DC Movies- if at first you don't succeed...

[sinanju]

What ruined Spidey for me was when they retconned away all that progress because "fans don't want to see a married Spider-Man." So we're back to Square 1, and nobody learns from anything? No possibility for character growth? What the hell is interesting about that? Where's the drama in knowing that no matter what a character goes through, nothing is ever going to change?

 

 

I cannot "like" this or agree with it strongly enough. I'll never forgive Joe Quesada and that crowd for this debasement of Spider-Man. They've ruined him for me. From the "deal with the devil" aspect of the retcon to the childish rationale ("our readers can't identify with a married man...even though they seem to have no problems identifying with men with spider-powers, or power-armor-wearing billionaires, or gods of thunder or....") it just appalled me. I rooted for it to fail miserably and hoped to see those idiots fired and the retcon retconned away.

 

Now? Now I just don't care about Peter Parker/Spider-Man anymore. It doesn't matter what they do with him anymore. I just can't bring myself to care. I followed the Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-Man for a long while, but most I'm not reading or following any Marvel comics these days. Or DC. They've splintered into so many parallel and conflicting timelines that I just can't be bothered anymore.

[zslane]

It's relatively easy to change characters in significant ways when they aren't your company's primary cash cow. Spider-Man is rare in that he's been Marvel's most popular character and yet was allowed to evolve, however slowly, over the decades. Most of the time, publishers are terrified by the prospect of changing the successful formula of their most profitable characters, and so they remain largely unchanged over decades. This isn't a failure of creative vision, it is a product of commercial expediency.

 

It also doesn't help that we're talking about characters that have lived in their respective universes, fighting the good fight, for longer than many of us have been alive. If they don't age chronologically with the real world, then they essentially live in a state of suspended animation; a state of suspended characterization is pretty congruent with that.

[Old Man]

Spider-Man is easily my favorite superhero, but I don't mind too much if they write outside the lines now and then. I'm a bit conflicted about the marriage/demon storyline, to be honest. On the one hand, I want to support new takes on characters rather than year after year of same old. And it was pretty cool to explore the what-if of Peter juggling his dangerous hobby with a serious family commitment. On the other hand, how do you get back to the baseline character after something like that? How can a story carry any weight if it's just going to be retconned out of existence? You can tell Marvel is struggling with this themselves, to the point where they've invented at least half a dozen parallel-universe Spider-Men and sometimes put them all in the same book.

 

The only Spider-Man story I really didn't like was the Octavius one, because that was around the time I was looking for comics to get for my kids, and Octavius is a dick.

[Starlord]

How well could you possibly turn out after your parents stick you with 'Otto Octavius'?

[Old Man]

They've already got me as a parent so they're probably doomed anyway.

[Hugh Neilson]

Most people seem to have forgotten that John Byrne's relaunch of Superman in 1986 was a significant redefinition of the character from his preceding form, and was in no small measure an attempt to eliminate some of the problematic elements in earlier depictions. His nigh-omnipotent power level was drastically reduced. More effort was taken to rationalize how his powers functioned. His Clark Kent identity became a serious, competent person rather than a klutzy joke. Superman's personal memories of Krypton were eliminated, making him much more a son of Earth than of Krypton. The "Superboy" phase of his life was erased. His relationship with Lois Lane was allowed to evolve. Clark's father was a living presence in his life. The nature and history of Krypton was majorly altered. But later writers kept chipping away at these changes, taking him back closer to what he had been, which IMHO has often not been for the better.

An aspect of New 52 that I found disturbing. Despite comic readers having aged, all the characters became mid-20s again. And Superman's marriage to Lois was eliminated. That was some actual character growth. Could they, perhaps, have marital difficulties, separate, even divorce? Sure. But "wipe it all out of existence"? Not so much.

 

I also recall thinking you could tell what's been selling up to the change to New 52 (Green Lantern and Batman just stepped directly into New 52 in their ongoing storylines) and what has not (cold reboot for Justice League, Teen Titans and Superman).

 

 

I disagree with this attitude so much. "Changed" is not a synonym for "ruined," and is almost always preferable to "held completely static for decades."

The reality is that the writers have much more freedom to change a character who does not sell than one who is a flagship and a cash cow. Why could Perez reboot Wonder Woman in 1986? Because, while DC kept the book alive because she was a flagship and a recognized icon, it just did not sell. I suspect they had sales issues with Superman before letting Byrne reboot him as well. Did Crisis and the Super-Reboot wreak havoc on the Legion and the All-Star Squadron? Sure - but that's OK since those weren't big seller.

 

Mark Waid commented that he took over Flash when no one was reading it, so he had a pretty free hand, and he sympathized with the writer who succeeded him, who would not get similar free reign since the character was now a good seller, and we would not want to rock the boat.

 

The only alternative is the DC approach of rebooting the universe every 5 years so you have an excuse to keep everyone in the exact same place and keep retelling the same damn stories over and over again. Yawn.

Ummm..."Marvel Now"? And whatever we are calling the latest reboot? I think Marvel and DC are scheduling reboots now. It must be working, or they would not keep doing it. "Everything old is new again" is not itself new. Back in the '60s, a Superman editor had copies of the last two years, I think it was, of each books on his office walls. As he approached the 2 year anniversary of a big seller, he commissioned a similar cover and a story to back it up, on the belief the readers two years ago had largely moved on, and this would be a new story to today's readers, who would buy it based on the same cover that attracted the readers two years back.

 

By contrast, if Marvel had kept Carol Danvers in the same box she'd been in since the 70s, no one would care about the character today and she certainly wouldn't be getting her own movie. But by letting the character evolve (starting with 2005's House Of M, and really taking off when DeConnick took over), they not only made her a far more interesting character, but they also opened up room for new characters to come in behind her.

But prior to House of M and these other changes, she was not selling anything. There was no real risk - if we screwed Carol Danvers up more, we didn't lose a big seller from the stable, we could just kill her off in the next big Event storyline and pick a new character to experiment with, or change her radically again and see if this one takes. Screw up Superman, Batman or Spiderman and how many titles do we have to replace to get our sales back?

 

The problem is that Fandom wants lasting, meaningful change so long as you don't change the stuff I want to stay the same. No mean feat to satisfy that demand.

[Hugh Neilson]

Sometimes, change does happen. How hard did Ed Brubaker have to fight to bring back Bucky? And that worked.

 

How long did replacing Steve Rogers with Bucky (and then Sam Wilson) work?

 

When Kyle Baker replaced Hal Jordon, many long-time fans were disgusted. When Hal Jordan came back, many fans of Kyle Rayner were disgusted. Now, DC can have them each headline a book, and fans of one over the other buy one, while fans of both are buying two books a month. Still can't figure out why the replaced Alan Scott, though

 

The fact is that change is dangerous - it may attract a new fanbase, and it may alienate the old one. The smaller the existing fanbase* is, the lower the risk.

 

*NOTE: Not the ones online who love the character but have not bought comics for X years - the ones that are buying the comics today. It doesn't cost DC or Marvel any money to have someone who isn't buying Superman or Spiderman now, hasn't for the past 5 years and does not intend to in the future if that guy is alienated and bad mouths them online. If anything, that may be good publicity when someone who might be interested in the new version reads about it in some old dude's rant about "the good old days".

[Christopher R Taylor]

Most people seem to have forgotten that John Byrne's relaunch of Superman in 1986 was a significant redefinition of the character from his preceding form, and was in no small measure an attempt to eliminate some of the problematic elements in earlier depictions.

 

I agree, and Byrne did a magnificent job with the character.  He was both heroic and true while being relatable and interesting.  People presume, often without reading, that Superman is boring and "square," when he doesn't have to be.

 

I disagree with this attitude so much. "Changed" is not a synonym for "ruined," and is almost always preferable to "held completely static for decades."

 

You're right, but then I didn't say "changed" is synonymous with "ruined."  You're getting straw everywhere.

 

What I argued was that there are certain key, foundational concepts of characters that make them work - Spider-Man as the nerdy outcast who has his only fun outlet in costume, for example - which if you change ruin the charm and what made them great to begin with.  If you rebuild Captain America so he's not a patriot and didn't fight in WW2, get frozen, and come back... he sucks now.  There are basic concepts and themes in each character that make them who they are, and toying with that ruins them.

[bigdamnhero]

It's relatively easy to change characters in significant ways when they aren't your company's primary cash cow.

Yeah, that's a really good point.

 

The only Spider-Man story I really didn't like was the Octavius one, because that was around the time I was looking for comics to get for my kids, and Octavius is a dick.

[nod] That Superior Spider-Man storyline was a surprisingly entertaining run, and the one that convinced me to tentatively stick my toe back in that water.

 

Ummm..."Marvel Now"? And whatever we are calling the latest reboot?

I didn't read a lot of the Marvel Now stuff so I may be wrong, but I thought it was mostly a marketing change (new issue 1s, etc) but didn't make a lot of significant continuity changes? Whatever they just finished (I can't remember what they're calling it either) clearly is a reboot, but its arguably the first real reboot Marvel has done in 50+ years, and I doubt we'll see another one anytime soon.

 

You're right, but then I didn't say "changed" is synonymous with "ruined."  You're getting straw everywhere.

You're absolutely right. I was addressing an attitude which seems prevalent among much of fandom, but I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. My apologies.

 

What I argued was that there are certain key, foundational concepts of characters that make them work - Spider-Man as the nerdy outcast who has his only fun outlet in costume, for example - which if you change ruin the charm and what made them great to begin with.  If you rebuild Captain America so he's not a patriot and didn't fight in WW2, get frozen, and come back... he sucks now.  There are basic concepts and themes in each character that make them who they are, and toying with that ruins them.

Well put. But sticking with the Spidey example, I think it's entirely possible to show a grown-up nerdy outcast who doesn't fit in at work and so forth. Hands up anyone else who can relate to that character? Heck, watching post-Superior Pete return to find himself CEO of his own company and struggling to be "the cool boss?" That was classic Parker! And giving him a family just gives him more to protect so it's not always Aunt May getting threatened every week, and even more to feel guilty about "those I love always pay the price" for his Spider Life.

 

So I think I think it's possible to stay true to the emotional core of the character without getting hamstrung by being afraid to change the character's circumstances. And in fact I thought Married Spidey did a pretty good job of that, which is why it was so jarring to see it all ripped away like that.

[Balabanto]

Sometimes, change does happen. How hard did Ed Brubaker have to fight to bring back Bucky? And that worked.

 

How long did replacing Steve Rogers with Bucky (and then Sam Wilson) work?

 

When Kyle Baker replaced Hal Jordon, many long-time fans were disgusted. When Hal Jordan came back, many fans of Kyle Rayner were disgusted. Now, DC can have them each headline a book, and fans of one over the other buy one, while fans of both are buying two books a month. Still can't figure out why the replaced Alan Scott, though

 

The fact is that change is dangerous - it may attract a new fanbase, and it may alienate the old one. The smaller the existing fanbase* is, the lower the risk.

 

*NOTE: Not the ones online who love the character but have not bought comics for X years - the ones that are buying the comics today. It doesn't cost DC or Marvel any money to have someone who isn't buying Superman or Spiderman now, hasn't for the past 5 years and does not intend to in the future if that guy is alienated and bad mouths them online. If anything, that may be good publicity when someone who might be interested in the new version reads about it in some old dude's rant about "the good old days".

 

Alan Scott is still my favorite Green Lantern.

[bigdamnhero]

Now? Now I just don't care about Peter Parker/Spider-Man anymore. It doesn't matter what they do with him anymore. I just can't bring myself to care. I followed the Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-Man for a long while, but most I'm not reading or following any Marvel comics these days. Or DC. They've splintered into so many parallel and conflicting timelines that I just can't be bothered anymore.

I would say I feel like Marvel has done a fairly decent job of trying to pull some of that back together into a coherent narrative. The 2014 Amazing Spider-Man relaunch wasn't half bad, and IMO did a decent job of recapturing some of the "fun" of early Spidey. And Spider-Gwen turned out to be a surprisingly entertaining Alt Verse title.

 

Morales is a good character. I just don't find high school superheroes all that interesting or relatable these days. (Ms. Marvel excepted just because the writing is so good.)

[Starlord]

Alan Scott is still my favorite Green Lantern.

 

Top ten all-time joke from Big Bang Theory:

 

Raj: I like Green Lantern, I'm just saying it's pretty lame that he can be defeated by the color yellow.

Sheldon: Only the modern Green Lantern is vulnerable to yellow.

Leonard: Golden Age Green Lantern was vulnerable to wood.

Raj: Great. So I can take them both out with a number 2 pencil? 

[薔薇語]

Spoilers - duh. 

 

I just got back from Taipei where they had Suicide Squad in theaters. Given the very mixed reviews I decided to go watch the movie. I did know a couple spoilers, including the Diablo one. I genuinely tried to like the film - and I normally rate films better than most; I even liked BvS. But at the end of the day I thought it was a bad film. The acting for the most part was good and I like some of the music and even some individual scenes were quite well shot but as a whole it was a confusing, ill-paced mess from start to finish. 

Too many chefs in the kitchen: 
There were far too many characters in this movie. The avengers worked so well because they didn't really need to explain the background and motivations of everyone in a single movie. Had the Suicide squad taken a bit to either set up the characters in other movies (not really possible) or cut the squad in half it would have been better. Examples of this were with Captain Boomerang and Katana. I thought both were good but utterly useless characters. The only plot driving point the Captain was in is when he got the other guy killed. That could have easily been accomplished by HQ. Katana had no reason at all to be there. I thought it would be because of her sword but even then it wasn't. The guy they killed off needed an intro. The moment he came on screen we all knew he would die quickly and it had no impact. It was a useless death. Why were there two badguys? One would have been sufficient and cut out several minutes of useless footage. 

Its a marathon, not a sprint:

The pacing in here is way off. There are essentially four bricks in this movie with their own time slots and pacing independent of everything: Suicide Squad Proper's formation - Establishment of Waller and Enchantress - The City Rescue - Post Bar fight. Each one has its own pacing, which is okay, but then radically splits and sprints through the next section. Scott at Nerdsync had a brilliant idea to solve this issue: remove the whole Waller and Enchantress section. Don't give Enchantress a background nor explain that she was part of the team (its not like anyone on the team knew her anyway). Rather have the reveal when Deadshot discovers the TopSecret file. This could have saved you lots of time, made the idiotic plot setup more bearable by not focusing on it, and pushed a lot of intense character development for the bar scene, thus making it actually valuable and not the almost pointless lull it is. It might have even freed up enough time to have some kind of establishing training montage for the crew and not a random "here's the crew in the desert and now here's the crew in a Post-Apoc city jump". 

Characters: 
Too many characters were too flat. The only ones that got any depth were Deadshot, HQ, and Diablo. Even Flag, who should have had a major character arch, was almost exactly the same from start to finish. All that changed is that he decided to not ruthlessly behead some folks at the end. Woohoo?! This I think is an issue mostly from the number of characters and pacing. They could have focused far more on development if they weren't so worried about their stupid plot device. And the actors showed the ability to give dynamic roll so it is most certainly an error on the director's side. 

Jered Leto - This Joker (in both senses) was used in much the same way some female characters are used in the medium: purely as character set up for someone else. He only existed to explain HQ and give her a full arc. He was fully disposable - much like the acting job Leto gave. I might actually like the campy TV version more and I hated that one. He keeps saying that there was more footage of him - well it would seem the director made at least one good choice in the edit of this movie. 

Waller - I hate this character. I was always a reluctant fan of her in the shows, though. She was trying to fulfill a vital roll as a counter-balance to the League or such. While cold, she was driven. This one just seems to be a power hungry bureaucrat who enjoys a bit of torture and murder. Had the scene where she cold bloodedly murder her staff not happened I might have stayed on the fence about her - but once that happened I wanted her to die. I hope she never come back up (which I know is not a reasonable wish). The Waller I thought I knew wasn't one to choose murdering innocent folks lightly. The acting for her was okay - I don't think it was the great performance others are claiming. And certainly isn't worthy more praise than Smith or Robbie or even Croc's. 

All in all, this was a waste of money to go see. I do not look forward to anything with Leto and I am really hoping he doesn't drag down BatFlec. Watch it when it comes to a streaming service near you or not at all. 

 

Soar. 

[TheDarkness]

Sometimes, change does happen. How hard did Ed Brubaker have to fight to bring back Bucky? And that worked.

 

How long did replacing Steve Rogers with Bucky (and then Sam Wilson) work?

 

When Kyle Baker replaced Hal Jordon, many long-time fans were disgusted. When Hal Jordan came back, many fans of Kyle Rayner were disgusted. Now, DC can have them each headline a book, and fans of one over the other buy one, while fans of both are buying two books a month. Still can't figure out why the replaced Alan Scott, though

 

The fact is that change is dangerous - it may attract a new fanbase, and it may alienate the old one. The smaller the existing fanbase* is, the lower the risk.

 

*NOTE: Not the ones online who love the character but have not bought comics for X years - the ones that are buying the comics today. It doesn't cost DC or Marvel any money to have someone who isn't buying Superman or Spiderman now, hasn't for the past 5 years and does not intend to in the future if that guy is alienated and bad mouths them online. If anything, that may be good publicity when someone who might be interested in the new version reads about it in some old dude's rant about "the good old days".

I think the difference, for those examples, is that those were mostly plot changes, not changes in the characterization of a flagship character. Now, they did actually change the characterization of Bucky, but changing Bucky, who was gone for an extended period, is a lot different than changing Captain America, something they did change that actually stuck.

 

Superman, they've had very little success in adding compelling changes to that became canon.

 

Someone did make a great point about some comics where major characters had changes that stuck in the cases of comics like Flash and Wonder Woman because the comic previously had not been exactly vibrant in readership. I would say Miller's Daredevil is another example. Miller's Daredevil was really the first point in the comic where Daredevil became a character of his own, imo, and so it wasn't so much changes, as finally defined. And Miller's Bullseye, taking this kind of campy character and giving him real characterization, even if it was a psychotic hatred of Daredevil's mercy, made the whole thing more compelling.

 

This is sort of the advantage of a certain era, where there were some comics that had established branding of their main characters, but, because they had always been written for little kids(Flash is a good example), there had been less emphasis on writing and characterization, so there was room to move, as it were. That is less true now. Now, the characters who have never had strong writing are from the grimdark era, and it poses different problems for the writers, especially since everyone and their brother is a tough loner. I mean, how many years can Wolverine be an X-Man and claim to be a loner?

 

Actually, Wolverine is another good example of a character whose character doesn't really change. And the backstories they've added on to him don't help.

[bigdamnhero]

I mean, how many years can Wolverine be an X-Man and claim to be a loner?

And an Avenger, and Alpha Flight, and SHIELD...dude's a joiner.

 

Actually, Wolverine is another good example of a character whose character doesn't really change. And the backstories they've added on to him don't help.

Yeah. Tho given how old he's supposed to be, you could argue they're justified in having him be a little set in his ways. Not that I think that's a conscisou decision on Marvel's part, more "Fans love Logan - don't change him!" thing.

[massey]

You can do interesting stuff with Superman.  You don't have to change the character.  Just because he always does the right thing, doesn't mean he has to be boring.  Most TV dads will always do the right thing, but that doesn't mean that they're all Danny Tanner.  I'm reminded of an episode from I think the first season of Lois and Clark (which was as far as I watched).  They're investigating some sort of mob-connected nightclub or something, and they each go undercover.  Clark gets a job as like a bouncer or bodyguard or something (Dean Cain was a big dude), while Lois tries to sneak in some other way.  Lois gets found out, and the mob guys tell Clark (whose cover is still intact) to get rid of her. So he carries her kicking and screaming out of the club into an alleyway, and is going to put her in a trash dumpster.  He uses his x-ray vision to scan the dumpsters.  One is empty.  The other is full of rotting garbage.  He glances towards the camera and gives just a little smirk.  He picks the one that is full of garbage and throws her in.

 

Just because he's lawful good, doesn't mean he's completely boring.  He enjoys practical jokes from time to time.

 

With Superman, you have to make sure you make Clark Kent an interesting character.  The hook there is that both Clark and the audience are in on a really fun secret, and nobody else is.

[Greywind]

Well, having stuff in the dumpster helps cushion her landing.

[Lord Liaden]

[zslane]

It is difficult to tell stories about the same character for nearly 75+ years. Attempts to freshen up the character for each new generation are inevitable, and not all attempts are going to work well. It ruined the Star Trek franchise (IMO), and it is ruining the DC(E)U. I would say that 50-75 years of creaking continuity has ruined 616 and whatever DC calls its comic book multi-verse, but at this point nobody really expects the comics to save themselves from their own editorial misadventures anyway.

 

Me, I'm looking forward to the tv version of Wild Cards now.

[TheDarkness]

Except most TV dads don't always do the right thing. Especially for sitcoms, the genre is based on characters making mistakes which then lead to a resolution.

 

Superman tends to do what most people would think is the right thing, which the writers too often make be the right thing.

 

A reasonable amount of fallibility is often missing, which often makes the character a bit flat, imo.

[massey]

Except most TV dads don't always do the right thing. Especially for sitcoms, the genre is based on characters making mistakes which then lead to a resolution.

 

Superman tends to do what most people would think is the right thing, which the writers too often make be the right thing.

 

A reasonable amount of fallibility is often missing, which often makes the character a bit flat, imo.

 

A TV dad isn't going to murder his enemies, or seize control of the government, or level a city.

[薔薇語]

A TV dad isn't going to murder his enemies, or seize control of the government, or level a city.

 

And that is why the whole genre is unwatchable. Conan for dad! 

 

Soar. 

[Nolgroth]

"Crush your political opponents. See them driven out of politics. Hear the lamenting of their delegates!"

[sinanju]

I once thought that if I were in charge of Marvel or DC, I'd do away with Continuity . It was my view that too-strict adherence to continuity led to storytelling failure. And it still might be true. I thought that if, instead, you let artists and writers run the character during their time on the book, and use as much (or as little) continuity from previous works as they liked, you might get better results.

 

I don't think that anymore. Seeing how badly many books have splintered--I literally have NO IDEA how many X-Men variations (individuals, teams, universes) there are anymore, for instance--I see the problem there. I find it hard to care about ANY of them. Ditto for the exploding Spidey-verse. And other comic books/characters who all resemble Hydra these days. "Cut off one head, and two more will take its place!"

 

I'm not sure there IS an answer. The anecdotes about comic book editors who recycle stories on a two-year timeline because they believe the readers will have turned over by then...were probably mostly right. Nowadays, most comic readers are long-time fans who haunt their local comic shop for their latest offerings. This is especially true given that you can't pick up a comic from the spinner rack in your local drugstore anymore, which was how I got hooked back in the 70s.

 

So you can't just recycle the stories. (Well, you CAN, but....) And too much change will unhinge the fanboys or start a shooting war between the pro-change and anti-change crowds. You just can't win.

[zslane]

I don't have any financial figures to back it up, but I would think that putting out controversial continuity-changing storylines that divide the fanbase would be a good thing. Any time you have the fans arguing over things it means they are reading the material and caring about it, to the extent that they fight over it.

 

As I see it, the real problem is that comic publishing, whether it is digital or paper, is a business first and foremost. The notion of stopping a successful title just because the character should (realistically) retire after ten years of fighting villains--to say nothing of the plot churn that comes with such longevity--is anathema to publishers. Moreover, they realize that coming up with interesting characters and (financially) successful storylines is not so easy, so exchanging one aging character with a fresh new character in the company's roster would be a terrifying prospect.

 

However, that's how I would want to run a comic publishing company if I had the chance. I'm not saying it would work out, but I like the idealism of it. I like the idea that each character is allowed a single virtual "lifetime" to fight crime and save the world, and that the superhero universe is allowed to have an ever-changing tapestry of characters that come and go once their storylines are played out. Sure, there might be the occasional immortal character, but this standard practice of keeping the main characters 25-35 years old forever would go bye-bye.

 

Fans of popular characters would cry, "But we love the Justice Queen! Don't take her away!" to which I would respond, "Don't worry, we have another character coming up that is just as interesting and that you'll love even more!" It would be necessary to back that up with the goods, but that's the challenge. The creative challenge that no publisher is willing to undertake because it's too hard and probably doesn't make enough money (though I think that is solved by merchandizing the characters in other forms).

 

Anyway, that's my idealistic rant for the day.