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

[Cain]

And if you actually, literally, cover your face when walking into or out of your local comic store - wow, that's sad.

lol true indeed.

 

[Aristotle]

DC Needs to simplify things.

This post has so much promise.

As a casual reader, I HATE the whole concept of "the DCU." I don't understand it, I don't want to take the time to understand it.

You don't understand...what? A whole bunch of superheroes live in one universe. It's relatively simple. As for all of the arcane continuity...of course you don't. You're casual. A few years ago, I was casual too. That didn't stop me from thoroughly enjoying the Batman titles. Then I started picking up JLA books. I got interested in Green Lantern, and from there Flash. I finally started giving Superman a chance. Infinite Crisis, for all its faults, made me a full-blown DC fan. I'm not saying that will happen to you, because you're clearly too hip and cool to ever like something that's just plain fun, but you could very easily understand the DCU without too much effort, and even if you couldn't, you could very easily read individual books while giving the finger to the rest of them. As a matter of fact, that's how the majority of DC and Marvel readers do it. It's not all-or-nothing. Can you handle all this complexity I'm throwing at you?

As far as I'm concerned, all the superheroes should live in their own worlds in their own timelines. (Unless we're talking JLA or a combination series like Batman/Superman)

What's the point or impetus for a teamup book without the constituent characters living in the same universe? The majority of the reason superhero comics have been made to work for adults and older kids is that the stories matter after they're published. When everything exists only unto itself, and there's nothing to interact with, you have to rely solely upon a writer's "plan" for a long-range narrative arc. Some writers don't do superhero books that way. Some writers just want to write.

Also they should put less of an emphasis on superheroes and more of a TV-show style approach. Imagine something like House as a comic series, or Law and Order. Blow the whole "superhero fanboy" image of comics out of the water, it'd go better to a casual audience.

You know, a friend of mine has a moped. I asked him once why he didn't just get a motorcycle. He said, "If I'd wanted a motorcycle, I'd have bought a ****ing motorcycle."

Likewise, if I wanted fiction about a disgusting, decaying, decadent, evil Western society personified in amoral doctors who think they're detectives, plastic surgeons with God complexes and the pathetic rich people they "serve", hospital staff who care more about personal drama than about their patients, women who can't keep their vaginas shut and their dickweed business-criminal husbands, or other chillingly awful symptoms of a world gone wrong, I'd just watch House, Nip/Tuck, Gray's Anatomy, and Desperate Housewives. What I want, is fiction about superheroes beating up bad guys for truth and justice.

Also, it's pretty clear that you don't actually read superhero comics at all. Comics have been getting more personal and subtle (and more morally gray, which you'll like, since you don't believe in things like "good people" and "the right thing," as a House fan) for years. Decades, even. Don't talk about how an artistic medium should change if you won't even bother to sample it.

 

[Manic]

Ammo, look up IDW Publishing. They're a comic book company that refuses to publish superhero books. I'm sure you'll love them. They even have TV shows as comics, like CSI and 24.

The rest of us will be content with our superheroes that have been a staple of comic books since before most of us were born.

 

[Aristotle]

I know, but I have no problem saying it because I'm of the belief that fanboys are killing the general perception of comics and preventing them from reaching a wider audience.

No, hipsters like you who are still ashamed that you like comics, superhero or otherwise, and who therefore actively choose to perceive that image and tell all your friends about it so you can distance yourself from it...that's who's killing the general perception of comics. The fact of the matter is, most everyone on this board is an upstanding member of his or her community. I don't know if everyone wants to go into details of their personal life at the moment, but I'm a successful Social Work/History major preparing to graduate in December with honors and a job waiting for me in a child permanence agency. I am a National Merit scholar, I scored a 34 on the ACT, and I was a four-time State Debate champion in high school. My high school baseball team, which I pitched and played second base for, placed fourth in the State two years in a row. In my summers I work at a camp for people with special needs. I will be leaving college with no student loans, having paid for everything with academic scholarship money. I have a beautiful girlfriend.

My cousin Michael has been the executive producer of all DC Comics related movies for at least 20 years or so, and I'll be seeing him tomorrow at a funeral for my great-uncle Harold, who was a Hollywood agent for 50 years and represented some of the most interesting people in that town, often called "the nicest man in show business" by performers such as Cary Grant, James Dean, and Mort Sahl. My cousin Henry holds the patent to Transformers, which he brought to Hasbro, and to the camera technology that shows hole cards to TV viewers for televised poker. He also produces the show "High Stakes Poker." My cousin Adam's father-in-law invented The Club, and Adam himself is one of the leading experts on computer programming languages. Another cousin is the heir to the fortune generated by the Jewish mafia in New York City. My older brother Jesse is producing books and art museum exhibits for Dave Eggers and working on a poetry anthology.

I do not live in my parents' basement and do not plan to do so at any time in the future. I do not have trouble talking to girls. I shower every day. I do not tell random people about comic books--in fact, I talk to nobody about comic books except here on this message board. I do not wear comic-book-related clothes, and there is no comic-book-related merchandise in my possession, aside from comic books. I do not have a lopsidedly-shaven comic-book-geek goatee. I haven't played Magic: The Gathering or other CCGs/RPGs since I was about 15 and didn't need the money for better things. I own a PC but no gaming systems and no games.

And I am an unabashed comic book fan.

Many people are intimidated by the whole "comic shop" scene because it's not in their personality.

You walk in, you buy your books, you leave. Simple.

Hell, Batman's the only superhero I can really get into because his world is (somewhat) reality-based.

Sooooooooooooooo predictable. If you want reality, go watch a security camera. I want fiction, so I embrace it in all forms, as long as it's done well. I suppose you don't like Transmetropolitan, Fables, Hellblazer, Sandman, Maus, or Sin City either because they're about, respectively, a futuristic gonzo journalist, anthropomorphic fairty tales, a street magician, a dream-god, mice playing out the Holocaust, and ridiculously caricatured gangsters taking way more physical punishment than is physically possible?

It's too complex to understand years of continuity and how every book ties into each other in some sort of way.

Fortunately, you don't have to. There is no quiz at the end of the comic book. Read what you want, and if it's too arcane and convoluted, stop reading it and stop buying it. On the other hand, that seems impossible for fanboys to do, so maybe you won't be able to do it either.

I have no interest in reading The Flash, for instance.

Here's a little slice of my life: I love the X-Men. They exist in the Marvel Universe. Thor also exists in the Marvel Universe. However, his book is boring and slow, and his character appeals to me less than rotten snail-*** appeals to my tongue. So I don't read his book. Sometimes, problems are really easy to solve.

Many people don't realize great comics like Maus, Persepolis, Ghost World, etc. exist because there's so much emphasis on superheroes.

Actually, because of your ilk, it's the opposite. Almost nobody will acknowledge that superhero comics can be good, because you people emphasize Maus, Persepolis, Ghost World, and ****ing Blankets as if they were God's gift to literature. Oh sure, EW does a story on Secret Invasion, and then one on Final Crisis, and high-profile books like Hush and Geoff Johns' early Green Lantern get a few cursory nods from the mainstream, but it's just the literary snobs giving their bastard children some token recognition. Your kind has successfully pigeonholed superhero comics and superhero comic-book readers for the foreseeable future. Thanks so much, snotnose.

I think it's essential for comics survival to promote more comics like these, and get out of the comic shops and onto newsstands/have more prominent space in Barnes and Noble and Borders.

The form has survived more dire straits than any that you've been around for, Joe Hipster.

 

[Go God Go!]

Wonderfully said, Ari.

 

[The Question]

(and more morally gray, which you'll like, since you don't believe in things like "good people" and "the right thing," as a House fan)

I think that's a little unfair. I enjoy House, mainly because I find him and how he and the characters interact interesting. I still think he's an *******, but he's an ******* who's interesting to write about and watch. I think.

 

[El Bastardo]

I think that's a little unfair. I enjoy House, mainly because I find him and how he and the characters interact interesting. I still think he's an *******, but he's an ******* who's interesting to write about and watch. I think.

I like House because he's an *******, because I'm an *******.

 

[fifthfiend]

Many people are intimidated by the whole "comic shop" scene because it's not in their personality. I cover my face and make sure no one I know is around before I walk in and out of my local comic shop. Hell, Batman's the only superhero I can really get into because his world is (somewhat) reality-based.

Wow, I really hope you're 15 years old and there's still time for you to grow out of that ****. I can't imagine anything more awful than a grown man who can't walk into a store and buy a book he wants to read without worrying how people are going to judge him for it. Or at least any store that doesn't sell nipple clamps and double-ended dongs.

 

[Spike_x1]

Wow, I really hope you're 15 years old and there's still time for you to grow out of that ****. I can't imagine anything more awful than a grown man who can't walk into a store and buy a book he wants to read without worrying how people are going to judge him for it. Or at least any store that doesn't sell nipple clamps and double-ended dongs.

I, for one, proudly show my face when I make my daily adult paraphernalia runs.

 

[Anubis]

Anybody that would look down on me for walking out of Phils house of filth with two c**k rings, an economy sized bottle of astro-glide, and the latest issue of Black Tail can go to hell.


And I was with You Aristotle up until you bashed Thor. May your testicles be smashed with an enchanted hammer.

 

[WompuM]

I actually carved Mjolnir into my 1-wood.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Did your game improve?

 

[Anubis]

Well, and enchanted 1-wood to the testicles would work too.

 

[Kitsune]

I like characters that I can relate to... I never likes Seinfeld because all of the characters were jerks that I couldn't relate to. Superman always seemed to do good for it's own sake, and didn't really have a compelling reason which is fine, but I always found the big blue boyscout to be boring unless handled by a really really good writer. Batman on the other hand is a rich kid with issues, and that makes him a bit more compelling as a character. I'm not a big fan of overly gritty, or characters who make deals with the devil, but a certain level of pathos and suffering does give the storyline more depth...

I also wish both companies would stop killing off characters just to prove they can.

 

[The Question]

*reads Wikipedia*


....Aquaman's dead?






This is.....unfortunate.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, but he'll be back eventually, I'm sure.

Superman always seemed to do good for it's own sake, and didn't really have a compelling reason which is fine, but I always found every fictional character ever to be boring unless handled by a really really good writer.

Fixed that for you.

 

[The Question]

Yeah, but he'll be back eventually, I'm sure.

Still. This cheeses me off. Mostly because I'm in a bad mood this morning and the fact that he's been replaced by Aquanoob isn't helping things.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Actually, the Aquanewb was handled pretty tastefully and turned out to be a decent character in his own right. He's not Aquaman, but still, we already established that Aquaman is coming back eventually.

 

[Anubis]

Well, if it helps, Aquanoobs lost in Limbo now for the foreseeable future.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

He would've been so cool on the Outsiders.

 

[Anubis]

Eh, I doubt it.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I liked the relationship he seemed to be striking up with Metamorpho.

 

[Anubis]

Yeah, but the guy that wrote that wasn't gonna be writing Outsiders anyway. The entire dynamic could have been ignored by What's his name in favor of unnecessary clone angst.

 

[yenaled]

*reads Wikipedia*


....Aquaman's dead?






This is.....unfortunate.

It was never meant to be a long term death, but DC pulled the book in the middle of a storyline and thus it never concluded and he remains dead.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, but the guy that wrote that wasn't gonna be writing Outsiders anyway. The entire dynamic could have been ignored by What's his name in favor of unnecessary clone angst.

That's the second component of why I was sad about all the Outsiders upheaval.