Sperg about comic books here

[Zaragoza]

I loved his Hitman run and this is one of my favorite issues. Just Tommy fanboying over running into Superman and having a honest heartfelt conversation about being everyone's hero and the weight that it entails when people expect you to not fuck up.

I didn't even know about the Hitman series until way after, before I was unfortunately exposed to his works of the Crossed series and it painted my first impressions of him as this edge lord so I was hesitant on reading his shit for a long time until I read his Fury MAX series and then I started to explore his other works such as the kick ass Preacher series. It's weird to think he wrote that beautiful eulogy at the end of JLA/Hitman to Homelander. It's absolutely hilarious thinking about that.

I've read Strikes Again several times, in an effort to figure out what exactly Miller was trying to accomplish with it. It's such a weird book; it's like it's trying to be a fun goofy story but it's so openly contemptuous of the characters that it can't even manage to do that.

I will say that it's sequel, Dark Knight: The Master Race, is much better, though Miller is only a co-writer on that one and only does art on some of the side-stories. It's not a perfect story, by any means, but it's a step in the right direction.

Of course, that's without getting into the most recent chapter, which...well, yeah. The less said about that, the better.

The amount of characters featured in the story is making me think this was some story originally meant for a JLA issue, and in regards to the artwork, if you go from Daredevil to Ronin to Dark Knight Returns and to Sin City, the guy is constantly experimenting with his artwork. I think this is another stage of his experimenting, as it presents itself as a kinda if Kabuki theater, which suits the absurdity if the story's world.

 

[I can't imagine]

The amount of characters featured in the story is making me think this was some story originally meant for a JLA issue, and in regards to the artwork, if you go from Daredevil to Ronin to Dark Knight Returns and to Sin City, the guy is constantly experimenting with his artwork. I think this is another stage of his experimenting, as it presents itself as a kinda if Kabuki theater, which suits the absurdity if the story's world.

I think it was mostly that it was Miller's first substantial work for DC in over a decade, so there was the combination of him wanting to do everything all at once, and them being unwilling to say no. In fairness to DC, it was going to be a big hit no matter what, so they didn't exactly have a reason to say no. In a lot of ways, the same thing sorta happened with All-Star B&R, where he kept adding characters in just because he wanted to.

Truthfully, the art in DKSA never really bothered me personally, but I know it's a turn-off for a lot of people. I definitely prefer his earlier work, but I didn't think his art hurt the story. I don't even think the actual story in DKSA is all that bad. It's the characterization and dialogue that are the problems, IMO.

 

[2021Murder]

Has there been any quality comics in the dc and marvel universe this century? It seems like everything is shit and people keep buying because they remember liking them in the 90s

 

[AverageAnimeWatcher]

I will say that it's sequel, Dark Knight: The Master Race, is much better, though Miller is only a co-writer on that one and only does art on some of the side-stories. It's not a perfect story, by any means, but it's a step in the right direction.

I read that one out of curiosity. It's not bad, I would say Ok even. But the biggest issue is that it's not really a Batman story. I mean Batman does show up, and he does things, but the story is actually more about Superman's daughter. Heck, this story retconned Batman's win on TDK as Superman holding back. The same goes for the DK: The golden child, that was more about how OP Superman's son is, and Batman doesn't even show up. I don't think he was even mentioned.

For all the hate Miller has on Superman, it's amazing how little Batman there is in his DK sequels. You would think he would focus on Batman fighting against someone villain like the joker, but not really.

When Miller Made The Dark Knight returns it's obvious he had a lot of passion for telling a Batman story, but the sequels show he rather do something else.

 

[Detrogen]

Has there been any quality comics in the dc and marvel universe this century? It seems like everything is shit and people keep buying because they remember liking them in the 90s

Batman: White Knight is generally accepted as good. The sequel is pretty boring so far.

Outside of that there’s not really any great whole runs (apart from Grant Morrison’s Green Lantern) so much as there’s been a few really good story arcs like Tom King’s “Cold Days” on Batman and Dan Jurgens’ “Evil’s Might” on Green Lanterns.

Also the “New Age of Heroes” line was generally well received. Silencer is typically cited as the best.

Marvel is pretty much Venom and the first 20 issues of Immortal Hulk. Otherwise, Spider-Man: Life Story was an excellent miniseries.

 

[2021Murder]

Spider-Man: Life Story was an excellent miniseries.

Thats good. That was one of the few comics i read from the last 20 years. But even that one, it showed how few good stories there were once they hit the 2000s, i mean pete vs vampires and 9/11 and civil war.

It really tells you how little anyone cares about comics, you would think after they destroyed the ultimates line they would have come up with a comic universe based on the films.

 

[DDBCAE CBAADCBE]

The world of comics is dead and it has been for a long time now. I think in a way Kingdom Come kinda predicted what was going to happen.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Still gotta love George Perez's stint on Wonder Woman

 

[Zaragoza]

"Hey kid, you just went through the most traumatic experience of your life. Since I saved your life you are now my slave and you'll join me in my war." ~ The Goddamn Batman

Jesus, Bruce is terrifying in All Star Batman & Robin, he literally starves Robin to death and gets after Alfred after feeding the poor kid. That last page in issue 4 was like 'this boy is ruining our relationship - DAMN HIM' lol

 

[Next Task]

Going for The Long Halloween next and I'm going to pretend that events of Strikes Again is non-canon.

That's an interesting question to me, especially with these characters that are getting close to a century of stories told about them.

What counts as canon? Theoretically, it's everything that's in continuity that hasn't been retconned, right? With the universe reboots and so on a lot of stuff becomes non-canon, which means with Batman as an example the only stuff that is currently canon in the comics is ... whatever's been published since the last time they fucked with the entire timeline, I don't know when that is.

So, like with Star Wars, there's decades of stuff that's no longer considered canon, right? Anything before Crisis on Infinite Earths, presumably? My understanding is that he managed to keep a lot of his continuity going with the New 52 because whoever was running the character at DC with the Batman family stuff was doing popular work and they didn't want the New 52 to interrupt that, but I don't really know. And since then there's been Flashpoint and Zero Hour and half a dozen universe-altering events, right, so actually very little of the Batman books that have been ever produced actually count as canon right now, right? And that's not counting other Elseworlds and what if stories and things like the comics by the guy who's a Hollow Earther...

And of course, that's not counting TV canon with Gotham, other TV canon with his unseen role in the Arrowverse, other other TV canon (potentially - I don't know how it fits in) with Pennyworth, other other other TV canon (which also had their own comics) with the 60s Batman, and the animated Batmans (whichever ones of those that are linked), and Batman's appearances in other animated shows like Justice League Unlimited... and then there's game canon, and Burton/Schumacher canon, and Nolan canon, and DCU canon, and Harley Quinn/Suicide Squad canon, and Joker canon, and potentially Battinson canon...

It makes a fucking good argument for headcanons, which I generally hate because it's usually how exceptional individuals justify their ships and Everyone Is Trans nonsense.

But there must be an answer, at least for the comics. What, currently, in just the comics published by DC, counts as canon for Batman? It happened recently enough that I'm guessing him almost marrying Catwoman and Alfred dying are part of it. What else? Which Robins? Which groups is he a part of? How is he getting on with others in the DC Universe? Does he use bat-gadgets? What, currently, counts?

 

[Detrogen]

@Next Task I don’t take canon into account with comics anymore. Marvel is (or was) better about maintaining a singular canon, but keeping track of how many kids Batman has working under him, or who is wearing the Venom suit this week just isn’t worth the trouble at this point.

I tend to just jump onto a series and treat it as its own thing and if there’s some guest character in an issue or something, well that’s just fine. I mentioned two specific arcs from Green Lanterns and Tom King’s Batman, and those are literally the only arcs I own in paperback. The rest of the continuity for those series just does not matter to me.

 

[Affluent Reptilian]

Read the Spider-Man: Life Story mini yesterday - gimmick being it takes a lot of elements of Spider-Man's history then puts them in a timeline where the world and Peter actually age. Some things I liked, some things I didn't, although on the whole I'd say it's decent, but one thing that really hit home emotionally was the final dream Peter had.

Spoiler

He's imagining telling Mary Jane about the dream - he'd begun to tell her in person earlier but hadn't finished - and it's the Uncle Ben dream. The comic makes the obvious point that with all the people Peter's saved, he can never save the one he really wants to - Ben. As Peter dies, he imagines telling Mary Jane that it was the Uncle Ben dream, but that this time he acted and stopped the robber. His final line is 'It was a good dream'. Really bitter-sweet as he imagines this while doing something where he's saving everyone in the world. He'd finally found peace and felt he was living up to his ideal of responsibility.

Man, that was sad. Props to Zdarsky for that. I might read his Spectacular Spider-Man run.

 

[2021Murder]

"Hey kid, you just went through the most traumatic experience of your life. Since I saved your life you are now my slave and you'll join me in my war." ~ The Goddamn Batman

Jesus, Bruce is terrifying in All Star Batman & Robin, he literally starves Robin to death and gets after Alfred after feeding the poor kid. That last page in issue 4 was like 'this boy is ruining our relationship - DAMN HIM' lol

I'd say thats pretty realistic, i fully expect the sort of crazy person that goes out and fights people at night to be extremely abusive and not caring about others. Plus modern Batman is essentially just a stand-in for Frank Miller if he was a billionaire orphan. Look how nuts he went after 9/11. I'm sure if 9/11 happened 25 years before it did, Frank would have been patrolling Hell's Kitchen between 12-4am going full Bernie Goetz/George Zimmermann on criminals.

@Next Task DC has a much better timeline compared to Marvel, most people that feel Marvel is better at keeping track seem to forget its not the 80s anymore. Tons of websites have a pretty good chronology of the DC universe from 1980s until now. There is one even just for Batman stuff, that goes from his debut 80 years ago until now, and the guy says he will keep it updated until he dies, so possibly it will be the best chronology until he dies.

could never get into Marvel because of the timeline bullshit, Spider-man graduated high school in 68 and only turned 30 last year,, Meanwhile Magneto is a 60 year old holocaust survivor. And The Punisher was drafted in Viet Nam and is, collecting social security checks, also Mr.Fantastic's kid is buying cigarettes in NYC without being carded. i could never find answer to my questions or even a good comprehensive timeline for Marvel. Meanwhile DC has a pretty good grasp on the first 3 year of every superhero and how things gel out from there. Even the bat family wasn't complicated, its only gotten bad pretty recently with Batman franchising out batman-esque crimefighting. but things are working out pretty well. 1986-2011 is a fucking great run timeline wise. basically Golden age: DC, Silver age: Marvel, Modern Age: DC, post-modern age: switch to manga

 

[Overly Serious]

Has there been any quality comics in the dc and marvel universe this century? It seems like everything is shit and people keep buying because they remember liking them in the 90s

I've been reading The Immortal Hulk and find it very interesting. It's taken a shift from the weird cosmic body-horror it began with now into some sort of weird culture wars thing but it's still one of the best comics at the moment, imo. Slightly subtle detail in the last issue, one of the low-level villains is a trans scientist who makes street drugs for the Kingpin and starts churning out black market HRT which they can sell to people who have trouble getting it due to medical oversight. Not sure if the author realises their character is now making money from fucking up young kids and using this to illustrate how they are a villain; or if they think it portrays the villain in a more positive light. Probably the latter sadly but at least this comic doesn't hit you over the head with black and white SJW morality like crap like the Ignite stuff or whatever it is Just Some Guy does videos on.

 

[Affluent Reptilian]

Has there been any quality comics in the dc and marvel universe this century? It seems like everything is shit and people keep buying because they remember liking them in the 90s

Sure, plenty. Everything Jon Hickman has done in Marvel for a start. Timothy Snyder's Court of Owls and Black Mirror are pretty good. There've been some fun pulpy events like Geoff Johns' Green Lantern stuff and Mark Millar's Wolverine: Enemy of the State and Old Man Logan. There are many others - those I've named aren't the best, necessarily, but just those that spring to mind off-hand.

If you mean genre-rocking publications like Dark Knight Returns, not so much.

 

[JimiHendrix]

Timothy Snyder's Court of Owls and Black Mirror are pretty good.

innit Scott Synder? Also I've been reading the latest Hellblazer thing that takes place in the Sandman universe. It's still really good. Great art and great writing, Constantines always been a character that interested me and after reading 90% of his original vertigo run, the 4 issues released so far of the new run are just as good. I'm honestly just really happy Constantine has a good series again after Rebirth and New 52 apparently were bad.

 

[Dom Cruise]

That's an interesting question to me, especially with these characters that are getting close to a century of stories told about them.

What counts as canon? Theoretically, it's everything that's in continuity that hasn't been retconned, right? With the universe reboots and so on a lot of stuff becomes non-canon, which means with Batman as an example the only stuff that is currently canon in the comics is ... whatever's been published since the last time they fucked with the entire timeline, I don't know when that is.

So, like with Star Wars, there's decades of stuff that's no longer considered canon, right? Anything before Crisis on Infinite Earths, presumably? My understanding is that he managed to keep a lot of his continuity going with the New 52 because whoever was running the character at DC with the Batman family stuff was doing popular work and they didn't want the New 52 to interrupt that, but I don't really know. And since then there's been Flashpoint and Zero Hour and half a dozen universe-altering events, right, so actually very little of the Batman books that have been ever produced actually count as canon right now, right? And that's not counting other Elseworlds and what if stories and things like the comics by the guy who's a Hollow Earther...

And of course, that's not counting TV canon with Gotham, other TV canon with his unseen role in the Arrowverse, other other TV canon (potentially - I don't know how it fits in) with Pennyworth, other other other TV canon (which also had their own comics) with the 60s Batman, and the animated Batmans (whichever ones of those that are linked), and Batman's appearances in other animated shows like Justice League Unlimited... and then there's game canon, and Burton/Schumacher canon, and Nolan canon, and DCU canon, and Harley Quinn/Suicide Squad canon, and Joker canon, and potentially Battinson canon...

It makes a fucking good argument for headcanons, which I generally hate because it's usually how exceptional individuals justify their ships and Everyone Is Trans nonsense.

But there must be an answer, at least for the comics. What, currently, in just the comics published by DC, counts as canon for Batman? It happened recently enough that I'm guessing him almost marrying Catwoman and Alfred dying are part of it. What else? Which Robins? Which groups is he a part of? How is he getting on with others in the DC Universe? Does he use bat-gadgets? What, currently, counts?

Here's how I think Superhero comic continuity should work.

Reboot it every decade, from the first year of a decade to it's last have all new versions of the stories and characters, change things up, update them to reflect the times, have the characters age in real time, tell a great big story arc with a beginning middle and an end and have different fates for the characters at every ending.

That way each generation of a decade can have their own version of the characters to call their own, the story telling can be riskier rather than almost always have to maintain some sort of status quo and the continuity can be more realistic rather than stretching back decades and somehow having the characters age slower than in real life.

It would also make it more welcoming for newcomers as you'd only have less than a decade of stuff to get caught up for whatever current continuity on rather than decades.

 

[Affluent Reptilian]

innit Scott Synder? Also I've been reading the latest Hellblazer thing that takes place in the Sandman universe. It's still really good. Great art and great writing, Constantines always been a character that interested me and after reading 90% of his original vertigo run, the 4 issues released so far of the new run are just as good. I'm honestly just really happy Constantine has a good series again after Rebirth and New 52 apparently were bad.

Oops, yes. Timothy Snyder is the Yale Historian who said in May 2016 it was almost certain Trump would attempt a coup within a year, or four years at the most.

 

[Ma Wang]

Dan DiDio No Longer DC's Co-Publisher

DC Comics Co-Publisher Dan DiDio no longer holds that role at the company.

www.cbr.com

The Phantom of Krankor's reign has come to an end.

 

[Jetpack Himmler]

Methinks AT&T is getting cold feet over Generation Five/5G.