super hero team vs super hero team
It’s always a draw.
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You know what I’m hoping goes away for a while? The deconstructionist comic. I get it, Moore, Morrison and a slew of other writers reach a certain audience with their stories of how comics and their heroes aren’t the greatest people in the world. They’ve written stories that are considered seminal in the history of the genre…but those stories had their place and time. They were written at a time when it hadn’t really been done before and made an impact because we hadn’t seen anything like it before.
Fast forward to today and it seems like so many people want to write the next Watchmen. They want to tread on ground that’s already been covered. The thing is…we don’t need it anymore. How many times have we seen a writer and artist take a hero apart be it through character or their tropes to point out how “silly” or “passe” they are? Too many. And when everyone is doing it, it doesn’t have the same impact it once had. Call me crazy but I want to see my heroes be heroes. There’s nothing wrong with that.
I dunno. Maybe it’s just me.
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When every single villain has a personal grudge against the hero. They don’t feel like heroes when every conflict they encounter is because they somehow ticked off the villain; they feel like jerks who tick off way too many people. Batman’s been particularly terrible about this in recent years. I want more villains who are just doing bad things for their own reasons when the heroes get involved.
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I got another one! It’s something many Superman fans refer to as the “angry red eyes of anger”
When Superman’s eyes glow red, you know you’re in trouble because you’ve done something to royally piss him off. This was used sparingly back in the day, which is why it had so much weight when it happened. When you take the past twenty years into account, writers and artists have it as the default look for Superman. What was once a surprising and somewhat scary moment because so overused, it didn’t mean anything anymore.
I wish they would stop using the angry red eyes of anger.
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I’d concur. I don’t mind showing a character has feet of clay. Adams/O’Neil did that really well after the trip across America storyline that Roy, Ollie’s ward, was a junkie. So it can have its place, but, it’s place is few and far between. There are so many writers and artists that are trying to be “deep and meaningful”, instead of being storytellers & bards. Filling the world with resplendent imagination and fun.
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Also, if we include things specific to individual characters, Batman being an irrational angerbot who’s a jerk for no reason and whose only emotions are brooding and RAGE. I’m not asking for a joke on every page, just a healthy human range of emotions and more ability to stay objective in the face of stressful situations.
Basically, both Jerk!Batman and Overpowered!Batman seem to come from writers who want to make him some sort of two-dimensional avatar of VENGEANCE. Leave that to the Spectre and let Bruce be human.
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@JeepersItsTheJamags I was gonna post something similar, but I absolutely agree!
Especially in the late nineties, writers made Batman so unlikable. They were trying to get him more towards the Frank Miller Dark Knight Returns version where he’s always angry and is kind of a jerk. He puts Huntress on the JLA to keep an eye on her and he joins the team to keep an eye out on other heroes in case they go rogue. He keeps files on ways to take down his friends and has had those plans stolen not one but twice! He’s never wrong, he always has to have the moral high ground on other heroes, and god forbid he’s shown in a negative light.
Thankfully, this trend has kind of died down. The “Bat-God” trope is becoming a thing of the past with writers like Snyder, King, Tynion IV, etc. They’re showing that Bruce has bad days. He doesn’t always win and he doesn’t always have a plan in place before the fight has taken place. They’ve shown how Bruce picks himself up in the face of adversity and I’d argue that’s a way more interesting story than what we were given before.
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Morrison’s JLA (and Batman’s random, unnecessary abuse of Huntress in… a lot of contexts, really) notwithstanding, he wasn’t even as bad in the late '90s as he was through most of the 2000s. In particular, Greg Rucka makes him insufferable.
And I’d say the modern writers have certainly walked the Bat-God stuff back, but it only really looks good in comparison to what we were dealing with for the previous decade.
On another note, I don’t even mind Batman usually having the moral high ground, as long as he’s, you know, actually right and reasonable. But it gets really grating when he’s just angry and judgmental all the time.
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Tell me about it. As a Superman fan, it’s extra annoying. I’ve seen so many stories where Batman is talking down to Superman and many of those stories are cited to me when Batman fans want to grind you under their boot to tell you why Batman is better than Superman.
Again, it comes back to Dark Knight Returns. Because of the popularity of that book, it informed a generation of readers as to why Batman and Superman “shouldn’t be friends” as Miller once put it. So the divide between the two characters kept going because those same people who were reading the mini-series back in the day have grown up to become comic writers and artists themselves and that’s all they know.
It’s why I always liked that quote in the Justice League episode Twilight when Superman gets in Batman’s face and says “You know something, Bruce? You’re not always right.” It felt like such a relief to have someone point that out. Also, that’s a good episode, too.
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And that’s another thing! I feel like there’s not nearly as much difference between the two of them as writers like Miller want there to be. There’s no reason at all they shouldn’t be friends.
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@JeepersItsTheJamags there were a few positive things about the New 52 that I really gravitated towards, and one of them was the end of the “Batman/Superman” rivalry. I think it was in an issue of Superman/Batman where Bruce mentioned how much he respected Clark; who he was and what he stood for. I never thought I’d see that in a comic again. And I’m glad that we’re slowly getting away from the rivalry that Miller and people like him so vehemently want there to be.
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Events. They used to be fun, epic, and rare. Now, they suck for me. I need to read Tie Ins to understand the “full” story. But, then I need the Tie Ins of the Tie Ins. I usually avoid events. [×]
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I hate that when you read a comic book at the end you get accidental spoilers for other comic books you haven’t got round to reading yet. Like, I read a detective comics issue and afterward it gave me a spoiler for heroes in crisis which I hadn’t read yet
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Slightly weird one, but it just takes me out of the story every time I see it. When a writer has an elected official do things their office has no power to do. You see this a lot with members of congress. The current Batgirl has a congresswoman essentially governing part of Gotham. They don’t have that kind of authority, it doesn’t work that way. A similar problem is when elected officials “order” that someone be arrested. City council members, members of congress, etc do not have the authority to have people arrested, it doesn’t work that way.
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Okay, so the Teen Titans ongoing right now makes me slightly uncomfortable. They have this love triangle between Crush, Djinn, and Robin. It’s uncomfortable because they treat them like adults. But they’re not. It’s kind of creepy that 18+ Crush has a crush on a girl who looks 12. It’s also creepy that they make it sound like Robin, age 13-14 is mature enough to decide that he loves her. I know that Djinn is 3000+, but she’s still stuck in the body of a 12 year old and it’s weird.
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The one thing that bothers me, and maybe not others which I understand, is making a street level hero into a god like or superpowered being. Particularly, I am talking about Batman.
Yes many stories particularly recently by Snyder and Morrison, show Batman as a god like being. Such as Barbotos being a Bat God to consumes universes. Bat God because Batman traveling through time because of Darkseid. Or the Batman Who Laughs. Pretty much a god like Joker / Batman combo who is responsible for my deaths of universe. Yes, don’t get me wrong the stories are pretty cool and all. But the Barbotos ruins the idea of Batman being a mortal man in a costume. Batman Who Laughs demotes the Joker, Joker is the craziest and unpredictable villian not the Batman Who Laughs who Joker is now afraid of. Joker should not be afraid of anyone.
Whatever you feel about this opinion I understand. I just miss the mainstream street level Batman. I understand times change and this new Batman is what people want. Just my two sense is I want the street level Batman back.
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About bleepin time. I’d stopped reading Batman for quite a while because of this.
The last Batman I saw or read was Batman & HQ. That I liked. A bit of comedy goes a long way for the Batman but it humanizes him considerably.
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Spoilers in the cover art or misleading cover art.
I especially hate when the cover features a character (usually a villain) that doesn’t show up until the final page of the issue.
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