Marvel / DC / Comic Thread

POSTED BY: DesktopHippie
UPDATED: Sunday, August 30, 2026 22:43
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CYBERSNARK

Thursday, January 25, 2007 3:04 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hell's Kitten:
Yeah. Blue Beetle. Who the f cared about the Blue Beetle? NO ONE.

I DID!!

He and Booster were like the Tick and Arthur done as actual superheroes.

Remember that time he spent an entire issue of FKATJLA on the phone, waiting for Batman to pick up?

The Blue Beetle --ON HOLD!!!

(That said, though, I do kinda appreciate the "lineage" thing DC's trying to set up. The "Superhero" will live on, even if the individual character dies. Kinda makes me optimistic that Batman Beyond can be squeezed into comic continuity [superceding the Kingdom Come future, which isn't anywhere near as awesome].)

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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

DESKTOPHIPPIE

Thursday, January 25, 2007 11:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hell's Kitten:
Quote:
Originally posted by DesktopHippie:
In particular, he *finally* had Aunt May find out that Peter is Spider-Man,
...wait...what??

I SAID, Aunt May found out he was Spider-Man. Which is a good thing really, since he also announced it to the entire world at a press conference at the White House.

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Still, considering Joss Whedon himself is writing Uncanny X-Men I'm pretty much in comic heaven!
...wait...what?
You mean Astonishing X-Men? Or is he now on Uncanny...? (And you know he's taking over Runaways with issue... I think... 24?)

Doh! My bad! Astonishing X-Men is what I meant. And I should add that he's written the best Wolverine I've read in quite some time.

He also writes a kickass Shadowkat, but even if I hadn't read his intro to the 'Fray' comic I'd totally guess that he had a crush on that character.

I'd heard he was moving to Runaways. I'm glad, I like that book. Don't read it nearly enough though.

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The annual here-comes-a-big-event -lets-kill-off-some-lesser-heroes -then-bring-them-back thing can get pretty tiresome.
Yeah. Blue Beetle. Who the f cared about the Blue Beetle? NO ONE. UNTIL, of course, he got visciously killed off. But I will not rant, no.

Can I be really horrible and say that I actually liked the Blue Beetle's death?

DON'TKILLMEDON'TKILLMEJUSTLISTENDON'TKILLME!

The Blue Beetle was a guy who became a superhero out of a true sense of duty. No powers, no special gizmos, no one to avenge, just a promise to a dying friend. He could have ignored the promise when he lost the scarab before he'd even begun, but he didn't. He just sucked it up, built himself up, trained as hard as he could and did the job himself. I love that.

And I love the way his character ended, because it underscores how he was actually one of the greatest heroes in the DC 'verse. Sooooo often the hero is faced with the decision to give up and join the bad guys or face death. And every time, every time he makes a witty comment and finds a way to get out of it. Even if they *do* stare death in the face, they always make it in the end. And if not, they know that someone will carry on the fight.

Not the Blue Beetle. No one believed him. No one knew what he was sacrificing. No one cared enough about him. He faced that decision utterly alone knowing not only that he couldn't win, but also that no one else would carry on the fight.

Just think how easy it would have been to compromise at that moment. He could have pretended to join Max in his master plan and got the evidence he needed to convince the other heroes, but he didn't. He wouldn't. He couldn't compromise who he was, he refused to take the easy way out. He stuck to his guns and stayed the hero, not backing out even in the face of a total, utter, unheroic defeat that wouldn't even see his memory toasted to by the other heroes after he was gone. I don't know of any other character in any comic that has ever been in a situation that comes anywhere near anything close to that, and it is absolutely the best ending of any character I have ever come accross. Ever.

That's what I think anyway. Let the flamage commence! *puts on heatproof outfit*

Graphics available at www.desktophippie.com

HELL'S KITTEN

Thursday, January 25, 2007 11:05 PM

Ah. I see.

I've been reading comics for probably 20-25 years now, and I had never even heard of the Blue Beetle. Next thing I know, there was a fanboy uprising over his death and suddenly he gets his own comic.

*shrug*

There are many things wrong with that, but won't ramble.

EDIT: I like your assessment of his demise, DTH. Very nicely explained.

DESKTOPHIPPIE

Thursday, January 25, 2007 11:12 PM

Well I have to admit, I'm one of the ones who found out more about him after he'd died than I'd ever known before. I just loved what I found. It kinda makes me wish I'd read more DC. Still, there are only a limited number of hours in the day, and I'm more emotionally invested in the marvel 'verse.

Graphics available at www.desktophippie.com

DESKTOPHIPPIE

Friday, January 26, 2007 9:27 AM

I forgot to add that J. Jonah Jameson's immediate reaction to finding out his photographer was Spider-Man was very, very funny. In fact, it's one of my favourite 'Civil War' moments so far. It got kinda sad when you realised just how hurt and upset he was by the whole thing, but the initial reaction was priceless.

Graphics available at www.desktophippie.com

FLAKBAIT

Wednesday, January 31, 2007 10:57 PM

I can't say I'm a big fan of Civil War. It seems like a lot of characters have been shoehorned into one side or the other via editorial fiat rather than what they would actually think. And some of the things they've done, like the whole Thor thing, are absolutely repulsive to me. I liked the beginning and the basic premise, but I feel like the execution is a little lacking. However, the Bucky tie-in issue that came out a few weeks ago (I forget what it was called now—Casualties of War?), by Brubaker, was a fantastic issue and easily the best single issue of Civil War to date.

The other Marvel event, though, Annihilation? That's freaking awesome! It's almost over now, so they should start collecting it soon, and I can't recommend it enough. If anyone wants a reading list for it, I'll gladly provide one.

I've only gotten into DC very much in the past few years, but it’s gradually been taking over my pull list. JSA easily became my favorite team book in a long time (ever since Chuck Austen’s stint on Avengers permanently drove me away from Earth’s Mightiest), even though I was pretty clueless as to who any of them were at the beginning. I ate up the Infinite Crisis and loved it, and am loving 52.

Shame on the Beetle bashing! I read his original series back in the day and loved it, and the Beetle-Booster dynamic is what made the JLI period so great. His death was the saddest I’ve been in a long time. It’s a lot of fun to see Booster finally getting some decent attention in 52. One thing I don’t like is DC’s death trend ever since Ted’s demise. The writers seem to have some competition to see who can kill off more characters per month or something.

PEULSAR5

Saturday, February 3, 2007 4:19 AM

I'm also not a big fan of Civil War. The last all encompassing big event I actually enjoyes was the first Crisis and Zero Hour. They actually served a purpose in streamlining the DC Universe. Infinite Crisis seems to have jumbled everything up again (Is Jade dead or not? Hey look, Jason Todd's back! I seem to recall paying a toll call 20 years ago to kill him.) All caused by the very first Superman and Superboy beating on a wall. Also, loved the fight between the 2 Supermen. Seems to me the Golden Age Superman who, like the Silver Age Superman, was known to move planets out of orbit and such, should have layed out the current Superman with one punch.

As far as Civil War, I am curious how they are going to fix the Spider-man secret identity thing. Is the Scarlett Witch going to return and cast a hex? Will Dr Strange cast a spell? Will Phoenix wipe everyone's memory?

CYBERSNARK

Saturday, February 3, 2007 3:27 PM

As far as I understand it: the original Crisis was intended to wipe out all the alternate universes so there'd be only on "real" universe.

Of course, new universes started popping up pretty much the day after Crisis (we have the Batman movie 'verse, the Superman movies, the DCAU, the Kingdom Come future[*], that "Amalgam" crossover with Marvel[**], the antimatter universe, the Image universe [when Captain Majestic and Superman traded places], the Justice Lords universe [seen in the DCAU], hypertime, the Smallville continuity. . .).

The new Infinite Crisis was supposedly about undoing the original Crisis and re-instituting the idea of parallel worlds --which didn't need to be done!

Huge waste of time for a meaningless spectacle whose only lasting change was to kill off a bunch of characters (including my fav'rit) and rob us of a year's worth of actual character development through that "One Year Later" crap.

(* Yes, I know the DCAU and the comic 'verse supposedly aren't connected, but the McGinnis Batman [from Batman Beyond] has turned up a couple of times in "flash forward" segments in the Batman/Superman series. Unfortunately for the cannon, Batman Beyond and Kingdom Come [the official future] are mutually-exclusive. In the DCAU, Batman retires and Gotham degenerates into crime and corruption again. In Kingdom Come, Gotham becomes a police state ruled over by the aging Batman, who can no longer leave his cave.)

(** Which is in-canon, as evidenced by Blue Beetle's use of Spiderman's "impact webbing," which he attributed to "some guy who swung through here from a parallel universe a few months ago.")

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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

FLAKBAIT

Sunday, February 4, 2007 3:31 PM

"The new Infinite Crisis was supposedly about undoing the original Crisis and re-instituting the idea of parallel worlds --which didn't need to be done! "

Actually, and I'm certainly not an expert, the Infinite Crisis was about fixing a lot of the continuity errors that cropped up after the original crisis. After the original merging of all the parrallel worlds, there were a lot of hiccups in the timestream (though I think the concept of Hypertime was supposed to fix that).

There's still only one reality in the DCU (other than the Elseworlds stuff, but those are just "What if..." type things). The Infinite Crisis was an attempt to sort of reset things so they could firmly establish a solid continuity for the Universe.

At least, I think that was what they intended. I'm still pretty new to DC, so I'm a little foggy on it.

CYBERSNARK

Sunday, February 4, 2007 5:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by flakbait:
There's still only one reality in the DCU

Except that there isn't. Even if you disregard the alternate takes that the mainstream DCU hasn't crossed over with, there's still the Animatter universe (with evil versions of the DCU heroes, and possibly a few Marvel-like characters), the Marvel universe (as seen in Amalgam), the Image universe (Superman & Mr. Majestic briefly traded places), and the Batman Beyond future (evidenced by Terry-Bat's occasional cameos). All of these crossovers are established canon, which means that they represent realities existing in parallel with the main DCU.

Plus there's Mxyzptlk's and Joker's messing with the timeline in Batman/Superman, which allowed Bizzaro to gather five different Supergirls, two of whom didn't exist in the "official" timeline (Pre-Crisis Supergirl [who appeared alongside Power Girl], and Cir-El [who had pre-emptively erased herself from existence]). We also saw yet another DCU variant, with a teenaged Superlad fighting alongside Batwoman and Superwoman.

Then, of course, Infinite Crisis hinged on Alex Luthor's manipulating of thousands of alternate DCU "Earths" (many of which appeared to have been pre-existing), trying to remake Earth-Prime.

Quote:
The Infinite Crisis was an attempt to sort of reset things so they could firmly establish a solid continuity for the Universe.

Which is exactly what the original Crisis was about.

See, Infinite Crisis was about two different things: it was the culmination of the "darker, grittier" DCU that had been appearing lately --this was what caused the rift between Batman and the JLU (which led to the OMAC project and Brother Eye), and between Wonder Woman and the superheroic community (after she murdered Max Lord). This would've been perfect; a character-driven "Crisis" like we haven't seen since the "Death of Superman" era.

Instead, they also shoehorned in the Pre-Crisis survivors who were trying to "fix" things (that didn't need to be fixed, since their "perfect world" would have existed somewhere out there in hypertime already). Thus, they had to bring in Alexander Luthor, the huge Anti-Monitor tower, and Superboy Prime to steal the spotlight from the actual characters that fans have been following for years.

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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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