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Arthur Morgan said:
That's kind of what they did in BTAS. Harley got released, then bought a coat but was convinced she was going to go back to Arkham because the clerk forgot to take the tag off and freaked out. But while it would work a couple of times, eventually people would get sick of it. Like in the 90s/00s, there were all those stories of Bruce dismissing his allies, things going bad, and then him learning the lesson that he needs to let people in and trust them over and over again.

Birds of Prey sucked as a movie, but Harley teaming up with some heroes who could keep her in line could be an interesting way to take it, especially if they have good chemistry. Or hell, go back to the original BoP concept of Oracle using Black Canary as her agent while she runs ops. Barbara trying to wrangle Harley from a distance could be hilarious.


That's the problem with unfreezing Nora. It has to be the end of Mr Freeze because Victor without Nora is just boring. If she gets unfrozen and hates what he's become trying to revive her, then all sympathy goes out the window and his reason for being him just becomes 'standard maniac'. But you don't have to do it. You can keep her frozen forever, just say that every treatment Freeze has tried hasn't worked.
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I'd love for a plot twist to be "she's not really revealed, this is just a clone gone mad"
 
I'm reading The Sandman by Neil Gaiman (yes, I know) and I am enjoying it. However, something tickles me as funny:

Gaiman is a big LGBT ally.
He creates a character called Desire of the Endless, who is non-binary.
NB character rapes a woman while she was asleep.

Netflix changes a lot to be "modernized," like raceswapping among other things.

Doesn't change that the NB character is a racist, and cast an NB actor to play them. What did he mean by this?
 
LolRaccoon said:
I'm reading The Sandman by Neil Gaiman (yes, I know) and I am enjoying it. However, something tickles me as funny:

Gaiman is a big LGBT ally.
He creates a character called Desire of the Endless, who is non-binary.
NB character rapes a woman while she was asleep.

Netflix changes a lot to be "modernized," like raceswapping among other things.

Doesn't change that the NB character is a racist, and cast an NB actor to play them. What did he mean by this?
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Gayman is a confirmed sex pest that got outed recently. He is really living up to the "ally" part alright. It is really showing in his works like the aforementioned Desire rape and so on.
Honestly I always thought Sandman and Gaiman for that matter were overrated. Alot of other Vertigo titles deserved more traction from the casuals as "the muh adult comic"
 
Jetpack Himmler said:
Well, Captain Cold is more of a blue-collar criminal motivated by money so there is incentive for him to work on both sides on the law as long as the payout is worth it. Hell, his moral code is based on practicality as he is willing to kill out of revenge with the two main examples being Chillbain (for killing his sister) and Inertia/Kid Zoom (for tricking him and the Rogues into killing Bart Allen).


You need to be more specific because there have been three Killer Frosts.

Crystal Frost was a crazed misandrist who died a mass murderer after Firestorm vaporized her.

Louise Lincoln was her own kind of crazy as she felt guilty for living while her mentor, Crystal Frost, died so she committed metaphorical suicide by becoming Killer Frost so that Crystal Frost could "live" again. She's an unrepentant murderer like her predecessor.

Carlin Snow is the Killer Frost who is an anti-hero.
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I think most of DC's major Ice-villains have kinda been on the side of good for one reason or another.

Captain Cold and the Rogues have a code and the guy was a bounty hunter for a while after Barry died. The Second Icicle helped restore the world after the Ultra-HUmanite took over Johnny Thunder's body.

At least one Killer Frost has been a JLA member. Captain Cold was one for a bit too. Icicle 2 was offered JSA membership. Hell, Icicle 1 died in Crisis while trying to help save everything.

Mr. Freeze has probably done some acts of good for one reason or another too. Aside from these, I can't remember any other ice-villains. . . (Chillblaine doesn't count lmfao)

as for Ice heroes, they kinda tend to be uniquely situated in teams. Ice, Icemaiden, and Polar Boy are all notable JLI/Legion members with interesting dynamics and histories. They're all close to a hero with thematically opposite power sets (Fire, Sun Boy, etc)
 
LolRaccoon said:
I'm reading The Sandman by Neil Gaiman (yes, I know) and I am enjoying it. However, something tickles me as funny:

Gaiman is a big LGBT ally.
He creates a character called Desire of the Endless, who is non-binary.
NB character rapes a woman while she was asleep.

Netflix changes a lot to be "modernized," like raceswapping among other things.

Doesn't change that the NB character is a racist, and cast an NB actor to play them. What did he mean by this?
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Sandman is one of the works that alongside Death Note I never had the interest to read and probably never will.

Read the new godzilla oneshot... Man these fucking sucks. Remember when Godzilla comics were good?
 
Bay Kemal said:
Gayman is a confirmed sex pest that got outed recently. He is really living up to the "ally" part alright. It is really showing in his works like the aforementioned Desire rape and so on.
Honestly I always thought Sandman and Gaiman for that matter were overrated. Alot of other Vertigo titles deserved more traction from the casuals as "the muh adult comic"
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Early Sandman is cool when it crosses over with Hellblazer and was more of a horror comic book. But some of the later fantasy stuff lost it's allure for me. I loved the Corinthian and Family Man references.

Overall I agree with you. I think Vertigo has produced the best comic books of all time and have no idea why Sandman is the one that really took off. Maybe it was just right place at the right time.

LolRaccoon said:
I'm reading The Sandman by Neil Gaiman (yes, I know) and I am enjoying it. However, something tickles me as funny:

Gaiman is a big LGBT ally.
He creates a character called Desire of the Endless, who is non-binary.
NB character rapes a woman while she was asleep.

Netflix changes a lot to be "modernized," like raceswapping among other things.

Doesn't change that the NB character is a racist, and cast an NB actor to play them. What did he mean by this?
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I probably wouldn't describe Desire as non-binary. I would just say that they are gender fluid if we were to use modern terminology. But really in terms of the actual story, they're more like Norse gods who change their sex and or turn into horses and get horses pregnant. I don't really view Desire as a statement on gender.

Wanda was, though. I'm not sure how far you are into the story, but Wanda is not really treated as a shitty person and Gaiman certainly treated her with respect.
 
Bay Kemal said:
Gayman is a confirmed sex pest that got outed recently. He is really living up to the "ally" part alright. It is really showing in his works like the aforementioned Desire rape and so on.
Honestly I always thought Sandman and Gaiman for that matter were overrated. Alot of other Vertigo titles deserved more traction from the casuals as "the muh adult comic"
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Thank you! I liked the earlier volumes. But Dream is boring and pretentious. Death is unbearable.

Gaiman's done good comics. But Sandman is what irks because it's everything bad about him as a creative.
 
Pepsi Vs Coke. Fight! said:
Maybe it was just right place at the right time.
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That's pretty much it. The goth scene was starting to take off and be adopted by 'posers' plus for many people this was their first 'adult' or 'darker' comic. The references to Shakespeare and other historical events added a level of prestige to it that made people think it was smarter than it was. It was edgy for its time, but still had enough mainstream appeal to elevate it for the hipsters who see themselves above the superhero genre. Just like Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns.

Having said that, I still like it. More the fantasy stuff than the horror, but after reading Hellblazer, I get a lot more of what Gaiman was going for now.
 
ChampFantana said:
Is Hellblazer any good?
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Depends.

The original ongoing? Yes it's great; most writers' runs are at least good. Standouts are Delano, Ellis, Ennis, Jenkins, and Carey. Azzarello has some good issues but his run overall is bad. Also, from the moment Denise Mina takes over from Carey, quality falls off and never gets as good again. Diggle had its moments, but still not good enough. We had high hopes for Milligan, but it sucked, and the ending (to the whole series!) was bad and confusing.
So you can read from the start (Delano) to 215 (Carey) and it'll be an overall great experience. But I recommend stopping there.

The many relaunches, reintegrations into DC, and reboots of John books that came after? No, it's mostly shit.

The current iteration (John Constantine: Hellblazer /JC:H - Dead in America, by Si Spurrier) is decent, a wee bit of a return to form, but still doesn't rank -for me- among the good Hellblazer runs mentioned before.
Ironically, Spurrier put out an original book called Damn Them All! which was a better Hellblazer than his Hellblazer, and if you do some search and replace of a couple characters' names in your mind as you read it, you can pretend it's the new ending to the original series.
 
Thanks for the info. I'm currently reading lots of Dredd stuff, but I'll check out Hellblazer when I get the time.

I absolutely LOVE Judge Dredd, but I think that Ian Gibson is one of the weaker artists to work on that series. Carlos of course, is the very best, but I also really like Steve Dillon and Brian Bolland's art in that series.
 
ChampFantana said:
but I also really like Steve Dillon
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Then you'll have fun with Garth Ennis' run on Hellblazer. It's widely considered the best Hellblazer run*, and it's drawn mainly by Dillon.

*Opinions may vary; me, personally, I'd say it's tied with Carey's for n.1. Ennis' highs are higher than Carey's, but Carey is more consistently good, and for longer. I'd even say that Ennis' Dangerous Habits story, which is usually named as the essential Hellblazer story, is matched in quality by Carey's All His Engines.
 
After deciding I was going to pass on the big DC vs. Marvel omnibus, I pulled the trigger after all when Amazon put it on sale and I had a random credit I could apply to it. And I have thoughts:

1. It is a truly glorious volume, and an impressive time capsule of what passed for good superhero art between the late 70's and the turn of the century.

2. There are some things that I knew wouldn't be included, but would have been nice to have. Even before Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man, the two companies collaborated on a Wizard of Oz book. Also, Archie Meets the Punisher slots in nicely between the two Batman/Punisher books to form a strange little trilogy. None of the Wildstorm crossovers are here either. Expected, but the WildCATS did meet both the X-Men and the JLA.

There's a bloody "attitudes have changed, presented unedited for historical reasons" disclaimer on the copyright page. Dumbass cowards.

The question now is, do I get next month's Amalgam omnibus after all?
 
ChampFantana said:
but I also really like Steve Dillon
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I had mostly seen Dillon's later art before I jumped onto The Complete Case Files. Not seeing the sameface everywhere was a big and a welcome surprise.
I used to think it was funny but I am currently rereading Preacher and it got annoying fast. I wonder when he gave up and became so lazy.
Steve Martin Short said:
There's a bloody "attitudes have changed, presented unedited for historical reasons" disclaimer on the copyright page. Dumbass cowards.
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Every piece of rereleased media is getting printed with that shit by default nowadays. It is awful but I unfortunately had come to terms with it.
 
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I prefer it, because if they don't include that, they've typically cut content that pussies consider offensive today. At least with the disclaimer you know you're getting it intact.
 
It does raise the question of what they're ashamed of. Is it the native African tribesman with the college education who embarrasses Superman's assumptions in the first story, or is it the presence of the Punisher at all? Because Marvel's been doing Frank Castle dirty lately.
 
I picked up an Avengers Epic Collection the other day. The Evil Reborn, collecting issues 190 through 210 (1980-81). I never read the Avengers growing up, so this is my first time reading these stories. This volume is... weird.

  • The Avengers fight two separate mooks who were murdered at chemical plants and became rampaging fire monsters out for revenge.
  • The Beast's characterization is all over the map. He starts out being a pop culture reference machine, but despite the comic being published in the 80s, he only references things from the 50s and 60s. Then at some point the writer decides his thing is languages, so he spends one issue talking in different languages. Then towards the very end of the run he becomes more science-focused and says "oh my stars and garters" like a hundred times. All in all, he went from my most hated character to kinda tolerable towards the end.
  • The Wasp has a massive inferiority complex. She keeps referring to herself as the Avengers weakest member and claims nobody respects her, but she's literally the one who saves the day in every issue.
  • Captain Marvel is barely in this volume. She fucks off to the beach with Wanda, tells Wanda kids suck, immediately gets pregnant, gives birth to the man who impregnated her, runs off to limbo with him, comes back to San Francisco, gets depowered by Rogue and then shits on the Avengers for not protecting her.
  • The one thing these comics do really well is make really shitty villains seem imposing. There's a two issue story where the Yellow Claw nearly sterilizes the world, and another one where the Grey Gargoyle just brutalizes the Avengers. Every villain is given major gravitas, something sorely lacking in modern comics.
  • Speaking of good villains, its really great seeing Destiny doing something useful for a change. I don't think I've read a comic where she's taken the field in a fight before. Here, she's rather effectively directing the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in a fight against the Avengers.
Overall, I'd give the volume a 5/10. The writing and art are serviceable, but they both feel a bit dated for 1980.
 
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