Bought/Thought, March 7th, 2012 - SPOILERS

[Themanofbat]

Happy belated birthday Dread...

 

[CConn]

I feel as though the only truly fitting birthday wish would be a detailed summery of Dread's life that has to be split up between 5 posts due to its excessive length.

 

[WOLVERINE25TH]

CC, while their stories have been dark till now, they've never had a period when all the heroes, even Superman, were met with fear and suspicion. Basically, the era of blind hero worship is over at DC and now the era of skepticism, which Marvel has been doing for a while, has begun.

There are quite a few women out there who write books. I know a small group half women that promoted a book they made at NYCC. Then there's the Womanthology funded through Kickstarter. I'm directly friends with several. The creators are there, just the opportunities are not. Mainstream comics are an exclusive club, and if you hadn't gotten in at a certain point it's damn hard to do so now. That's why people have to spread the wealth around and explore indies, because that's where you find the diversity in creators and storytelling.

 

[CConn]

CC, while their stories have been dark till now, they've never had a period when all the heroes, even Superman, were met with fear and suspicion. Basically, the era of blind hero worship is over at DC and now the era of skepticism, which Marvel has been doing for a while, has begun..

But all Grant Morrison is doing with Superman is returning him to his original characterization. From the '30s.

 

[WOLVERINE25TH]

I'm neither talking about JUST Superman or Action Comics, but using his as a prime example and moreso referencing his current series.

 

[CConn]

Then who are you talking about?

Because I'm readi about 20 DC books, and I don't see any less "blind hero worship" then there's been in the past 10 years.

Like I said, Action Comics doesn't apply to what you're saying at all.

 

[WOLVERINE25TH]

Because Action takes place in the bloody past where it makes sense, whereas I'm talking about the present.

Aquaman, mistrusted and constantly insulted.

JLI, mistrusted and not even wanted.

Batman, hunted by the Gotham PD, even if not wholeheartedly.

Flash, seems to be regarded as more of a nuisance than someone who deserves their own museum.

 

[CConn]

Aquaman is just a representation of people's real world opinion of him.

The JLI is UN-sanctioned. That's actually more tied into the public trust than the JL has been in years.

Where is Batman being hunted by the Gotham PD? In JL? That takes place in the past.

And yes, because it's early in his career. He's Spider-Man-esque at this point in his career.

 

[hippie_hunter]

He's hunted by the police in Detective Comics. Mayor Hady wants Batman taken down which makes no utter sense considering that Batman, Inc. is still in continuity.

 

[CConn]

I feel so out of the loop by not reading the utterly pointless Detective and Superman titles.

 

[hippie_hunter]

I dropped Detective after the first arc.

 

[hippie_hunter]

I also interpreted the dislike of the JLI to be linked more to the public's distrust towards the governments of the world than the superheroes, which they love.

 

[CConn]

Which makes sense.

Most of the instances of DC "going dark" makes sense when you actually look at it beyond its surface level.

So far, it's really only Earth-2 that looks out-of-date extreme, and we can't even say that for certain as its not released yet.

 

[RockSP]

The creators are there, just the opportunities are not. Mainstream comics are an exclusive club, and if you hadn't gotten in at a certain point it's damn hard to do so now. That's why people have to spread the wealth around and explore indies, because that's where you find the diversity in creators and storytelling.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Which makes sense.

Most of the instances of DC "going dark" makes sense when you actually look at it beyond its surface level.

So far, it's really only Earth-2 that looks out-of-date extreme, and we can't even say that for certain as its not released yet.

The concept of "making sense" in narratives has lost pretty much all appeal to me. Yes, killing off everyone Tim Drake holds dear was a good way to have his turning into a total emo d-bag "make sense," but why would you ever want to do that with a character who was basically the only lighthearted, hopeful holdout in the Bat-family? Mark Waid mentioned something like this during his run on The Flash: Wally West is and always has been a pretty light, fun character, so even when Waid was dragging him through some pretty horrible ordeals, he kept that optimistic core of the character intact. Dark stuff would happen and Wally might grieve or be sad for an issue or two, but there was never a year-long (or more) stretch during Waid's run that you could point to and say, "Man, Wally was such a sad sack there." I don't know, to me, "making sense" in the context of a reality that is entirely determined by creators' conscious decisions is often used as an excuse to trample over the cores of some characters or darken them to wacky extremes.

Then again, Waid himself is sort of indulging in the flip-side to that in Daredevil right now. Matt Murdock had some terrible s*** happen to him, but Waid had him zig instead of zag and throw himself into a facade of upbeat positivity rather than letting his grief and pain consume him, and I'm enjoying the hell out of Daredevil now.

 

[CConn]

That's not really want I was referencing you. I agree with what you're saying.

I'm more talking about the "mistrust" of superheroes. That's different from the grimdark stuff you're referring to.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

It's the same thing, basically. DC's world governments mistrust their superheroes now because DC thinks that's going to make their comics more profitable. It's a conscious decision on the part of the people behind the comics, so "making sense" doesn't really enter into it. Anything can be written in such a way that it makes sense. Robin could want to kill Batman. Crazy, you say? Red Hood, I reply.

Maybe I'm just bitter in my old age.