Why doesn't Batman...

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Sat Aug 24, 2013 8:56 pm

Sorry I broke the frame, but DAMN!

lethargic · Post by **lethargic** » Sun Aug 25, 2013 12:07 am

Broke it? You nuked it!

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Sun Aug 25, 2013 4:06 pm

Fixed it, but at a loss of all the detail work.

lethargic · Post by **lethargic** » Sun Sep 01, 2013 1:47 pm

This week in retarded DC comics news.

DC currently has three Justice Leagues.

Justice League is the normal one with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.

Justice League of America is a group put together by the government. Secretly it was put together to be able to defeat the regular Justice League if the government ever wants them put down. It's a lot of the B team guys like Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow, Catwoman, etc.

Justice League Dark is a League featuring all the magic based characters. Zatanna, Constantine, Dead Man, etc.

This summer's big event was Trinity War. They have hyped this thing for over a year. It's something they've been building to since the reboot happened. It was supposed to be a huge war between the three Justice Leagues.

Well, it just ended and it was terrible.

First of all, there was no war at all. There were a few minor scrapes. That's it. The story revolved around Pandora's Box and whoever touched it would get turned evil while they held it. So basically every fight was...

I got the box I'm evil!
Put that box down!
*punch* *drops the box*
That was a close one!

By the SECOND issue of the event, all three JLs were teaming up with each other. WAR?????

The big thing though is that DC seems entirely obsessed with mainstream press coverage and they do everything they can to get some. So either they promise things they don't deliver...

We're going to kill Batman!!!!!
*Batman falls out of a helipcopter into some water, doesn't die whatsoever*

Or they spoil things to drive sales. When Robin was killed recently, they announced it a week in advance both through a press release and in an interview with the New York Post. NOBODY saw this coming. Had they not spoiled this it would've been one of the biggest shocks in comics history. Instead they made it completely anti-climatic by spoiling it a week before it happened.

With Trinity War, they did BOTH.

They sent out press releases that spoiled the ending, they did interviews that spoiled the ending, they even posted pictures on their website that spoiled the ending. But this time they did it about a month in advance to make sure EVERYBODY had plenty of time to have it spoiled.

But on top of that, they also have been promising for months that Trinity War was going to result in the deaths of all three Justice Leagues. That was the whole point. The heroes were all going to "die" and next month was villains month where they run amok with no heroes around to stop them.

Did they die? NO!! Nothing happened. One guy died...MAYBE. How did it actually end? With a TO BE CONTINUED!!!

Because not only was Trinity War NOT the big event of the summer that they promised, not only did it NOT result in the death of the JLs, not only did they spoil the ending....it turns out this whole thing was just a prelude to ANOTHER line wide event in September called Forever Evil that turns out to be the REAL summer event where the JLs will die.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

RetroRomper · Post by **RetroRomper** » Mon Sep 02, 2013 11:14 am

Hey Lethargic,

Not to bust your bubble, but isn't the whole scenario you outlined above exactly what Marvel / DC have done to drive comic sales? Ambiguous endings that result "TO BE CONTINUED!" encourages the fans to go out and buy the next set of comics, no?

Retro

lethargic · Post by **lethargic** » Mon Sep 02, 2013 12:09 pm

Not on this level.

They both normally have one giant line wide event every summer that they hype up forever. Sure, it may have some loose threads obviously to try to keep readers, but they HAVE endings. Any DC event I can think of from the last few years like Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, Blackest Night, had a definite beginning, middle and end. You could stick around for the repercussions of what happened, but you could also quit and not worry about it.

For example, Infinite Crisis ended with Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman all taking a year off. This lead to 52 which was the year in DC without those guys. So sure they wanted you to buy 52, but you could go buy the collected edition of Infinite Crisis right now and be completely satisfied with the ending. If you buy the collected edition of Trinity War you're getting what amounts to a prelude with no ending.

This one actually ended with the villains of the story not showing up until the last page of the last book and saying "to be continued!" That's crazy.

It's the bait and switch of it all that is annoying. They never acted like this upcoming Forever Evil story was connected to Trinity War to this degree. They sold Trinity War as THE event of the summer. Then at the end they go HA HA JUST KIDDING. I have never seen anything like that from DC before.

This means A - If you bought Trinity War thinking it was the big event you're fucked because you didn't get the ending.

Or B - If you skipped Trinity War and was planning on getting Forever Evil you're fucked because you didn't get the beginning.

lethargic · Post by **lethargic** » Wed Sep 04, 2013 8:10 pm

Wow. This thing is putting on a clinic on how not to do a comic event.

To recap.

We were promised the three Justice Leagues would all "die" in Trinity War. Instead Trinity War ended with all the Justice Leagues perfectly intact, save for one guy, with a TO BE CONTINUED.

So then they say just kidding, the Justice Leagues will actually die in Forever Evil.

Forever Evil #1 comes out today and instead of seeing the Justice Leagues "die" we just see the villains say "HAHA! We killed the Justice League!!"

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

RetroRomper · Post by **RetroRomper** » Thu Sep 05, 2013 1:48 am

I stopped paying attention to any headline based around a comic when every. single. news outlet picked up the story about Captain America being killed, except he was wearing jeans, had a completely different uniform and wasn't the same character.

Sooooo.... I'd say that having to constantly reboot everything because Marvel / DC had to create "continuity" as opposed to just writing decent stories or creating new comic ideas, is a long drawn out event on how to not do a comic event.

Why is the American public still getting in line to peg spiderman when we know his origin story fifty different ways? Or we get even another refresh of Superman's ideal upbringing as a farm hand?

I really miss Vertigo because they tried to add fresh blood to the medium through the popular channels and am happy to see that Dark Horse and Image are still pushing out at least a few new ideas or one shoots every year. But Marvel and DC? Jesus christ...

lethargic · Post by **lethargic** » Thu Sep 05, 2013 11:44 am

Well, you should be happy about the "big" moment that happened in Forever Evil #1.

DC has been bragging that whatever happened to Nightwing in this issue was going to cause a big media firestorm.

2 days later I have not seen one single news story pop up in my Batman Google Alert.

They had his secret identity revealed to the world. And they thought this was going to be like Spiderman all over again.

But Nightwing is not a household name. He's no Spiderman.

They also said people would be debating this for months.

But nobody is debating it. Everybody is in total agreement that it's stupid.

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Thu Sep 05, 2013 12:29 pm

I have never heard of Nightwing before your post just now. In fact when I read it I thought it might be the name of Batman's plane or a guy from Mortal Kombat.

Dangit, I was thinking of Nightwolf.

http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/Nightwolf

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Thu Sep 05, 2013 8:46 pm

I am enjoying this thread. I just can't participate without sounding like Mister 80s and 90s Comic Guy.

lethargic · Post by **lethargic** » Fri Sep 06, 2013 12:15 pm

Flack wrote:I have never heard of Nightwing before your post just now. In fact when I read it I thought it might be the name of Batman's plane or a guy from Mortal Kombat.

Dangit, I was thinking of Nightwolf.

http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/Nightwolf

Nightwing is Dick Grayson, the original Robin, who Burt Ward played.

If this sticks it makes everything even more ridiculous.

1 - Bruce Wayne has publicly admitted to "funding" Batman.
2 - Bruce Wayne's son mysteriously "disappears" from public eye when Robin is murdered.
3 - Nightwing is revealed to be Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne's adopted son.

Who couldn't put two and two together????

The best part now though is that after all this talk about Nightwing making the media, DC HAS made the media. But for something else.

If you go to Drudge Report right now and scroll down a little there's a picture of Batwoman. Because the guys who write the book quit because DC wouldn't allow them to have Batwoman marry her girlfriend.

Congrats DC, here's that mainstream news coverage you wanted!

At this point so many creative people have quit DC over the past 3 years it's a wonder they can still put books out.

RetroRomper · Post by **RetroRomper** » Mon Sep 09, 2013 6:42 am

DC is running a contest for artists to "break into the industry" by drawing a four panel page where Harley Quinn is essentially trying to commit suicide. Specifically what is drawing ire is the content of panel four:

DC Comics wrote:PANEL 4
Harley sitting naked in a bathtub with toasters, blow dryers, blenders, appliances all dangling above the bathtub and she has a cord that will release them all. We are watching the moment before the inevitable death. Her expression is one of “oh well, guess that’s it for me” and she has resigned herself to the moment that is going to happen.

http://www.dccomics.com/node/305151

Jezebel.com is finding a bit of annoyance with it (http://jezebel.com/dc-comics-contest-dr ... 1265537616) and it was a friend of mine who sent me the link with the subject "OMG!! Sex and suicide!" Everyone is having a knee jerk reaction to a relatively benign description (would someone be clothed if they were in a bath?), but I thought its cute how DC is still managing to draw just the opposite sort of headline Lethargic noted they are gunning for.

lethargic · Post by **lethargic** » Mon Sep 09, 2013 12:33 pm

That's just ridiculous. Harley Quinn is a comedic character. The whole description of her sitting in a bathtub with a dozen appliances above her is obviously meant to be of a comedic tone. And DC doesn't allow nudity. She's not to go to be sitting there with her titties flopping out. God, people kill me. I read the description and didn't think anything about it. If you just take it out of context and look at it on it's own like jezebel did, sure, it sounds crazy. Put it in context with the rest of the panels and you get the goofy tone they're going for.

I was thinking about doing some crappy MS Paint drawing for that contest.

BTW, I think this whole contest is complete BS.

Amanda Conner is the perfect artist for a Harley Quinn series. Yet they have her as "co-writer" on the book and the first issue is going to be various artists all drawing one page with Harley "breaking the fourth wall" and trying to pick which of the artists she wants to do the series.

I guarantee that Amanda Conner will "win" the contest. BOOK IT!

lethargic · Post by **lethargic** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 2:27 pm

Growing up I used to pull out all my Batman comics and re-read them all once a year or so. This generally took a a couple of months or so.

But since I got out of reading comics in the mid-90s I didn't do it anymore. They just stayed in a box in my closet. When the Batman Begins hype was starting in 2005 it got me interested in reading my comics again. But re-reading them I started thinking, I'd like to start getting comics again. So I did. But then I was like, who are all these new people and what happened since I last read? So then on top of buying the new Batman comics I started going back and trying to get all of the Batman comics I had missed. Filling in as many holes as I could and getting all the important storylines I missed over the past 10 years or so. Plus all kinds of other stuff. Any extra money I had I would just go through the back issues and buy anything I didn't have.

So I was buying all the old stuff I missed, buying all the new stuff, buying back issues and then DC announced the big Infinite Crisis crossover. I wanted to read that but to do that I needed to read more than Batman, so that lead to me buying nearly every book DC put out. That lasted until 2010 when I tapped out and just went back to Batman books. A few months later I stopped that again and took a couple years off.

So fast forward to 2012 years and it's time for The Dark Knight Rises to come out. I figured since I started reading comics again with the start of the Batman movies, I would re-read my comics again to celebrate the finale of the Batman movies.

Only my mind didn't process it properly. Since all the times I had done this previously were before my re-introduction into comics, my mind still kinda felt this was going to be a quick deal. A few months and I'd be done. It didn't register in my head that my comic collection had grown from one box to 8 boxes. All those comics I got from 2005-2010...meaningless! I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I remember the day The Dark Knight Rises came out on DVD I looked at my comics and I was only through one box. I couldn't believe the movie was already on home video and I had barely made a dent.!

The Man of Steel came out and OMG...I'm STILL reading.

It got to the point where I started thinking, "I started reading this when TDKR came out, if I'm still reading this when MoS hits DVD I'm going to shoot myself!"

So I cracked down the past few weeks and read as much as possible, skimmed a few stories I didn't care much about, (looking at you Michael Lane Azrael), just so I could finally be finished.

I started on July 18th 2012 and officially finished on September 15th 2013. 425 days to read 2452 comics and 219 graphic novels/collected editions.

Now I have no idea what do do with my free time. Thank God GTA V is coming out!

Retro · Post by **Retro** » Wed Nov 06, 2013 9:19 pm

Literally just finished "Injustice: Gods Among Us" and while I enjoyed the story, the whole "Superman takes over the world to impose his form of peace" has been retold at least three times. Still, OKAY story and the writers managed to show character development and made Robin a whiny little brat.

6/10 - would read again.

Anyone care to suggest what my next comic should be?

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Nov 06, 2013 10:07 pm

Dunno, but Jezebel is the absolute dumbest website on the planet right now. It's desperate click bait and race baiting with a grand helping of social justice morons.

loafergirl · Post by **loafergirl** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 5:18 pm

[youtube][/youtube]

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Sat Nov 09, 2013 4:06 am

That was good!