde property for money for an indefinite period of time. Time Warner, as an entity, has no vested interest in storytelling quality beyond the bare minimum needed to promote a certain level of sales and cross marketing.

 

McDonalds will always provide you with a hamburger of a certain quality, low as that might be. If you want a really good meal, you’re much better off going to a restaurant with a chef who takes pride in his work, or just cooking it yourself.

 

 

Awful, awful, awful example! Moore's Hyde is the worst perversion of a great horror character currently out there. The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde is a retelling of "The Ring of Gyges" parable, it is not about separating good and evil, it is about escaping the social consequences of indulging in evil impulses.

[FenrisUlf]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

Here's something vrviperii on the DC Message boards wrote on the Did anyone else feel ill watching Superboy Prime fight? thread about Infinite Crisis.

 

Exactly how I feel. Repped!

[Kristopher]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

The left head, or the left drawing?

 

What are they doing to the DC characters, anyway?

 

 

 

 

 

 

What?

 

EDIT: Someone beat me to it...

[keithcurtis]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

I'm a hardcore DC fan from as far back as the mid-70's when I first graduated up to super-hero titles around the age of 8 or so. I had no problem with multiple-Earths concept. DC used the first Crisis to clean house and get folks excited about their books again. It worked! But in the past 20 years' date=' things have stagnated and started to sour again. Characters were killed off only to be returned again when their predecessors failed to spark the same interest. Now, with Infinite Crisis, it's time to shake things up for a whole new generation. I'm okay with that - now entering my 4th decade as a comic collector.[/quote']

That's pretty much exactly my opinion. The first years after Crisis were incredible. Unburdening the characters from their baggage allowed the company to try new stories with really top-line talent. You could hear a big old sucking sound coming from the Marvel Offices as DC lured away their talent with the chance to play with the big toys as if the were brand new.

 

Keith "Vive la difference!" Curtis

[John Desmarais]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

That's pretty much exactly my opinion. The first years after Crisis were incredible. Unburdening the characters from their baggage allowed the company to try new stories with really top-line talent. You could hear a big old sucking sound coming from the Marvel Offices as DC lured away their talent with the chance to play with the big toys as if the were brand new.

 

Keith "Vive la difference!" Curtis

 

 

But it didn't work. People (particularly comic book writers) liked all of the baggage and, in record time, brought it all back. In twelve years the DC universe has been saddled with as much baggage as it had accumulated before Crisis. (Although, it did allow DC to attrack a lot of creators who had previously never worked for DC, which was interesting - sometimes).

[OddHat]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

Awful' date=' awful, awful example! Moore's Hyde is the worst perversion of a great horror character currently out there. [i']The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde[/i] is a retelling of "The Ring of Gyges" parable, it is not about separating good and evil, it is about escaping the social consequences of indulging in evil impulses.

 

Myself, I thought Moore's Hyde was an interesting take on the character as the unbounded ID. If you like a different interpretation, or you just don't like Moore's version, good for you. Tastes be tastes.

[keithcurtis]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

But it didn't work. People (particularly comic book writers) liked all of the baggage and' date=' in record time, brought it all back. In twelve years the DC universe has been saddled with as much baggage as it had accumulated before Crisis. (Although, it did allow DC to attrack a lot of creators who had previously never worked for DC, which was interesting - sometimes).[/quote']

I think it did work. Just because it all came seeping back after 20 (not 12) years, doesn't invalidate the wonderful, creative stories and characters developed during that time. It came back in new, fresh forms, too. (OK, sometimes it came back in confusing, poorly-conceived and executed forms as well).

Anyone who believes that there is some magical formula for untrammeled continuity in something as vast as the DC or Marvel universes is fooling themselves. What I'm saying is it's pointless to try. I don't care about re-boots. Go ahead and invalidate 20 year old stories. The only people who care are fanboys.

Guys and Girls, when I was a young whippersnapper, no one gave a darn about that kind of stuff. No one had any clue that someone would remotely care what happened in a 20 year old story. Aquaman's Atlantis was not Lori Lemaris' and no one made any attempt to reconcile the two. And guess what, circulation then dwarfed even the hottest selling titles today. If an issue of Superman sold as many copies today as it did in say, 1960, it would be hailed as a publishing miracle.

 

Where was I? I know I had a point here... Oh yeah, slavish adherence to continuity breeds inevitable contradiction. Reboots are a way to drive sales and generate interest. I don't care which route the creators take, so long as they tell good stories. The Paul Dini stuff is fantastic. I don't need to place it on Earth-D, and I don't need to use hypertime, Crises or any other folderol. Just enjoy it for what it is.

 

My advice to comic companies? Anything over ten years ago didn't happen. Unless it was a seminal point in the character's devlopment (say, the death of Gwen Stacy), just ignore it or use it at your discretion. You don't need some mega-crisis, just slowly and continuously "re-boot" your universe.

 

Or not. Just tell good stories.

 

Keith "I blame Gadner Fox for caring about it in the first place" Curtis

[Egyptoid]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

I work at a comic book store, and we have a running joke that goes something like this:

 

E: Hey B!

B: Yeah?

 

E: Did Issue 4 of JLA vs Avengers ever come out ?

B: No. No I don't think so. We would have definitely had that in stock if it had ever shipped.

 

E: Man that stinks! I wanted to read how it ended...

B: So did a lot of other fanboys, E.

 

implication being that there are large holes in our memories. Some comics, many sadly from DC, are so bad that we blot them out of our mind just after we read them.

 

HeyB! did star wars 3 ever hit the theatres yet?

[OddHat]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

 

Keith "I blame Gadner Fox for caring about it in the first place" Curtis

 

I always liked Gardner Fox's multiple Earths, and I dig continuity. Respect for a character's history and a willingness to allow character growth and change are all part of telling good stories. If the big two remembered that, they might be selling more comics.

 

As to "fanboy" labels, we're adults posting on an RPG board in a thread about comic books. Just how much room do we have to throw stones?

[austenandrews]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

My advice to comic companies? Anything over ten years ago didn't happen. Unless it was a seminal point in the character's devlopment (say' date=' the death of Gwen Stacy), just ignore it or use it at your discretion. You don't need some mega-crisis, just slowly and continuously "re-boot" your universe.[/quote']

Agreed. I suspect the span of interest of the average reader is five or six years. There's no need for sudden, egregious breaks in recent continuity, but stories from a decade earlier need not be adhered to - except, as you say, for particular defining points in the milieu (you wouldn't pretend the Death of Superman never happened, for instance). The only drawback I can foresee is that the editorial staff might have a difficult time maintaining ever-evolving continuity. But surely it would be easier than maintaining ever-mounting continuity.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

His left head?

 

 

 

I just had my roommate come in and ask me what was so funny.

 

 

 

I'm so glad I wasn't drinking something right then...

[John Desmarais]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

Keith "I blame Gadner Fox for caring about it in the first place" Curtis

 

I think Fox was the reason it was able to work as well as it did when it did - one person had the task of overseeing the big points of continuity. Now, no one cares, and its a bigger mess than before.

 

Personally, I want my pre-Crisis multiverse back - but I doubt it will ever happen.

[assault]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

(you wouldn't pretend the Death of Superman never happened' date=' for instance).[/quote']

 

Actually, that would be exactly the kind of thing that you would ignore.

[assault]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

I always liked Gardner Fox's multiple Earths' date=' and I dig continuity. Respect for a character's history and a willingness to allow character growth and change are all part of telling good stories. If the big two remembered that, they might be selling more comics. [/quote']

 

One of the good things about the multiple Earths was that they did allow for character growth and change. The Earth-2 Superman married Lois and lived happily ever after, way back in the 70s. The Earth-2 Batman married Selina Kyle, had a daughter, died, and was replaced by an adult Robin and his daughter.

 

It's more difficult to do things like that in a single continuity. (But not impossible).

 

Certainly, most of the attempts that have been made to do that over the last 15 years have been pretty dreadful.

[OddHat]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

One of the good things about the multiple Earths was that they did allow for character growth and change. The Earth-2 Superman married Lois and lived happily ever after, way back in the 70s. The Earth-2 Batman married Selina Kyle, had a daughter, died, and was replaced by an adult Robin and his daughter.

 

It's more difficult to do things like that in a single continuity. (But not impossible).

 

Certainly, most of the attempts that have been made to do that over the last 15 years have been pretty dreadful.

 

Agreed on all points.

[Arac-4105]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not really afraid of the whole "reboot" thing. I'm afraid of DC doing it badly. It's one thing to have some or all of your favorite character's backstory invalidated or removed, it's something totally different to have it changed into 'just a dream' and have that character's personality skew 180 degrees.

[Enforcer84]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

I don't know about anyone else' date=' but I'm not really afraid of the whole "reboot" thing. I'm afraid of DC doing it badly. It's one thing to have some or all of your favorite character's backstory invalidated or removed, it's something totally different to have it changed into 'just a dream' and have that character's personality skew 180 degrees.[/quote']

That's my concern as well, not the idea but the implementation. Neither Marvel nor DC seem capable of these projects and sweeping events they keep foisting on us. (My opinion) So I haven't given them more than (whatever LOS is selling for) a month for the last 4 years.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

That's my concern as well' date=' not the idea but the implementation. Neither Marvel nor DC seem capable of these projects and sweeping events they keep foisting on us. (My opinion) So I haven't given them more than (whatever LOS is selling for) a month for the last 4 years.[/quote']

 

At Marvel, the only major character that I think really NEEDS a reboot is Iron Man. His history is so closely tied to the Cold War that it gets more and more obsolete as things go on. Add in Black Widow, etc. and the further you get from 1991, the less believable they become. But trying to reboot one or a few characters without doing the rest is even more messy, so I think Marvel could probably use one at some point. One just hopes they do it well.

[keithcurtis]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

(you wouldn't pretend the Death of Superman never happened, for instance).

Actually, that would be exactly the kind of thing that you would ignore.

 

I have to disagree. Yes, it was a marketing scheme. Yes it sold issues. Unfortuinately it came out during the foil embossed, shrink-wrapped, multiple-covered, cherry flavored paper days.

 

It was also (for anyone who actually bothered to read it) a really well-crafted and orchestrated story.

 

It introduced a number of lasting characters and was exceedingly well-paced. I suggest anyone who doesn't want to plunk down money for back issues either read the novelization or listen to the audio drama.

 

Keith "It was after the story arc was over that the title began to suck" Curtis

[Kristopher]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

Anyone who believes that there is some magical formula for untrammeled continuity in something as vast as the DC or Marvel universes is fooling themselves. What I'm saying is it's pointless to try. I don't care about re-boots. Go ahead and invalidate 20 year old stories. The only people who care are fanboys.

 

That's not really fair, Keith.

 

I care, but not for the reason you might think. When I learn something about a character, or a world, or the history of either, I kinda want it to stay that way. I don't want to be told, "Oh, actually, that never happened, they wrote it out of his history in The Infinite Crisis on Infinite Earths across Infinity."

[keithcurtis]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

I didn't mean to sound unfair. It's probably safe to say that pretty much everyone on the board is a fanboy to some degree. What irks me is the way that fanboys (myself included) have pretty much killed comics. When I was a kid, my allowance would allow me to buy 3-4 comics a week if I wanted. They were 25¢. Even adjusted for inflation, that's cheap. Every local drug store had racks of comics. I'm not kidding. The PX in the AFB where I grew up had a WALL of comics. Now a supermarket might have a tiny selection, but to really get comics you have to drive to a specialty store. I used to dream about when I grew up I could buy all the comics I ever wanted. Little did I dream they'd average about $3 each.

 

The fanboy attitude about making the comic companies pander to them has decreased the circulation of comics to a pale wraith of what it used to be.

 

Once again, I didn't mean the term "fanboy" as an insult. Sorry if you took it that way.

 

Keith "Also a fanboy" Curtis

[OddHat]

Re: DC Suckverse?

 

Personally, I don't think it was the fans that killed Comics. When I was a kid I'd get mine at the local newstands and news shops (which had walls of them), in the toy and hobby stores, and in the book stores. Heck, there were racks of comics in every 7-11. Somewhere in the 1980s (going by my flawed memory), the distribution system seemed to change. Comics became more and more expensive, and vanished from the 7-11s and news shops, ending up available only in the specialty stores. Violence shot through the ceiling, and everything started crossing over with everything else.

 

Twas the publishers and distributers that killed the beast.