What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

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Shock
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Shock »

Batgirl III wrote: Sat Jun 16, 2018 5:12 pm The issue there is that Pre-Crisis always had a slight “Mrs. Robinson” vibe to the flirtation between Batgirl and Robin. Dick was a high school student until 1969, when O’Neil and Adams shipped him off to Hudson University... Babs has her Ph.D. and job as Head Librarian in her 1967 debut.

A few years later, when she was living in Washington D.C. as a Senator, Barbara’s good friend Bruce Wayne would set her up on a date with his other good friend, Clark Kent.

Pre-Crisis Batgirl is clearly younger than the Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman, but she’s also clearly older than the Teen Titans. She’s more in that “age category” of the younger-but-still-mature-adult range as Oliver Queen, Kara Zor-El, Hal Jordan, and Barry Allen.
I think it's been obvious for a while that Pre-Crisis is no longer an issue. Since New 52, Barbara has been portrayed as slightly younger and less experienced than Dick Grayson. but probably close enough to consider them about equals as far as being heroes goes.
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Batgirl III
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Batgirl III »

Shock wrote: Sat Jun 16, 2018 7:49 pm
Batgirl III wrote: Sat Jun 16, 2018 5:12 pm The issue there is that Pre-Crisis always had a slight “Mrs. Robinson” vibe to the flirtation between Batgirl and Robin. Dick was a high school student until 1969, when O’Neil and Adams shipped him off to Hudson University... Babs has her Ph.D. and job as Head Librarian in her 1967 debut.

A few years later, when she was living in Washington D.C. as a Senator, Barbara’s good friend Bruce Wayne would set her up on a date with his other good friend, Clark Kent.

Pre-Crisis Batgirl is clearly younger than the Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman, but she’s also clearly older than the Teen Titans. She’s more in that “age category” of the younger-but-still-mature-adult range as Oliver Queen, Kara Zor-El, Hal Jordan, and Barry Allen.
I think it's been obvious for a while that Pre-Crisis is no longer an issue. Since New 52, Barbara has been portrayed as slightly younger and less experienced than Dick Grayson. but probably close enough to consider them about equals as far as being heroes goes.
Well, yeah, the Crisis happened when I was theee years old. It’s still the period when Batgirl was portrayed the best, in my opinion.
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BriarThrone
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by BriarThrone »

Shock wrote: Sat Jun 16, 2018 7:47 pm I just read that and it wasn't remotely preachy. You seem to be projecting a bit there
So did I. I disagree. The dialogue is pretty explicit, talking about hatred for our world, because in our world, "the good guys" were the ones that dropped not one, but TWO atomic bombs. And the slavery thing was a MAJOR focus, that got the historical details tragically-hilariously wrong. And it's not as if they can employ a "just a story" defense, because there was a clear effort to moralize about history throughout every detail of this book that isn't about lesbians.
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by greycrusader »

Barbara Gordon and Kara Zor-El/Linda Danvers were notorious for having had about a half-dozen professional careers apiece and still somehow being under the age of thirty (and yes, the most egregious example being Batgirl's turn as Senator!!!); heck, there was one point when DC editorial decided Kara was still 19, and this was pre-COIE when she had been a student-journalist, college adviser, fashion design assistant, soap opera actress, and camera operator-holy hannah! Of course, writers seemed to forgot whether Barbara was James Gordon's niece or daughter, so there was that too.

Comic book aging-and even the "allowed" age range of characters-really makes the shared continuities quite odd at times. Take a look at Marvel's Power Pack,or the whole Kitty Pryde thing, or even how problematic adult ex-sidekicks are for their heroic mentors. This likely influenced my deliberate choices in my superhero rpg work to deliberately have heroes and villains of varying ages, body types, and so on, like a Buffy analogue who was pushing fifty and coping with lingering injuries. But then again, I don't have to worry about sustaining an ongoing title(s).

Yeah, I also sort of pretend the post Gail Simone Batgirl ("of Burnside") is the further adventures of Stephanie, kind of like I mentally map Wally West into the lead of the Flash TV show, which IMHO is the same sort of thing, the company putting their more modern version's traits/persona in the more commercially familiar/marketable vessel.

(Marvel did this a bit with the big-screen Thor, who is a LOT like their best portrayals of Hercules-Ragnarok was really the late 1980s version of the Hercules space-buddy comics.)

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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Ken »

In my head canon, Bruce is at least 45. Given that he was 25 when he returned to Gotham after his world travels.

In that same head canon, Kal-El's rocket landed about maybe 42 years ago years ago. But calculating his actual age is a bear between the relativistic effects on him during his trip from Krypton, the actual amount of time Superboy spent in the 31st century, and the dozen years he spent in the late 30s into the 40s with his powers diminished and as a partial-but-recovering amnesiac.

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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Woodclaw »

L-Space wrote: Sat Jun 16, 2018 4:43 am New look and writer for Batgirl. Not a big fan of the mask, but the rest of the costume looks good.
So they took Brereton's Thrillkiller mask, stitched and it to the original costume... I can live with that.
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Ares
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Ares »

While not exactly new, I've been reading the 2017 Iron Fist series, and it's much better than I thought it was going to be. WAY better than "Iron Fist: The Living Weapon". I'm still not a fan of the track-suit outfit they gave him, but eh.
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Ares »

Also, it is AMAZING at how badly Marvel wants Carol Danvers to succeed as Captain Marvel and how badly they keep messing it up.

She got re-branded as Captain Marvel and got her own solo book in 2012. Then it got canceled and relaunched in 2014. Then it got canceled and relaunched again in 2016. Then THAT got canceled within the same year and got relaunched at the very end of 2016/start of 2017 as The Mighty Captain Marvel. Then THAT got rebranded again in 2018 as just Captain Marvel, using a new numbering that combined all of her previous series together, making it issue #125.

They don't really seem to get that Carol was more popular, sold better and was way more well liked as Ms. Marvel. And that when the re-imagined her from the ground up, they pretty much killed a lot of what made fans like her. And they just. Keep. FAILING. She's basically averaging a canceled title every 2 years, but instead of addressing the problem, they just keep shuffling the deck instead of getting themselves some new cards to play.
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Batgirl III
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Batgirl III »

And god forbid they give any other female heroine half as hard a push. Clearly they’re trying to keep the title active as part of pushing the long planned for movie... But why not hedge your bets by pushing two or three heroines?

Maybe someone who already had a large, organic fanbase like Black Widow? Any one of the ninety Spider-Girls and Spider-Women? Scarlet Witch? She-Hulk?

(Seriously, why the hell has Black Widow been given a solo film? You can’t tell me executives don’t think Scarlet Johansson will put butts in seats. She’s highest-grossing actress of all time in North America!)
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Ares »

And you'd think a Black Widow movie would be stupid easy to pull off. Just make a James Bond movie where the Bond Girl is the heroine, and then ramp the action up to superhero levels. DONE. You can even finally have Black Widow win a fight against someone who isn't a mook.

And it isn't like Marvel hasn't tried pushing other female heroes. You had Female Thor, the re-branded (She-)Hulk, Squirrel Girl, Riri Williams, America Chavez, Unstoppable Wasp, Mockingbird . . . all of which sucked, most of which have thankfully been cancelled.

Fans seem to like Spider-Gwen, Ms. Marvel and Gwenpool okay, though I can't stand Gwenpool myself, Spider-Gwen is just an outfit they should have given to a 616 Spider-Girl, and Ms. Marvel . . . honestly, it depends on who's writing her, because no one seems to be able to write her consistently. She can go from being a fun, enthusiastic superhero fangirl, to being completely unbearable.

But yeah, while Marvel has been reluctant to cancel books for diversity reasons, they keep pushing Carol, almost for the principle of the thing. And I've got no problem with Carol being the MCU's Wonder Woman, but you've got to go about it the right way. And removing her feminine traits and making her act like a villain doesn't help. There's a reason people on Youtube call her "Carl Manvers": much of the time she looks like Marv-Vel came back to life, lost some weight and got a new costume.

What Marvel and DC honestly need to do is dial down the number of books they produce. Something between 10-to-20 solo titles and team books. Other books can be mini-series, event books and anthology books to give new creators a chance to flex their muscles and promote new characters who might be worth a new book. Have a "Deadly Hands of Kung Fu" book that lets writers tell martial arts stories, an Agents of SHIELD book that has different superspy stuff, etc.
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Jabroniville »

Ares wrote: Wed Jun 20, 2018 4:47 am Also, it is AMAZING at how badly Marvel wants Carol Danvers to succeed as Captain Marvel and how badly they keep messing it up.

She got re-branded as Captain Marvel and got her own solo book in 2012. Then it got canceled and relaunched in 2014. Then it got canceled and relaunched again in 2016. Then THAT got canceled within the same year and got relaunched at the very end of 2016/start of 2017 as The Mighty Captain Marvel. Then THAT got rebranded again in 2018 as just Captain Marvel, using a new numbering that combined all of her previous series together, making it issue #125.

They don't really seem to get that Carol was more popular, sold better and was way more well liked as Ms. Marvel. And that when the re-imagined her from the ground up, they pretty much killed a lot of what made fans like her. And they just. Keep. FAILING. She's basically averaging a canceled title every 2 years, but instead of addressing the problem, they just keep shuffling the deck instead of getting themselves some new cards to play.
DC has the same issue with Wonder Woman, but at least that character has name value. Marvel keeps pulling massive boners over this, largely because they're hiring for Woke-ness instead of skill in this regard. I don't harp on the SJW thing as much as many (well, most) of you do, but I was heavily critical of their "Well we had to change her look to make her respectable" approach to start with, and I think EVERYONE hated the "butch lesbian" haircut. I mean, I've given female characters butch haircuts before, but they're ACTUAL LESBIANS, not the "I'm a lantern-jawed, heterosexual butch woman!" thing. It's a mixed signal, is what I'm saying.

And all the issues I flipped through featuring her came off as "Men SUCK; Wimmin AWESOME" or an open celebration of Feminism 101- the wrong kind of stuff to do if you want to make a book popular.

So basically, Captain Marvel has become Marvel's Wonder Woman, but not in the way they intended. In the "well, we'll give her chance after chance to succeed, but GOD FORBID Popular Supporting Character #37 gets one failed mini-series- HE'S DONE FOREVER!!" kind of way.
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by greycrusader »

Jabroniville wrote: Wed Jun 20, 2018 6:59 am
Ares wrote: Wed Jun 20, 2018 4:47 am Also, it is AMAZING at how badly Marvel wants Carol Danvers to succeed as Captain Marvel and how badly they keep messing it up.

She got re-branded as Captain Marvel and got her own solo book in 2012. Then it got canceled and relaunched in 2014. Then it got canceled and relaunched again in 2016. Then THAT got canceled within the same year and got relaunched at the very end of 2016/start of 2017 as The Mighty Captain Marvel. Then THAT got rebranded again in 2018 as just Captain Marvel, using a new numbering that combined all of her previous series together, making it issue #125.

They don't really seem to get that Carol was more popular, sold better and was way more well liked as Ms. Marvel. And that when the re-imagined her from the ground up, they pretty much killed a lot of what made fans like her. And they just. Keep. FAILING. She's basically averaging a canceled title every 2 years, but instead of addressing the problem, they just keep shuffling the deck instead of getting themselves some new cards to play.
DC has the same issue with Wonder Woman, but at least that character has name value. Marvel keeps pulling massive boners over this, largely because they're hiring for Woke-ness instead of skill in this regard. I don't harp on the SJW thing as much as many (well, most) of you do, but I was heavily critical of their "Well we had to change her look to make her respectable" approach to start with, and I think EVERYONE hated the "butch lesbian" haircut. I mean, I've given female characters butch haircuts before, but they're ACTUAL LESBIANS, not the "I'm a lantern-jawed, heterosexual butch woman!" thing. It's a mixed signal, is what I'm saying.

And all the issues I flipped through featuring her came off as "Men SUCK; Wimmin AWESOME" or an open celebration of Feminism 101- the wrong kind of stuff to do if you want to make a book popular.

So basically, Captain Marvel has become Marvel's Wonder Woman, but not in the way they intended. In the "well, we'll give her chance after chance to succeed, but GOD FORBID Popular Supporting Character #37 gets one failed mini-series- HE'S DONE FOREVER!!" kind of way.
In fairness, a lot of current comics artists come from a "cheesecake/good-girl" pin up art background, and Ms. Marvel REALLY got this treatment in a few cases-the black body stocking was supposed to terminate in shorts, not a freaking THONG which seemed to cover less and less backside as time went on; this got compounded by the tendency of said artists to draw any non-action pose with comic book women into preening, with arched backs, one hand on the hip, etc. Again, not just a recent phenomenon by any means, and certainly male heroes aren't any more realistic in their proportions, but I think the critics did have a point in a few cases. But yeah, reacting by doing the awful looking "faux-hawk", the more generic costume (Mar-Vell's looked like a superhero body stocking, not a military uniform) with drab colors (black and silver/gold was far more eye-catching), and PUSHING the "woke-ness" hard did not help put Carol Danvers over at all.

The other problems are the complete swerves due to company wide crossovers-the 2012 series had a solid premise and potential, but that got tossed aside for Civil War I; canceled and brought back with bizarre artwork, inexperienced comics writer, and inexplicable plot; then re-started but with the aforementioned terrible new look and heavy handed approach, along with the out of left field "Alpha Flight in space" thing. So yes-a minor rank Wonder Woman, but in the bad way.

A Black Widow movie should obviously be a thing at this point, if they can get Ms. Johannsen to extend her contract-Angelina Jolie already proved it could work in Salt a decade ago. She-Hulk could be tremendously fun, but I think Universal still has the rights, and Sony likely would have to agree to any Spider-Woman/Girl property-sharing.

The stink of failure associated with female superhero films should have been dispersed by the cinematic success of Wonder Woman and CW's Supergirl treatment, and Jessica Jones on Netflix.

Speaking of those shows -all of them have definite feminist (and in Supergirl's case) liberal viewpoints, but they concentrate on the stories and action, instead of making an agenda the focus. I appreciate that, and remember, I'm one of the few people here who stand on their side of the aisle. Its like Robert Heinlien's novels, which I read a lot as a kid and teen-they're way better at making the author's (libertarian, hawkish) viewpoint look good when they're not trying to do it by having the characters stop everything to deliver long-winded speeches.

Just my opinion, for what its worth. All my best.
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by HalloweenJack »

Jabroniville wrote: Wed Jun 20, 2018 6:59 am
Ares wrote: Wed Jun 20, 2018 4:47 am Also, it is AMAZING at how badly Marvel wants Carol Danvers to succeed as Captain Marvel and how badly they keep messing it up.

She got re-branded as Captain Marvel and got her own solo book in 2012. Then it got canceled and relaunched in 2014. Then it got canceled and relaunched again in 2016. Then THAT got canceled within the same year and got relaunched at the very end of 2016/start of 2017 as The Mighty Captain Marvel. Then THAT got rebranded again in 2018 as just Captain Marvel, using a new numbering that combined all of her previous series together, making it issue #125.

They don't really seem to get that Carol was more popular, sold better and was way more well liked as Ms. Marvel. And that when the re-imagined her from the ground up, they pretty much killed a lot of what made fans like her. And they just. Keep. FAILING. She's basically averaging a canceled title every 2 years, but instead of addressing the problem, they just keep shuffling the deck instead of getting themselves some new cards to play.
DC has the same issue with Wonder Woman, but at least that character has name value. Marvel keeps pulling massive boners over this, largely because they're hiring for Woke-ness instead of skill in this regard. I don't harp on the SJW thing as much as many (well, most) of you do, but I was heavily critical of their "Well we had to change her look to make her respectable" approach to start with, and I think EVERYONE hated the "butch lesbian" haircut. I mean, I've given female characters butch haircuts before, but they're ACTUAL LESBIANS, not the "I'm a lantern-jawed, heterosexual butch woman!" thing. It's a mixed signal, is what I'm saying.

And all the issues I flipped through featuring her came off as "Men SUCK; Wimmin AWESOME" or an open celebration of Feminism 101- the wrong kind of stuff to do if you want to make a book popular.

So basically, Captain Marvel has become Marvel's Wonder Woman, but not in the way they intended. In the "well, we'll give her chance after chance to succeed, but GOD FORBID Popular Supporting Character #37 gets one failed mini-series- HE'S DONE FOREVER!!" kind of way.


Know what this reminds me of?

That Spiderwoman cover debacle a few years ago. Man was THAT insane.

I had a girl I knew and had worked with lose her shit on me for not seeing any problem with the cover. I mean just LOST her shit. I'd explain my POV and there'd be accusations that I was being condescending. I said that yeah it wasn't the best drawn cover in the world, but I've got no problem with a character who gives off pheromones as one of her powers being drawn in a 'sexy' action/wall crawl pose. It wasn't a big deal to me and I got "because you have man parts!". This coming from a lady who, no joke, a few days earlier was going on about how she was more than her genitals. But I'm not I guess.

Then came the hilarity of Twitter and the "you'll never see SPIDER-MAN in a pose like that!". Cue pictures of Spidey in a similar pose. Cue people who posted those pictures being suddenly unable to post in that again.
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Ares »

HalloweenJack wrote: Thu Jun 21, 2018 4:34 pm
Know what this reminds me of?

That Spiderwoman cover debacle a few years ago. Man was THAT insane.

I had a girl I knew and had worked with lose her shit on me for not seeing any problem with the cover. I mean just LOST her shit. I'd explain my POV and there'd be accusations that I was being condescending. I said that yeah it wasn't the best drawn cover in the world, but I've got no problem with a character who gives off pheromones as one of her powers being drawn in a 'sexy' action/wall crawl pose. It wasn't a big deal to me and I got "because you have man parts!". This coming from a lady who, no joke, a few days earlier was going on about how she was more than her genitals. But I'm not I guess.

Then came the hilarity of Twitter and the "you'll never see SPIDER-MAN in a pose like that!". Cue pictures of Spidey in a similar pose. Cue people who posted those pictures being suddenly unable to post in that again.
I remember that. It was as stupid as you describe.

Frank Cho caught some heat from the creator of Spider-Gwen for drawing her in a similar pose. Cho now uses Gwen as his avatar for stupid fan/creator outrage.
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Re: What's new with the big two: Marvel and DC Comics discussion thread.

Post by Batgirl III »

Ah, yes... Spider-AssGate. That was an incredibly silly controversy ginned up entirely by people who don’t read comic books. Not only has Spider-Man been depicted in that exact pose on hundreds of different covers and in countless panels over the years, so has Spider-Woman. But it was only controversial this one time.

What really struck me as odd was when the Perpetually Offended Crowd tried to pivot to saying that the non-variant cover art for that issue was offensive too. That would be this one:

Image

I see one Spider-Woman using her proportionate strength of a spider to launch her fellow Spider-Woman towards an unseen foe. Classic ‘Fastball Special.’ The woman in white is drawn in a classic action pose that suggests both grace and strength, like you’d see in any Greco-Roman statue of a discus hurler or javelin thrower... The woman in red as he arms back, suggesting speed, but her muscles are tensed and she is gritting her teeth in determination. To the comic book reader this is a classic “action” scene, a pair of powerful women are in the midst of kicking ass. For Justice!

To the perpetually offended, the woman in red was having her breasts put on display and smiling like a stripper. The woman in white was displaying her ass and breasts for the prurient interests of her male gaze-y oppressors.

Ugh.
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