JL Rebirth
Batman: I AM GOTHAM Rebirth
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In New Teen Titans (or rather, Tales of the Teen Titans) after the Judas Contract, where Changeling asks Deathstroke if he slept with Terra, Deathstroke says âWould it make a difference?â and Changeling says âI guess not.â Uh, yeah, it would make a difference. First, thereâs the nagging suspicion that Terra and Deathstrokeâs relationship was included to make her look bad when by any reasonable standard, itâs abusive behavior on his part. Second, it would make a difference, because without the relationship with Terra, I can accept the morally ambiguous portrayal of Deathstroke that Wolfman was going for, but with it, heâs not just doing a job, heâs abusing a minor for no reason. Either portrayal (irredeemable monster Deathstroke or morally ambiguous professional Deathstroke) would be an acceptable character, but you canât have both.
Whatâs really frustrating about that moment is that the scene leading up to it is actually very well-written, but those two panels just disrupt the whole thing.
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Every time somebody pronounces Luthor âLuther.â
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How much time do you have?
I know the horse is dead by now, but the New 52 changed me and not in a good way. Solstice in particular deserved to have a happy family. Itâs like they just canât stand to have heroes without a tortured backstory. I hate it.
They also stripped Cyborg of his history and his friends. I appreciate that heâs getting a spotlight now, but I HATE that theyâre forcing the new version of things on him. The film productions are adaptations. Seems like someone is very invested in keeping it the same throughout, because Iâve seen DC writers play fast and loose with rosters and backstories before, and I usually prefer the adaptations that way. I find the writing is usually better.
Also, not okay with his whole thing in Young Justice right now. His dad was originally the one who came up with the tech that saved his life. Now heâs the nutjob who let untested alien tech latch onto his son in desperation?AND that tech is causing violent episodes?
I donât see how these writers can think thatâs okay. Not with our current events.
Halo deserved better too. Theyâre not even acknowledging the trauma that watching someone die repeatedly will inflict on a person⌠Even if that person will heal.
I fought HARD for this show to come back, Iâve supported it more than I support most things in life, and I feel really let down.
Iâm tired of the live actions trying to be dark and gritty, too. There are so many. Iâm exhausted.
In particular, I legit went into mourning for Laurel Lance. Like, there was a grieving process and everything. And no, that is not a testament to the writersâ capabilities, or a compliment. It was absolute garbage. I was sad about the other deaths, too, but that one was the worst. Insult to injury is having someone else come in and just up and fill her role. Iâd probably love her otherwise, but it hurts too much to watch the rest right now.
The comics in particular are chock full of stuff that messed me up before I realized the influence they were having on me. The storyline with Ravager and that meta fighting ring in particular.
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The Martha moment, Lex Luthor, and Doomsday from Batman vs Superman lol
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When Grant Morrison dropped himself into his last issue of Animal Man. I didnât mind that he did it, but some of the things he said in that scene I felt were extreme and distasteful.
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Pretty much every time one of these streaming or CW shows try to shoehorn in political messages or woke dialogueâŚits so jarring and takes people out of the storyâŚonce or twice ok but every freaking episode??? Doom Patrol, Young Justice both have done it and not subtlety either. WB its ok to add politics every once in awhile but either be more subtle or try to he even handed. Hearing Jane utter the phrase âToxic Masculinityâ to Robotman was jarring and laughable I hoped it was satire but nope she used it unironicallyâŚDo people really use this language in everyday life where youâre writerâs live?
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Turning Cassandra Cain evil. Really, really dumb move from some unnamed bigwig. Though, unlike some other mistakes DC has made, that at least got reversed. Not as quickly as it should have, but the publisherâs leadership has never been very âon the ball.â
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Leslie Thompkinsâ character being assassinated by letting Stephanie Brown die. This was fixed when they retconned Brownâs death as faked, they clearly meant, at the time, for it to stick.
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Echoing victorymutt.7512, the New52. Maybe the horse is dead, but the corpse hasnât really been dealt with, and its stink can still foul things up. Just because the screw-up was a few years ago, doesnât make it any less inept, and the people responsible donât get to just forget it at their convenience. Especially when you take so long to make repairs, if you bother at all. Which leads me to:
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Orphan. Cassandra Cain is great, but âOrphanâ is a travesty that never shouldâve been allowed. I donât care if CassINO gets emotional has the same moves, that retcon was disgustingly amateurish and unnecessary (which is just the tip of the problematic iceberg).
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Harper Row. Itâs bad enough sheâs a derivative character and a lousy person in-universe, but it doesnât help that better characters were devolved to bow down before her in the Eternal books. Iâm not going to ignore that because someone at DC doesnât want to admit their mistakes.
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Rebirth apparently doing nothing to fix Cass Cain. Her origin is still basically all about someone else, because thatâs what Tynion wanted (inanity notwithstanding), and Didio and Lee donât care.
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Zack Snyder. Just, in general.
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Dan Didio and Jim Lee still having any authority.
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Many writers these days that either seem to blatantly repeat themselves (Tynion) or think they have to make every story âepicâ and âgame-changingâ, making it seem like theyâre more important than they really are. Drawing them out more issues than they need to be.
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Supergirl since the third episode of Season 2, Flash and Legends of Tomorrow for their âweâre super-geniuses, but weâre dumb as a bag of wet rocksâ shtick, or otherwise avoiding using common sense to drag out already drawn-out stories.
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Whoops. Sorry, about the double-post.
I clicked âPostâ and thought it didnât work the first time.
Iâd say âRicâ Grayson. Iâm a relatively new DC reader so a lot of the New 52/ Rebirth changes donât really bother me. Plus, if I seem to hate an idea (like Wally in HiC), I at least like the story itself. HiC is interesting and having dealt with issues that would put me in Sanctuary if I was a hero/ villain. But, this whole âRicâ Grayson shtick isnât even written well. Itâs all about him spitting in the face of the Dick Grayson we all know and love. For example, he is a drunk living out of a taxi while refusing as best as he can to help the city. Yes, I know he works with âThe Nightwingsâ now, but still. Just get off your drunk ass and BE Nightwing. Sorry for the rant, I just hate this direction.
P.S. Iâm in the minority when I say, I like Identity Crisis, HiC, Tom Kingâs writing, and almost everything Bendis has done since heâs been back (minus the aging up of Jon, but weâll see if/ why it was necessary for Bendis to do it).
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Dick Grayson becoming Ric Grayson that pretty much threw my interest in nightwing away but hey things change
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Oh I didnât notice me an Lifenoob98 both dont like ric grayson
Aquaman leaving Black Mantaâs dad to die. No way would any version of Arthur do that.
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I remember being stumped when Maxwell Lord said heâd kept the JLI ineffectual for years and then he shot Ted Kord. It seemed like Johns changed the character to suit the story.
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That actually was one of if not my least favorite moments too @superby1. I didnât mind Max becoming evil and Countodwn to Final Crisis with Blue Beetleâs death was one of the most powerful moments in DC Comics to me. But I hated they reconnected him as apparently sabotaging the league for so long. For one⌠it doesnât hold up under scrutiny because there are too many instances where we got inside Lordâs head or he was alone or just things he said and did that donât make sense with that explanation. But because it added a sinister undertone to one of the leagueâs most memorable eras that clearly was not written to be there when it happened. Him becoming corrupt and abusing his power over time didnât seem a stretch, but him always being evil just never flew with me.
I also was not a fan of them breaking Batmanâs back. Part of it was that while initially I of course assumed Jean Paul Valley (know I might have spelled it wrong) was temporary, but when it dragged out so long I actually started to think they will stick with it. But it was just so gimicky to have some psycho take over after a clear attempt to recapture the media and PR magic of Supermanâs death. Seems that they could have just had Dick Grayson take over and done something there, but they randomly inserted a psychopath that Batman handed the mantle to despite barely knowing him which came off very out of character, just for 90âs shock value.
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Stephanie Brownâs death. It was so inconsistent with the doctorâs character up until then.
If it had happened differently, leaving that part out, it would have worked. Her mix up, Black Mask, all of that, was fine. Right up to the ebd. But the way it happened was wrong.
However, the Retcon kinda cheapened her heroism, her fight against Black Mask at the end, and her attempt to put it right.
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@superby1: âI remember being stumped when Maxwell Lord said heâd kept the JLI ineffectual for years and then he shot Ted Kord. It seemed like Johns changed the character to suit the story.â
Yeah, nasty habit some people at DC seem to have, and not one that they seem keen on kicking.
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Max Lord keeping the League ineffectual bothers me too. For one thing⌠the JLI-era League wasnât even all that ineffectual. They were goofy, sure, but they still went toe-to-toe with the usual world-ending alien invasions. They had lower power levels than the âclassicâ line-up sometimes, but they werenât exactly Justice League Detroit.
Gotta disagree about Knightfall, though (and sorry if this is getting off-topic). AzBats is pretty clearly the villain of the piece, and I thought he served that role pretty well (though Knightquest absolutely did drag on way too long). Plus, the similarity with the Death and Return of Superman was apparently a coincidence - I think if you look at the publication dates, they happened in too quick succession to be a deliberate ripoff. If anything, if you look at some of the history behind why they were written, it seems to me that Death and Return was a publicity stunt to shock people that theyâd kill off Superman (and stall for time until they could do the marriage arc they actually wanted to do), while Knightfall was trying to make a point about Punisher-style heroes that were getting popular at the time. It was sort of a weird move on Bruceâs part from an in-universe perspective, but I think thatâs sort of a suspension-of-disbelief thing to allow OâNeil and the other writers to make their statement. Now, Iâll admit that I wasnât there at the time it was playing out, so maybe it was more exasperating reading the story over the course of a year than over the course of a week, but I stand by it
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I stopped collecting current comics in 2011 due to another âReboot of the Multiverseâ (NEW 52). The reason I stopped collecting is continuity became too confusing and I had other responsibilities. Also it seemed at the time they were going to probably do another âReboot of the Multiverse.â Donât get me wrong I love the DC Multiverse, but it seems excessive to reboot every few years. I will read what I missed since I have the time now.
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