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The Blue Beetle Thread

2

Posts

  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Keith wrote: »
    Munch wrote: »
    I don't think Tim's meant to be Batman, or that he'd want to continue to be Robin as an adult, so he either has to adopt a different identity (another hero's or an all-new one) or put his skills to use as a civilian.

    Back then, yeah, he would have gone the civilian route when he got older. He even said this to Nightwing in one of the Batman crossovers (although I forget which one). He talks about how Bruce and Dick are going to do this stuff their whole lives, while he's just doing it because it needs to be done.

    He can't ever quit now, though. It'd be an insult to everyone he's lost.
    Yes, now he needs to become Batman, make clones of his friends, and become Luthor's puppet.

    Fencingsax on
  • bobgorilabobgorila Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    I liked Batman Beyond's route for Tim, he got freaked the fuck out when the Joker kidnapped him and retired to grow up and become an engineer.

    Also something about nano tech that was retarded.

    bobgorila on
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  • Robos A Go GoRobos A Go Go Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    bobgorila wrote: »
    I liked Batman Beyond's route for Tim, he got freaked the fuck out when the Joker kidnapped him and retired to grow up and become an engineer.

    Also something about nano tech that was retarded.

    Yeah, that movie wasn't as good on the second viewing. Once you got past how awesome Joker is in every animated appearance, you realize Joker being able to implant himself in Tim and transform his entire body and Terry beating Joker by laughing at him were pretty lame.

    Robos A Go Go on
  • BlankspaceBlankspace __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2008
    Man what

    Terry's defeat of Joker was fantastic.

    Blankspace on
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  • Robos A Go GoRobos A Go Go Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Blankspace wrote: »
    Man what

    Terry's defeat of Joker was fantastic.

    I thought it kind of trivialized the Joker when I re-watched it recently.

    Robos A Go Go on
  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Keith wrote: »
    [Tim Drake] can't ever quit now, though. It'd be an insult to everyone he's lost.

    So that's the difference between Bruce and Tim, right? Bruce is a hero because his parents died, and Tim is a hero because his everyone else died. Also, because his parents also died also.

    Delduwath on
  • Garlic BreadGarlic Bread i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a Registered User, Disagreeable regular
    edited March 2008
    Delduwath wrote: »
    Keith wrote: »
    [Tim Drake] can't ever quit now, though. It'd be an insult to everyone he's lost.

    So that's the difference between Bruce and Tim, right? Bruce is a hero because his parents died, and Tim is a hero because his everyone else died. Also, because his parents also died also.

    Tim became a superhero before any tragedy struck him

    Garlic Bread on
  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Keith wrote: »
    Delduwath wrote: »
    Keith wrote: »
    [Tim Drake] can't ever quit now, though. It'd be an insult to everyone he's lost.

    So that's the difference between Bruce and Tim, right? Bruce is a hero because his parents died, and Tim is a hero because his everyone else died. Also, because his parents also died also.

    Tim became a superhero before any tragedy struck him

    I know that, I'm just trying to make it look like Bruce is a whiny wussy.

    Delduwath on
  • Regicid3Regicid3 Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    What issue number are they up to?

    Regicid3 on
  • Garlic BreadGarlic Bread i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a Registered User, Disagreeable regular
    edited March 2008
    #24 is the last one out

    #25 might be next week. It's dated as such on DC's site but it's not under the main page's "Next week's hotlist!"

    Garlic Bread on
  • Unco-ordinatedUnco-ordinated NZRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Keith wrote: »
    #24 is the last one out

    #25 might be next week. It's dated as such on DC's site but it's not under the main page's "Next week's hotlist!"

    Diamond has it listed for next week, so I'd say it's coming.

    Oh and I salute this thread. Blue Beetle is such a great book, I really hope Pfiefer doesn't fuck it up like he did Amazons Attack (though I suppose you could blame 99% of that shit on DC Editorial).

    Unco-ordinated on
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  • mugginnsmugginns Jawsome Fresh CoastRegistered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Has anyone heard anything about this book staying around? The sales numbers look really bad for it even though it is an awesome book. I'd be sad if they cancelled it.

    mugginns on
    E26cO.jpg
  • WildcatWildcat Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    I think at the moment only editorial affection is keeping it alive.

    Wildcat on
  • Red or AliveRed or Alive Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Keith wrote: »
    Delduwath wrote: »
    Keith wrote: »
    [Tim Drake] can't ever quit now, though. It'd be an insult to everyone he's lost.

    So that's the difference between Bruce and Tim, right? Bruce is a hero because his parents died, and Tim is a hero because his everyone else died. Also, because his parents also died also.

    Tim became a superhero before any tragedy struck him

    Wasn't his mother killed by a supervillain before he became Robin?

    Red or Alive on
  • Garlic BreadGarlic Bread i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a Registered User, Disagreeable regular
    edited May 2008
    Keith wrote: »
    Delduwath wrote: »
    Keith wrote: »
    [Tim Drake] can't ever quit now, though. It'd be an insult to everyone he's lost.

    So that's the difference between Bruce and Tim, right? Bruce is a hero because his parents died, and Tim is a hero because his everyone else died. Also, because his parents also died also.

    Tim became a superhero before any tragedy struck him

    Wasn't his mother killed by a supervillain before he became Robin?

    Yes and no. It happened before he was officially Robin (according to Batman), but it was after he took Dick's/Jason's costume and helped Batman and Nightwing catch Two-Face

    Garlic Bread on
  • MunchMunch Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    mugginns wrote: »
    Has anyone heard anything about this book staying around? The sales numbers look really bad for it even though it is an awesome book. I'd be sad if they cancelled it.

    The new Brave and the Bold cartoon, which co-stars Jaime, may let it stick around for a while. But its trades and single issues are selling worse than Atom and Catwoman, which have both been canceled. And it has a new writer coming on, which usually signals the beginning of the end for a series, if you look at Aquaman, Firestorm, and Atom.

    Munch on
  • FiarynFiaryn Omnicidal Madman Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    And if that happened, we'd be relying on McKeever and his run of Teen Titans to bring us more Blue Beetle goodness.

    *shudder*

    Fiaryn on
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  • Robos A Go GoRobos A Go Go Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Red & Blue!

    Robos A Go Go on
  • Garlic BreadGarlic Bread i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a Registered User, Disagreeable regular
    edited May 2008
    Fiaryn wrote: »
    And if that happened, we'd be relying on McKeever and his run of Teen Titans to bring us more Blue Beetle goodness.

    *shudder*

    His Jaime is actually pretty good. He was the only good part of one recent issue and all he did was go "bwahahaha"

    Garlic Bread on
  • Garlic BreadGarlic Bread i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a Registered User, Disagreeable regular
    edited November 2008
    god fucking dammit

    That's like the 20th book they've canceled this month

    Garlic Bread on
  • MunchMunch Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    While not altogether surprising, that's pretty disappointing. The last few issues of Rogers' run, as well as the beginning of Sturges', really reinvigorated my interest in the character after initially writing him off. At least he'll still be regularly appearing in Teen Titans.

    Under Sean McKeever.
    :(

    Munch on
  • Bloods EndBloods End Blade of Tyshalle Punch dimensionRegistered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Lets blame Munch for this.

    Bloods End on
  • Robos A Go GoRobos A Go Go Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Odd timing considering he's going to co-star in the first episode of Brave & the Bold. Still, if there's an appreciable increase in sales after that airing it might earn the book a reprieve.

    Robos A Go Go on
  • MunchMunch Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Hey, I've been in support of Jaime as Blue Beetle since the Reach story took off. I also want Ted back, but I'd just as soon see him come back under a different name.

    But let's take a moment and examine why this book may have failed. I think it came down to a few different factors, aside from the obvious problems of an unknown creative team, and B-list character.

    I think it failed to really establish a good mythology around Jaime. His series has been around for thirty issues and what does his Rogue's Gallery look like? He's got the Posse, the green hunchback guy, La Dama, the Reach, Eclipso, and Dr. Polaris. Two of those quickly became more akin to allies than adversaries, one disappeared shortly into the series, the Reach never really even had a "name" character to personally antagonize Jaime, and are now kind of unusable, and two were borrowed from other superheroes.

    I think that keeping it so disconnected from the DCU and the original Blue Beetles was, while laudable, ultimately a mistake. These days, readers want to read about books that "matter" in the broader landscape of the DCU. I think they realized this and tried to rectify it by adding Beetle to the Titans roster, but it was ultimately for naught. I still don't understand why the creators of the book shied away from connecting it to Ted Kord, aside from the notebooks Jaime would occasionally reference. People were crying out to see Ted's old friends and allies, and how they'd react to the new Beetle. I think having Booster Gold (though he was mired in 52 for a year), Oracle, some JLI members, or some old Beetle villains reacting to, or giving their blessings to Jaime, would have really eased the transition and alienated less Kord fans. Running house ads featuring Ted getting head-shot, and having creators make fun of the dead character at cons and in interviews probably didn't help either.

    I think Rogers and Giffen failed to really flesh out Jaime as a character early on. He's almost entirely defined by his everyman attitude, and how he reacts to his more outlandish friends. I think that, had the writers given him a few defining quirks and foibles (he's a jock, he plays the ukulele, he has asthma, he's nervous around girls, whatever) would have really helped in making him seem like a more whole character. His personality for most of the run can basically be summed up as, "Man, isn't all this superhero stuff weird?" Look at Kyle Rayner or Jack Knight, two successful replacement characters. Each had personality and charisma practically bursting out of them, which really made the reader care about them. Especially since they were replacing pretty cookie-cutter, cardboard heroes. Jaime had a bit more of a hard time of it, replacing a character that was defined by a long run of character-driven stories.

    El Paso also lacked a lot of personality, and I think a lot of that can be blamed on Rafael Albuquerque's reluctance to draw backgrounds. Once again, look at some fictional DC cities; Opal, Gotham, Metropolis, Hub, etc. Each of them have a kind of distinct feel, so when something shows up to threaten them, the reader really feels like the threat matters. Even books taking place in real cities, like the New York present in Manhattan Guardian or a Spider-Man comic, or Teen Titans' version of San Francisco feel like living, breathing places. I never got that same feeling of location from Blue Beetle's El Paso. Showing Jaime's favorite restaurant, or his school, or the place he goes to engage in [X hobby] might have gone a long way towards engaging the reader. That's one reason I liked the little El Diablo restaurants, or more recently the superhero-themed golf park.

    I don't mean to kick anyone when they're down, but I always like to look at why a book may not have performed well. Though it's worth noting that the All-New Atom had a great location, supporting cast, and interesting title character, and it still fell on its face. So maybe the market really just doesn't want legacy characters, or certain B-list characters at all for that matter.

    Munch on
  • Garlic BreadGarlic Bread i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a Registered User, Disagreeable regular
    edited November 2008
    Munch wrote: »
    I think having Booster Gold (though he was mired in 52 for a year), Oracle, some JLI members, or some old Beetle villains reacting to, or giving their blessings to Jaime, would have really eased the transition and alienated less Kord fans.

    All of this happened!

    Garlic Bread on
  • Sars_BoySars_Boy Rest, You Are The Lightning. Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Keith wrote: »
    Munch wrote: »
    I think having Booster Gold (though he was mired in 52 for a year), Oracle, some JLI members, or some old Beetle villains reacting to, or giving their blessings to Jaime, would have really eased the transition and alienated less Kord fans.

    All of this happened!
    yeah I was about to say

    Sars_Boy on
  • MunchMunch Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Booster only showed up really late in the game, Oracle only appeared once, where Jaime smarted off to her (which, personally, did nothing to endear him to me), and Guy's first appearance was wildly out of character for him, even taking into account his ring's effect on his mind. His second appearance was really nice, and a high point of the book for me, even if it made Ted out to be some kind of Batman-lite strategic genius, and Rogers skipped over what really interested me (Guy and Jaime chatting in a bar), in favor of advancing the Reach plot a miniscule amount, and throwing in some non-sensical stuff with the Ultra Humanite.

    Munch on
  • Sars_BoySars_Boy Rest, You Are The Lightning. Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    regardless, they happened and you pretty much said they didn't

    Sars_Boy on
  • MunchMunch Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    During my entire diatribe I was speaking in the context of how the book could have been made into a bigger success; yes they showed up, but they showed up late, or barely mattered when they did. Rather than come out of the gate strong, they saved a bunch of stuff readers wanted to see (Booster and the JLI team-up) for the end, when readers had dwindled down to like, 16,000 from the original 65,000 it launched with.

    Which I think is a problem with DC as a whole. They always wait until all the excitement surrounding something has dissipated before they start doing cool stuff. Secret Six just launched an ongoing years after Villains United, and its successful mini-series. And sales for the first issue have reflected that. When there was a bunch of outrage and excitement surrounding Spoiler, DC waited a few years until it had mostly died down to reverse her ill-advised death. A replacement Atom got a series right after Ray Palmer appeared in one of his most iconic stories, when readers were dying to read more about Palmer. The Question became a breakout star on JLU, and was then killed and replaced with a less interesting character.

    DC seems to have a problem getting people energized about their characters, or synergizing to capitalize on their other media. Like cancelling Blue Beetle right before he appears in the Brave and the Bold cartoon.

    Munch on
  • noir_bloodnoir_blood Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    I do agree that DC had really poor timing. I mean, I might be wrong, but in the comic universe, Batman didn't have a big push when the movie came out, not when compared to Spider-Man.

    And also the part about El Paso is dead on. Probably biased since it's my hometown and all, but it always bugged me that the writers seemingly picked a city at random that would have a high hispanic population. Either that or they just looked at a map and went "hmm, it's right next to the border, that'll make for some good stories later on!"

    noir_blood on
  • The Lovely BastardThe Lovely Bastard Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    damnit I am very unhappy about this

    The Lovely Bastard on
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  • The Lovely BastardThe Lovely Bastard Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    but mostly I am mad at keith for selling me a series that was canceled less than a year later

    The Lovely Bastard on
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  • FCDFCD Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Munch wrote: »
    While not altogether surprising, that's pretty disappointing. The last few issues of Rogers' run, as well as the beginning of Sturges', really reinvigorated my interest in the character after initially writing him off. At least he'll still be regularly appearing in Teen Titans.

    Under Sean McKeever.
    :(

    Fate worse than death.

    FCD on
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  • deadonthestreetdeadonthestreet Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    How bad did sales fall immediately following the Spanish issue?

    deadonthestreet on
  • Garlic BreadGarlic Bread i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a Registered User, Disagreeable regular
    edited November 2008
    but mostly I am mad at keith for selling me a series that was canceled less than a year later

    But you're also mad at me for selling All-New Atom to someone else!

    Garlic Bread on
  • MunchMunch Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Nothing appreciable. The real problem was that they did the Spanish issue right after the ongoing writer left, and then did two issues of Will Pfeiffer's run. So they essentially had three issues of filler, when it probably would have been wiser to launch directly into the new ongoing writer's run. But by then the book was selling less than 20k per issue anyways, so I doubt it would have mattered much.

    I have similar concerns about Booster Gold. Following Johns and Katz's run, which sold very steadily, and in fact jumped up by a few hundred units here and there, DC decided to do four issues of filler rather than jump right into Jurgens' run. So far the sales charts show no appreciable decline for Dixon's issues, but I'm curious to see how Remender's issues sell.

    Speaking of Johns, there's a guy that knows how to launch a book. He's much like Loeb in that he draws on all the most iconic aspects of a character, but unlike Loeb he does so in a more restrained way, which actually makes sense.

    Munch on
  • The Lovely BastardThe Lovely Bastard Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Keith wrote: »
    but mostly I am mad at keith for selling me a series that was canceled less than a year later

    But you're also mad at me for selling All-New Atom to someone else!

    I'm a complicated guy

    The Lovely Bastard on
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  • ManonvonSuperockManonvonSuperock Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    sucks, i just decided to pick up the trades of this after reading the dentist scan.

    ManonvonSuperock on
  • The Lovely BastardThe Lovely Bastard Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    you're part of the problem

    The Lovely Bastard on
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