Too Much Batman.

[ladymirth]

Urgh. Now I remember why I never got into Superhero comics.  

1) It's like Days of Our Lives, only more bizarre and it never ends. 
2) The writers have something deep and fundamental against heroes remaining happy. 
3) All that Earth 2, Earth 1, Infinite Crisis of Earths shit. How does anyone keep them all straight? 
4) All the brightly colored spandex. Even Superman can't live that down. 
5) Moral ambiguity and the fact that every single psycho has some kind of sob story for why they turned out the way they did. I never thought I'd see the day when I would relish the idea of somebody who just liked being evil for the fun of it. 
6) Nobody can fucking stay married or dead. Again, like Days of Our Lives. 

Also, Batman is a lot more fucked up in the comics than even Chris Nolan could begin to comprehend. I'm not sure I like him very much. He's too aloof and intimidating and emotionally retarded. 

For me, the only good stories are the ones  that know when to end. 

I think I'll stick to Nolanverse from now on, thanks. Comics are all well and good, but they should be consumed occasionally and in small doses. 

I might feel differently in the morning, though. Right now, it's 1.30 am, I have a headache and I feel  rather traumatized after reading about the plot of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.

*gets Zantanna to mind-wipe all memory of DC comic storylines from mind* 

Comments

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

How do you just erase an entire timeline?

Have you read Crisis? Basically, you create some great cosmic-level threat which wipes out one or more universes, or otherwise alters the timeline, effectively wiping the slate clean.

As for spandex... I like it. The Begins suit makes sense for Batman, but Spidey doesn't look right in anything but his traditional costume. And Armored Daredevil just didn't work. And, really, I'd rather have the X-men in spandex. Even if Wolverine's blue-and-yellow makes little sense, it's... what a comic book should feel like, IMO. What would you have Superman wearing?

As for camp... if you don't like it, then avoid the Silver Age. Part of the whole deconstruction was getting rid of camp. There was quite a bit of it for a while there.

You can't please everyone all the time. And there's a lot that's done right and a lot that's done wrong and no one's going to agree on exactly which is which. But I think it's a learning process. I think Silver Age stories are better told than Golden Age ones. And while I'm not a fan of grim & gritty, I think the deconstruction pointed out some valid issues, so that Modern Age stories are better told than Silver Age ones. And... we're moving forward.

Anyway... there's a lot out there. You just need to find what you like.

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

Actually, what you do is create an in-continuity plot device which has the power to alter continuity.

In the original Crisis, there was basically a monster which ate universes, and when the dust settled, several heroes were dead and the remaining universes had been crammed together into a single new timeline. So there was a new Flash and Superman wasn't as powerful as he'd been and there'd never been a Superboy and Supergirl was gone and none of the old silliness was in continuity anymore... just the general history, plus whatever the writers felt like keeping, or at least referring to.

But there was a small bubble put to the side where a Superman, his Lois, a good version of Luthor from a universe where the JLA was evil, and a Superboy were preserved. They could the new DCU, and were still alive, but weren't actually a part of that reality. A year or two ago, strange things started to happen. For example, Jason Todd, the second Robin, came back to life... as a villain. Eventually, the reason for this and a bunch of other things was revealed... Superboy Prime, the Superboy from another universe whose life had been preserved in the happy little bubble had been... get this... punching the walls of the bubble, which were, in a sense, the walls of reality. And the punches were so powerful that... *sigh* ... they created waves/ripples of discontinuity which quietly altered the timeline, bringing it closer to "what should have been." In a happy, proper comic book universe, Robin wouldn't be killed. It wasn't supposed to have happened. So... Jason Todd came back to life. (Except that waking up in his coffin, digging himself out of his own grave, and then discovering that Batman hadn't killed the Joker - the man responsible for killing Jason and his mother - kind of drove him nuts.)

And then Superboy, with the help of Alexander Luthor, created a giant reality-altering machine so that he could warp reality and make a new, perfect universe. He merged universes and fiddled with timelines and would have destroyed the entire multiverse with his insane attempts to "put things right", but was finally stopped. And a new multiverse was left, with only 52 Earths. In the wake of all that, the major good guys all decided to take a year off to get their heads together. All the comics jumped ahead to One Year Later, and the story of the missing year was filled in one week at a time with its own weekly comic, 52. Which then led into a new weekly comic which counted down another 52 weeks to... the beginning of Final Crisis. Which is going on now. (And yet, somehow, I'm doubting that it will be the last one.) This one has something to do with Darkseid destroying life on a vast scale and the bad guys winning and stuff. I'm not reading it. But in a few months, it'll be settled and the universe will be rebooted again and the entire DCU will have yet another shiny new status quo. We'll see how long it lasts.

With any luck, though... it'll be for the best, in that it will give the writers a good springboard to start things off right. Again. Hey, the Batman I saw at the beginning of One Year Later looked pretty good to me...

[ladymirth.livejournal.com]

O_O

I think I'd sit it out till they finished rebooting the entire thing too.

Aargh. I hate the Jason Todd storyline so much! But I don't know squat about the character himself, so I don't know whether I want him. On on hand, having a Robin die in the line of duty is a great plot device, on the other hand, I like my superheroes shiny and happy.

Jason kind of feels redundant to me. I LOVE Dick Grayson, and the dynamic between him and Tim is so great *BatmanBeyonddidn'thappenBatmanBeyonddidn'thappen* that Jason just feels like he's there to upset the applecart. =/

Thanks for all the feedback and explanations, Paul. It's great to have this stuff explained without having to wade through countless forums and back issues and what-not. =)

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

I'm just getting sick of the big summer events. Target audience these days for comics is college kids. People who have more time for entertainment in the summer. So every summer there's some big sensationalist overarching thing. And it almost invariably sucks. I've decided to just stop reading them and then catch up with any permanent changes after the dust settles.

Jason Todd...

Dick Grayson grew up. Which I think is cool, and I'm glad they let him do it. But then Batman needed a Robin. And it was the 80s, so he had to be... edgy. They met when Batman caught him trying to steal the tires off the Batmobile. He was angry and tough. Distinct from Dick, which is good, but a little too dark, especially for Robin (whose job it is to be counterpoint to Batman).

Jason turned out not to be very popular. So DC did something interesting. They made a phone poll. Jason got blown up. And it was announced that the readers would decide whether he lived or died. Polls were open for a matter of days. Readers set up ballot-stuffing autodialers that clogged the lines. People scrambled to get their votes in. And, with all those calls, Jason lost his life by a margin of just a handful of votes. (The story, including the tale of the voting, is in the TPB Batman: A Death In The Family.)

Batman went without a Robin for a while after that. But then Tim Drake literally knocked on his door. It seems that little Timmy had been a circus fan as a kid. He'd seen young Dick Greyson pull off an acrobatic stunt which only two other people (both adults) in the world had ever managed. And when he saw footage of Robin doing the same thing, he put two and two together. He'd quietly followed Batman and Robin's exploits without telling a soul, but when he saw Batman becoming darker and more unstable, he stepped up. He asked Dick to come back because Batman needed a Robin - someone bright, young, and optimistic - to give him balance. Instead, Dick convinced Tim to step into the role himself.

And that's how we ended up with a new Robin who was very much like the original, and even had his official stamp of approval.

So... yeah. Jason was brought in to upset the applecart. And people didn't like it. And he was killed off. And thus became more significant than he'd ever been while alive. His memorial display in the Batcave (an empty costume suspended in a glass case) has been an important emotional touchstone in many stories (and has been broken in more than a few fights).

Anyway, happy to explain. Happy to help. Glad to have someone interested in listening. And something to talk about. And so on. :)

(Oops. Forgot I wasn't logged in when I hit post. Sorry. You can ignore the "anonymous" copy...)

[ladymirth.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Paul. I actually found out about all that stuff from Wikipedia, but I didn't know about the memorial.

What was Jason's relationship with Dick like? I keep hearing conflicting accounts. And why did Batman pull Jean-Paul out from left field to take up the mantle after he became disabled? I understand why he didn't want Dick to do it, but how come he trusted Azrael so much?

You've created a monster. XD

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

To be honest... (don't tell anyone I said this...)

I don't know.

I didn't start reading Batman comics until the late 90s, maybe even 2000. What I know of the times before is through research and TPBs. I'd heard of Jean-Paul and AzBat. I even got an issue (I think as a gift?) which confused the heck out of me because it was in the middle of the AzBat storyline.

Funny thing is that after Jean-Paul was kicked out, Bruce still wasn't doing so well. So he left again, and... Dick was called in to fill in. (Batman: Prodigal)

Dick should have been the one he called in. But... I think they wanted a story with a darker, more violent Bat. No idea where Bruce came up with Jean-Paul or why he brought him in.

[ladymirth.livejournal.com]

I really wish I could get hold of the comics. But I can't even download anything right now. *broods* I'd love to read Batman: Prodigal.

Thanks again, Paul. Your "secret" is safe with me. =D

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

Prodigal was a good read. Not the greatest, but good. Sorry I can't give you the copy I read, but it belongs to my local library...

Hope you get the comp issues fixed soon. Good luck with that. (Any idea what's wrong?)

And thanks. ;)

[ladymirth.livejournal.com]

What would you have Superman wearing?

I'm fine with the blue suit and red cape. It's just the yellow belt and red underpants I have a problem with. *g* But I agree, Spidey wouldn't look right without the Spidey-suit. On the other hand, some of the suits the female superheroes wear to fight crime are just ridiculous. (High heels? Really?)

I usually don't like Golden Age stories at all, but being a fan of Selena/ Bruce, I couldn't help mourning that one.

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

Ah. Zoomway actually has a page about how the costume came to be. (See? Even I don't think she's entirely evil... ;) )

But yeah... there's a lot that's silly and/or impractical. Things that simply don't work in live action.

As for superheroine costumes... that's a whole other subject.

But high heels in specific remind me of a character from The Tick animated series. American Maid fought crime in a star-spangled red, white, and blue maid's uniform. Her primary weapons? Deadly, razor-sharp stiletto heels, which she could throw with incredible accuracy.

[ladymirth.livejournal.com]

American Maid fought crime in a star-spangled red, white, and blue maid's uniform. Her primary weapons? Deadly, razor-sharp stiletto heels, which she could throw with incredible accuracy.

I'm...not...going to touch that one. o_O

I love Zoomway's stuff, actually. They were a wealth of information when I first got into the LnC fandom. Thanks for the link!

(Having read the article) So nobody thought that the "Alpha Male" version of the 1930s would need to be slightly revamped for current audiences to get the idea? *facepalm*

I'm okay with everything except the sodding briefs. What the hell?

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

I should point out that The Tick is a parody series. His other major ally was Die Flatermaus (German for "The Bat"), a guy in a bat costume who was in the hero biz for the glamor and the girls, and actually ran away at the first sign of danger.

As for the costume... it's been tweaked over the years, but after this long... he wouldn't look like Superman otherwise. I mean, they tried updating the costume. They did the Superman Red and Superman Blue nonsense. They tried updating Spidey's costume, too... And everyone hated it all and wanted things back the way they were supposed to be.