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mygif

I always liked Aztek

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mygif

I maintain that Resurrection Man was great. A notch below Hitman to be sure but still a very good title.

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mygif

Is there really anything about Ryan Choi that would’ve caught Mongol’s attention anyway? Making Superman suffer? Sure. Hal Jordan? Likely.

But a rookie shrinking hero wanna-be? Nah.

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mygif

No disagreement, but I do think this is the ultimate extension of the last thirty years of DC and Marvel’s marketing and distribution decisions. (Marvel is just as guilty as DC, I think…their last four major crossovers have had as their villains, the Scarlet Witch, the Scarlet Witch, Iron Man, and the Hulk. Seems fairly cannibalistic to me…)

Essentially, they’ve put themselves into a situation where it’s fairly difficult to attract new customers (because their product is sold almost exclusively in specialty stores, and they do very little advertising outside of materials for said specialty stores, ads in trade magazines, and websites designed to attract comics fans. The average “man on the street” never even heard about World War Hulk.) Which means that they have to pander to their existing fanbase, just to keep it. This means nostalgia, nostalgia, nostalgia, because their audience has dwindled over the years to the point where only those with an obsessive interest in the company’s history are left.

This is something that’s fairly easy for the writers and editors to get behind, because let’s face it, you don’t go to work for a comics company unless you’re a fairly serious fan as well…it’s not someplace you go to get rich and famous. So they love nostalgia just as much as their fans do. And, not to suggest laziness or incompetence, sequelization and pastiche are two things that are very easy to write, and when you’ve got those deadlines popping up every month (and many writers write multiple books), it’s always tempting to bring back an old villain, turn up the volume on his/her atrocities, and rake in the fanboy praise for making that villain “scary” again.

What’s really needed is a push on all three areas, at the corporate level. Find ways to get comics to places outside the standard comic store, find ways to let people know about them, and push for new-reader-friendly content. You can kind of see this happening if you squint (the Johnny DC and Marvel Adventures lines), but it’s far from the serious, “this is the future of our company” effort it needs to be, primarily because again, the writers and editors at both companies like continuity and nostalgia too much. You don’t bring back green battlesuit Luthor because you’re interested in moving forward.

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El Bastardo Magnifico said on December 17th, 2007 at 5:05 pm

I can no longer stand to read Geoff Johns work for precisely this reason. That and his obsession to have silly/silver age/iconic characters be covered in human entrails.

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Cookie McCool said on December 17th, 2007 at 5:27 pm

If I were a DC writer, I’d be terrified of writing a lame-ass rip-off like that, for fear of Alan Moore showing up on my doorstep in the middle of the night with a grapefruit spoon and the willingness to use it. He does not seem like a man whose train I would be willing to jump.

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mygif

Gail’s All-New Atom is one of my favorite books. I say wait until the issue comes out before judging. It’s consistently been one of the best, most fun books DC puts out. It brought us Jet-Pack Hitler, for cryin’ out loud! I have faith that this issue will be just as good as the ones that preceded it.

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mygif

I think another problem with the fanbase is that it literally does not know what it wants. If it gets one thing, it’ll say it wants the opposite, and vice versa. They say they want stories where heroes act like heroes, but piss over stuff Ross puts out and call “Superfriends fanfiction,” and say they want more mature stories. You get something like the Ultimates, and it gets reamed out for destroying iconic characters and raping childhoods. The existing fanbase at its most vocal seems made up mainly of people who make it their mission to get disappointed, but still spend money week in, week out.

Sure, there’s people out there making fair calls. They’re just drowned out by the hordes of people saying “it sucks! it sucks!” at everything put in front of them.

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mygif

“Is there really anything about Ryan Choi that would’ve caught Mongol’s attention anyway? Making Superman suffer? Sure. Hal Jordan? Likely. But a rookie shrinking hero wanna-be? Nah.”

It’s not Mongol in All-New Atom.

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mygif

What the world needs is more Alan Moores and less Alan-Moore-Wannabe’s. Using the Obvious-Inescapable-Plot-Device (“OIPD”) of a previous, greater writer does not put you on par with that writer. Come up with your own OIPD and make a classic as opposed to clinging to the coat tails of another one.

PS: What’s up with the Atom’s ears? Are those is his super power, growing giant ears?

PPS: IREAC is what the professor’s want. I’m graduating in 2 1/2 years from law school due to a religious devotion to IREAC. (2 1/2 years is unheard of in U.S. law schools. Pity the poor, indebted U.S. law students.)

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mygif

Gail’s All-New Atom is one of my favorite books. I say wait until the issue comes out before judging. It’s consistently been one of the best, most fun books DC puts out. It brought us Jet-Pack Hitler, for cryin’ out loud! I have faith that this issue will be just as good as the ones that preceded it.

Or perhaps you could READ his post, see that WHETHER the story is any good or not was IRRELEVENT to his complaint.

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Charles W. said on December 18th, 2007 at 8:21 am

You know why Apollo was brought in as an analogue for the Ray, don’t you? It appears to me to be an attempt by DC to say, “What, a gay Superman? No, no, no–he’s a gay Ray, see?” Perhaps I’m being too cynical, though.

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mygif

I think you’re being a little too cynical. His powers are light-based, after all.

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mygif

I agree with Charles W. entirely. Apollo’s powers are only vaguely more “light-based” than Superman’s, and he and what’s-his-name are so obviously a gay Superman-and-Batman duo that you’d have to be deliberately oblivious to miss it.

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mygif

Sadly, being deliberately oblivious is a common trait among fandom. Never mind that they originally came from a team with a warrior woman, a fast guy. and a guy who used an alien artifact to make distinctively colored energy constructs. I recall people refusing to believe Apollo and Midnighter were gay until it was spelled out in skywriting. “They’re just sharing the same bedroom… naked…”

Back to the actual post topic, I agree entirely with the spirit of the argument, although I wouldn’t say the Black Mercy itself is a problem. Trapping the hero in a fake perfect world is an old idea, used by plenty of writers before Alan Moore. If you’re going to tell one of those stories, why not recycle the device in a throwaway nod to continuity?

That’s not to say that DC is essentially masturbating to old pictures of itself as the fluids mix with its tears. Look at Arena, which seems to be little more than a series of versus battles culled directly from comic forums. Then you have most of the output of Geoff Johns. Roy Thomas would think Johns’ fetish for reviving old characters is a bit much.

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mygif

I thought you were complaining about tentacle rape, not the Black Mercy.

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