The Official "DC dosent really know what they're doing, do they?" thread

[Kirk Langstrom]

I wouldn't mind one bit. Marvel/DC crossovers can be fun. Outside of newbs bringing them up as 'proof' that one publisher is superior to the other, I quite enjoy them most of the time.

Oh yeah! i love the Spidey/Bats and Punisher/Bats crossovers.

They could make those two yearly events, and it would be fine by me.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

The Punisher/Batman crossovers are some of my favorites. I also like the cosmic crossovers. Superman/FF and Superman/Silver Surfer were fun.

 

[WompuM]

Won't happen anytime soon, unless Johns and Bendis make Secret Crisis.

 

[WompuM]

The Punisher/Batman crossovers are some of my favorites. I also like the cosmic crossovers. Superman/FF and Superman/Silver Surfer were fun.

Superman/Silver Surfer was one of my first comics when I was little, and for some reason, I felt cutting up the cover for a school project was a good idea.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

You bastard.

There should be Wildstorm/Marvel crossovers. Christos Gage writes practically everything for Wildstorm anyway, and he's already writing for Marvel as well. Make it happen.

 

[WompuM]

No wants to profit share.

 

[The Question]

You bastard.

There should be Wildstorm/Marvel crossovers. Christos Gage writes practically everything for Wildstorm anyway, and he's already writing for Marvel as well. Make it happen.

I'd especially like to see that post-Civil War. Just imagine The Mighty Avengers trying to force The Authority to register.

 

[Arach Knight]

Corpulent...is there anything from DC you aren't avoiding, other than Detective Comics?

 

[Mee]

DC needs to let go of all this cosmic multiverse stuff, accept that the silver age is over, and stop killing off people like the Question, and they'll be ok.

 

[Arach Knight]

Double Post

 

[Arach Knight]

Actually legacy characters was one of the things I enjoy about the DC universe. It makes more sense than reading Spider-Man for 40 years and yet he is only 25 years old. I like the idea of older guys passing the torch down to younger guys. At least when the mantle is carried well. And so far, it pretty much has been. Sometimes I get disappointed when they retcon a torch passing, such as Flash (they brought back Jay Garrick) or Green Lantern (I was all about Kyle Raner being the head GL).

 

[The Batman]

Actually legacy characters was one of the things I enjoy about the DC universe. It makes more sense than reading Spider-Man for 40 years and yet he is only 25 years old. I like the idea of older guys passing the torch down to younger guys. At least when the mantle is carried well. And so far, it pretty much has been. Sometimes I get disappointed when they retcon a torch passing, such as Flash (they brought back Jay Garrick) or Green Lantern (I was all about Kyle Raner being the head GL).

wait, you're telling me batman and superman can be 35 for 70 years, but spidey cant be 25 for 40?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Corpulent...is there anything from DC you aren't avoiding, other than Detective Comics?

Blue Beetle, Manhunter, The Brave and the Bold, Action Comics (whenever Gary Frank's on it), Booster Gold, Green Lantern Corps, Trinity, Wonder Woman, and The Flash.

 

[Keyser Soze]

I'm well aware that I'm in the minority in disliking Johns' GL. The whole thing comes off as a fanboy love letter to Hal Jordan, which is just not something I'm interested in. I also think the idea of an emotional spectrum is stupid, and I'm disappointed that Johns is shoehorning it into everything he can, even stuff that's not related to Green Lantern (like completely changing Rainbow Girl's powers to match the emotional spectrum). As of right now, I'm perfectly content to stick with Green Lantern Corps, which actually preserves and continues the traditional GL concepts I knew and loved, and ignore Johns' retcon-happy GL.

I think you've touched on something that could perhaps explain why some like Geoff Johns, and others don't.

It seems to me, like Geoff Johns is very good at attracting new readers, making things accessible for them. Back in 2005, when I got back into DC after something of a hiatus from active comic-reading (and before that I was more into Marvel), it was Johns' work on "The Flash" that got me into that character. The way he developed Zoom, the Rogues, and Wally himself really impressed me, and while previously I was mainly just interested in Batman, Johns really showed me that the wider DC Universe was chock full of compelling characters and storylines. But I saw quite a few of the more longtime Flash readers criticise Johns as a inferior successor to Mark Waid, and say Waid had a much firmer grasp of good storytelling than Johns could hope for.

Similarly, I really got into the hype for "Infinite Crisis", and overall I loved it. But many of the people who had been around for "Crisis on Infinite Earths", spoke of "Infinite Crisis" as a pale shadow of a sequel.

And now, with "Green Lantern", it seems like a whole new generation of GL readers jumped on-board from "Rebirth" forward, making the title one of the highest-selling in DC. These new readers certainly love Johns' writing, and his direction for the GL mythos. But at the same time, a lot of the more longtime readers, the ones around for the Kyle Rayner era, seem to have a strong dislike for Johns and his retcon-happy approach to "Green Lantern".

Perhaps it's the very thing that makes Johns so appealing to new readers that makes him resented by older ones? Namely, his fondness for "starting fresh", and building up his own new "mythologies" for the characters. While this is great for newer readers like myself, who can jump on and feel like the title's accessible rather than that they've missed the boat, I can totally see how more longtime readers would be pissed off at having some of their favourite stories from previous writers overlooked or even retconned.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Not really. I loved Johns' JSA, Flash, and various other things from before Infinite Crisis. I think after IC he's gotten a little too overzealous with reinventing the wheel. Before, he looked at what came before, paid tribute to it, and used it as a solid basis for organic growth in the characters. Now, he basically just changes whatever he wants on a whim and rewrites the whole mythos of some characters.

 

[Hush]

I agree with Corp I mean he has introduced some awesome ideas and made som great moments in comicdom come to fruition but he has also raped a character here or there, He has also killed a couple that people liked alot ok so maybe only one, Superboy, but the original plan was to kill NIGHTWING of all people.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Beechen and Johns were just astonishingly bad with Cassandra. There's no two ways about it. Everything they did was crappy and whenever they tried to fix something, they just made it worse.

Actually the scene where Cassandra tried to kill Slade for making her kill was all Beechen.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Unsurprising. Which, y'know, makes him the perfect candidate to write her mini-series.

 

[hippie_hunter]

wait, you're telling me batman and superman can be 35 for 70 years, but spidey cant be 25 for 40?

Personally I feel that in terms of time passing, DC is far superior than Marvel at that angle.

With Batman they've aged him from 25 to a man who is definetely above 35 (38 to be exact I believe). They've at least specficially stated Superman to be 35 or 36 in the recent issue of Action Comics.

But with Spider-Man, they've taken such active efforts to actually deage the guy with no reason given at all. At least with heroes like Green Arrow and Hal Jordan, the reasons for their deaging are rather plausable, in comic book terms at least.

 

[Raiden]

Personally I feel that in terms of time passing, DC is far superior than Marvel at that angle.

With Batman they've aged him from 25 to a man who is definetely above 35 (38 to be exact I believe). They've at least specficially stated Superman to be 35 or 36 in the recent issue of Action Comics.

But with Spider-Man, they've taken such active efforts to actually deage the guy with no reason given at all. At least with heroes like Green Arrow and Hal Jordan, the reasons for their deaging are rather plausable, in comic book terms at least.

Keep in mind that in terms of comic book "age", both Superman and Batman were created much earlier than Spider-man, and thus they should "age" faster. And besides, to most people neither Superman nor Batman seemed to have age a day, since it really depends on the artist's interpretation of how old they should look. One can probably pick up the Batman comics from the 50s and compare that with the current comics, and can't tell the difference.

 

[BrianWilly]

But on the other hand, consider that Superman has gotten married and adopted a child at this point in addition to mentoring four others. And that Batman has become father figure to something like seven children at this point counting Cass, Steph, and Damon (though I'm not sure how that last one worked out). Things like that add to the feeling of age in a character, even if it's not a literal physical addition of years, forcibly but organically through the stories that have been told. For all the fluid continuity and the retcons and the Crises, no one has ever really been spiritually de-aged...and sometimes even the stories that pander most to "silver age-isms" draw narrative strength from the very fact that the characters have aged and progressed from those times. Not always, but often enough.

Personally I feel that in terms of time passing, DC is far superior than Marvel at that angle.

With Batman they've aged him from 25 to a man who is definetely above 35 (38 to be exact I believe). They've at least specficially stated Superman to be 35 or 36 in the recent issue of Action Comics.

But with Spider-Man, they've taken such active efforts to actually deage the guy with no reason given at all. At least with heroes like Green Arrow and Hal Jordan, the reasons for their deaging are rather plausable, in comic book terms at least.

Even in those instances, Ollie clearly acts like an older man. Hal clearly acts like a middle-aged man looking to relive his youth and sometimes even says as much. No matter how much certain editors whose names rhyme with Fifio attempt to deny it, time does pass in the DCU through the writing and the stories in natural ways.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Figured this would be appropriate.

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/wp-content/2008/06/DCNATIONAMBUG.jpg

 

[venom892]

t:....Also I think Jimmy would be good for the job.

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

What exactly happened between DC and Chuck Dixon?

 

[venom892]

no one really knows but there is speculation that he wrote Batman and the Outsiders as well as Robin way far in advance without knowing the outcome of or tying in with Final Crisis or Batman R.I.P.Not Wanting to rewrite them probably lend to his firing.