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[Bitching Thread VI] A Brand New Day (for bitching)
Lucascraft
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'd like to begin this new bitching thread by tossing a bitch in the direction of the Superman books.
What the hell.
Between the terrible clusterfuck that has been the last year (almost) of Superman, and the awful new Reign of the Doomsdays thing in Action Comics, there's not really any good Superman books right now.
How did Action Comics go from the amazing Lex Luthor arc to this completely dull Doomsday thing?
It was Action Comics #900. That book was pretty awful for such a milestone issue. The main story which was the conclusion of the Lex Luthor arc was really chaotic and hard to follow. The Doomsday stuff felt really out of place and made no sense at all against the backdrop of the Black Ring plot.
And I guess this whole Doomsday plot was engineered by Lex? When exactly did that happen? Because I've been reading Action Comics, and for the past 12 months, Lex has been completely obsessed and single minded in his search for the power of the Black Ring and those black energy deposits. When did he have time to create a few Doomsday clones and some sort of crazy space station when he was matching wits with Randall Savage, Larfleeze, Joker, a Lois Bot with a secret agenda, and a bunch of other crap.
Oh. And I guess Paul Cornell hasn't been reading Green Lantern Corps. Otherwise he'd know that Hank Henshaw, aka Cyborg Superman, is out of commission. His body was completely destroyed and his spirit was trapped inside the green battery of Bodikka.
What the hell.
Between the terrible clusterfuck that has been the last year (almost) of Superman, and the awful new Reign of the Doomsdays thing in Action Comics, there's not really any good Superman books right now.
How did Action Comics go from the amazing Lex Luthor arc to this completely dull Doomsday thing?
It was Action Comics #900. That book was pretty awful for such a milestone issue. The main story which was the conclusion of the Lex Luthor arc was really chaotic and hard to follow. The Doomsday stuff felt really out of place and made no sense at all against the backdrop of the Black Ring plot.
And I guess this whole Doomsday plot was engineered by Lex? When exactly did that happen? Because I've been reading Action Comics, and for the past 12 months, Lex has been completely obsessed and single minded in his search for the power of the Black Ring and those black energy deposits. When did he have time to create a few Doomsday clones and some sort of crazy space station when he was matching wits with Randall Savage, Larfleeze, Joker, a Lois Bot with a secret agenda, and a bunch of other crap.
Oh. And I guess Paul Cornell hasn't been reading Green Lantern Corps. Otherwise he'd know that Hank Henshaw, aka Cyborg Superman, is out of commission. His body was completely destroyed and his spirit was trapped inside the green battery of Bodikka.
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But yeah right now Superman is limping along and has been for some time.
Nope. He escaped again during the "Reign of Doomsday" buildup story that took place in Steel, Outsiders, JLA, Batman/Superman Annual, and Superboy.
Specifically, he escaped from Bodikka in JLA 55 and then had a knock-down, drag-out battle with Doomsday in the Batman/Superman annual. Turns out Bodikka hadn't defeated him, he was just waiting idle inside her.
I mean, Lex becomes cosmically powerful and in the end he gets outsmarted by Superman in a moment of rage.
I want to see Lex triumph. I want to see Lex have an Adrian Veidt moment. I want Lex to pull off a plan so masterful and so sinister that it leaves everyone's jaws dropping in the end.
Well it's a nice dream anyways with how silver age DC really is getting, especially if some of the rumors of Flash Point are true.
I bet you could. :winky:
I skimmed through Avengers 13 when I got my comics on Wednesday. Pthbbbbt. Though I am disappointed in Strange Adventures to the extent that a couple of the stories were depressing as Hell. I already hate writing that shit.
"Say WHAT?"
Huerta won the election, he was the moderate liberal candidate, right? It was mentioned in one of their comics, I want to say JSA or Action Comics last year.
recently?
In Brevoort's (online) case it might be all the time. What did DC screw up this time that Marvel got 100% correct?
Along these lines, I really don't like when Marvel starts acting like they are defenders of the average retailer. A $4 book does increase revenue but it also has the effect, that has been seen in recent sales, of lowering the amount of copies ordered in recent years, on top of a troubled economy. More potential revenue but you are pulling from a smaller amount of people that this industry has a very hard time of bringing back into the fold.
On top of that, Marvel have mastered the art of TBA/TBD solicitations which can be hard for gauging orders, changing creative teams for already solicited books (or not at all), particularly when they flood the market with Cap and Thor tie-ins, variant covers that can only be obtained with very high ratios, and being a pain in getting products made returnable (so much so they had to be sued in the past). And while we're at it, Marvel going down to 20 pages on $3 books without telling anyone (on top of berating DC for doing it months ago) can't be that helpful to retailers when they won't even announce this information.
To be honest, it looks to me like one of two things is happening. The first possibility I see is Disney giving Marvel an "increase your book revenue" order, and Marvel's going for the "increase cost per book" strategy rather than the "increase sales" strategy. The other possibility is Marvel sees the nail in the comic book coffin, and are trying to create a reason to drop single issues, switching to a digital delivery method to increase profit without being singled out as the reason that comic book stores die.
I'll continue to support as many $3 books as I can, but I am about ready to drop anything that's $4 outside of an concessional limited series, one-shot, or event crossover.
Yeah, that will work really well as they put their digital comics in "the vault." Even Disney doesn't use the vault nonsense anymore, do they? Jesus Christ, this isn't 1986.
Indeed. Comics are nothing if not incredibly inelastic.
This one-shot has the most pop-culture shout outs of any comic I have ever read, far and beyond anything else. And it really takes me out of the experience when Jimmy Olsen randomly tosses out a line from a Talking Heads song or the title of a Spiritualized album, or his buddy tells him about the great augmented reality apps at the iPad store. It's really grating, because 1. it grounds the story firmly in our time and world, and 2. I don't think Jimmy Olsen would really talk like that.
It's funny, because Spencer does totally nail it otherwise, and he has Jimmy's voice down and the whole thing is well-written beyond those constant shout outs to Avatar and Net Neutrality and whatnot. That is all just super-annoying. Does he do this kind of thing in Iron Man 2.0? I just kind of assume he does it in most of his creator-owned work, since it seems to be firmly rounded in that kind of world.
popular superhero comics are essentially static settings and are written with a three to five year turnover
My biggest problem was that the actual plot/quest was really poorly constructed and made zero sense at all, especially the last two chapters when Lex actually finds his power. It came out of nowhere, and while it definitely felt like it was exactly what they had been planning the whole time, it was still completely random and not satisfying at all. It felt like a cheat, really.
The characterization of everyone except Superman was fantastic, though, and the book had a fun, highfaulutin' spirit. It's just a shame the plot sucked. I double-dip my absolute favorite arcs and get them as single issues and then later again as trades or deluxe hardcovers. Originally I thought The Black Ring would be one of those, but I'm probably just going to put these issues in a long box somewhere and forget about them now.
Finally, a lot of people said the crossover took the steam out of it. I disagree. The doomsday stuff felt separated enough from the Black Ring story that I felt you could read one and pretty much ignore the other. Sure, Lex said a few lines about it, but it wasn't like the two plots actually came together at all. They even had different primary artists.
Stay classy, DC.
Did I post correctly in this thread?
So, Wonder Woman gets her Flashpoint helmet from Mera. Who would have, presumably, been wearing the helmet when what's shown on that cover happened. And she was wearing the tiara underneath the helmet? That seems unlikely. Where's the realism, DC?
Really? That's a Fear Itself tie-in. We up our orders on those becasue the tie-ins have a little more shelf life in them.
Also, Fraction can't pace a comic worth a damn anymore. Fear Itself was all over the board.
And boo on that.
This is officially the saddest thing I have ever heard
I don't like the arrangement of stores because the most friendly pre-bags and boards all the new releases. So ... Fuck them. The two big ones (the one I go to and the last one I went to) don't do that, but like I said the one I never go to is laid out kind of weird (It should make sense to have TPBs and floppies next to each other ... for DC and Marvel. Then it goes off the rails. Like I said, yesterday I was on the verge of tears trying to find T-bolts). The problem is that both are kind of out of the way in general except that I have a reason to be really close to my store on Wednesday mornings. The other two were the closest to my house. And, yeah, that meant exactly dick when it came to satisfaction.
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