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thevindicativevordan · 4 years

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On Supergirl

Figured I should put up my thoughts about Kara in the wake of her first film appearance being announced, and the final season of her TV show fast approaching. Short version is: Kara is very cool and DC needs to stop messing with her.

My Introduction to Kara

I was introduced to Kara the way most millennials/Gen Zers were I imagine, via the Loeb Superman/Batman arc which brought the traditional Kara Zor-El Supergirl take into Post-Crisis continuity, after years of DC attempting to have a “Supergirl” without violating the editorial mandate that Kal needed to be the literal “Last Son of Krypton” (an example of one of the dumb ways DC fucked Kara over). Story goes that one day Dan Didio was in line at the Superman ride at Six Flags (I love that ride even though it’s stolen my glasses every time I’ve ridden it, even when I left them in a locker!). The ride had signs that talked about various Superman characters. Didio was reading the entry for Supergirl where it talked about her not being Clark’s cousin but instead some weird merge of alien shapeshifter, angel, and human girl, and he realized how fucking stupid that was, and he went back to the office and told Loeb to bring Kara back.

Years later I would also be standing in line at the Six Flags Superman ride (probably at a different park location but who knows?) as a youngster and would read the new Supergirl sign that trumpeted that Superman had a cousin who shared all his powers, an update reflecting the new Loeb origin. I thought she sounded pretty cool, made a note to see if my library had any Supergirl stories next time I visited, then got on the Superman ride and promptly lost my glasses like an idiot because I wanted to take them off while I was riding and pretend I was changing from my “disguise” into Superman mid flight. My dad grounded me for this afterwards, but it gave me a funny story to tell at family get togethers and isn’t that what Six Flags is all about?

A month later (and with spiffy new glasses), my mom dropped me off at a new library next to where she worked, and they had one of the best Superman collections I’ve ever seen to this day. I was in heaven and while reading every Superman book I could find (I couldn’t check them out because I didn’t have a card, my mom’s card didn’t cover the area the library was in, and my mom wouldn’t have checked them out anyway since comics were “too violent”), I found the trade collecting Kara’s new origin. I read it and I thought both she and Superman were really cool, and Batman was a punk who had to beat Darkseid by cheating, the loser. Turner’s art to my young eyes was the best I had ever seen, and the panels got engraved into my brain.

I still get downright nostalgic whenever I see Turner Superman or Supergirl stuff. I also got my parents to rent the animated movie adaption of the Superman/Batman arc from Blockbuster (remember those?), and that sealed the deal. Seeing Kara hold her own against Darkseid convinced me she was as cool as her cousin. Next time my mom dropped me off at the library next to her workplace, I went looking for Supergirl stuff to read. I found the first volume of her new volume by Joe Kelly taking place after the Loeb arc and dove in.

It was... weird. 5 years later I might have enjoyed it but at the time I was majorly put off. Kara took a secret identity for a day and then ditched it because it was “stupid” and the kids bullied her. She was always getting into fights with Kal, and there was this weird plot that I couldn’t follow about how her dad had sent her to kill Kal, maybe or maybe not? Also she could grow crystals which I thought was dumb, and said she was stronger than her cousin which I couldn’t buy for a second given he looked like he was carved out of marble, and she looked like she relied on sunlight instead of food. I put the volume back on the shelf and kinda gave up on reading the character after that for a while.

I followed her via the DC wiki updates just like I did Superman, and everything I read seemed dumb and convoluted. She was split in two, moped around a lot, made out with an alternate version of her cousin, and basically just flopped about the same way the rest of the Superfamily did during the 00s. Nothing made me think I had made a mistake dropping Kara until I read the latest update to her wiki page.

I was super into what I was reading about the Busiek/Johns era of Superman online. Lex was back and making a big revenge scheme that involved all the other Rogues! Old Superman Rogues were getting revamped and made cool again! Johns reintroduced Brainiac and made him a big threat, with Kal and Kara teaming up to fight him! Busiek was revamping Prankster and telling big ambitious Superman stories! For the first time in a long while, the consensus on the Internet was that Superman was good again. My “home” library had zero Marvel books and no Superman or Batman books, all their DC stuff was Flash or Green Lantern, mainly written by Johns. Insane to think back on now. My hopes that because Johns was involved with Superman, Superman books would show up at my library were fulfilled. They started bringing in Busiek and Johns collections, and someone there also ordered Sterling Gates’ first volume of Supergirl, and I checked everything out since I was old enough to have my own library card, and my parents were worried more about the violent video games I was playing rather than comics.

I read everything and loved it. I also really liked Gates’ take on Kara. She was still an imperfect teenager but she wasn’t insufferably angsty or constantly fighting with Kal. She was going to give the secret identity another try and Lana had “adopted” her. It’s funny remembering how I enjoyed all that given my current thoughts on how Kara should work, but it was great at the time. I liked Gates introducing new foes for Kara, some classic Superman Rogues adapted for her like Bizzarogirl, others crafted specifically for her like Reactron. Gates’ basically rekindled my enjoyment of Kara the same way Busiek & Johns rekindled my enjoyment of Superman.

Of course it ended terribly like everything Superman-related seems to.

I’ve got a whole post I want to do about New Krypton and what came after. In short that is the most blatant example of “hitting the reset button” that I’ve ever seen. All the potential got wasted, and afterwards everything except Lex’s Action Comics stuff just didn’t appeal to me. Gates got booted off Kara for Nick Spencer who ended up leaving himself later, a promising Teen Titans line-up with Kara on it didn’t happen, and the last proper Pre-Flashpoint Superfamily story was a crappy team-up with Doomsday against Bigger Doomsday (thank God for Cornell’s final Luthor/Superman confrontation at least). When news of the reboot arrived, I was honestly happy. The Superline needed an enema.

Controversial opinion time: I liked New 52 Supergirl. It’s weird because a lot of the stuff I hated about Kelly’s run was here, and a lot of the stuff I loved about the Gates’ run was not. This was angry, moody, emotional Kara again, fighting with Kal and not fond of Earth. But I was in my teens at this point, and I didn’t want happy go-lucky Superman or Supergirl. I wanted my heroes angry, scared of the future, ready to go out there and smash some cars. Morrison’s Action Comics was 100% my jam (still is once I really understood the deeper meaning beneath the work) and this Kara felt like a natural fit for this universe. Plus we got Asrar on art and that guy made it damn pretty to look at, lots of cool science fiction stuff going on, even with the dumb H’el storyline.

I loved all the new Rogues Kara got. I loved her new Fortress under the ocean. I loved how traumatized she was by the loss of Krypton, that she wanted more than anything to go home, that her cousin was like a stranger to her since they had been apart for so long. I found all of that incredibly relatable. A lot of the New 52 Supergirl stories might have been schlock but it was my type of schlock damnit, and I enjoyed it!

I kept with her New 52 series all the way through the Red Daughter Saga (which I loved). As someone who grew up on Johns GL (since that was the only comics my home library had), seeing a Supercharacter join a Lantern Corp was the hypest thing ever. I loved the finale about Kara finally letting go of her anger and losing the ring while smashing her foe into the sun, it was incredibly cathartic for me as an angry teen myself. I finally stopped following her series sometime after since I was no longer enjoying the Superline or really DC as a whole. It wasn’t until I heard that New 52 Superman died and the “old” Superman was back, that I checked back into DC.

DC Rebirth & How I Think Kara Should Work

I did not enjoy Supergirl Rebirth, and I think I’ll talk about my problems with it alongside how I think Kara as a character should work since the two are related. A pet peeve of mine that has formed over the years is this: I don’t like it when Superfamily members get turned into Clark clones. Kon wearing glasses and going to Smallville High. Kara going to high school and being involved in journalism. Jon more or less being written as a copy of his dad personality-wise. I hate that kind of stuff because it’s boring. What’s the point of a Superfamily if everyone is just copying Clark? It also doesn’t fit the characters especially in Kara’s case. Why the hell does she want to be a journalist? Were there journalists on Krypton? I don’t remember ever seeing one! Shouldn’t she want to be, I dunno, a scientist? That seems to have been the El family tradition, wouldn’t she have been groomed for that?

This one-off by Shea is honestly the only acceptable outcome for Kara going into journalism for me. She realizes she’s just copying her cousin and switches to something she wants to do. So Orlando copying the show, which already basically turned Kara into an expy of her cousin, just did not appeal to me at all. What had worked for me under Gates way back when was not clicking for me this time. I wanted to see Kara embody the principles of the S-shield in a different way than her cousin did. So I really enjoyed when Rebirth ended and we moved into the Bendis era with Andrekyo relaunching the title as Kara in space.

Kara in space has always felt like a good fit for me. Unlike Kal I’ve come to believe that Kara really shouldn’t be all that fond of Earth. For him it’s home, but for her it’s just where she ended up after her real home got destroyed. I think Kara works well as a sort of nomad, occasionally making stops back home to Earth to check on her cousin, but otherwise? She’s more comfortable out in space than she could ever be on Earth. Out in space she can be Kryptonian (which is what she should think of herself as in contrast to Clark being torn between his Kryptonian biology and human upbringing, and Jon/Kon identifying as human), be her true self, not have to pretend to be human to fit in. Kara founding a moon refuge was one of the best ideas for her that I’ve seen, I would love if DC made her Future State refugee center on the moon canon. I’m excited for more Kara adventures in space with the upcoming Tom King story.

Also love that her and Krypto are getting tied together, if they don’t want to use Krypto in Superman’s stuff, let her have him! Bring on cosmic adventurer Supergirl!

Personality & Other Traits

Kara to me should be more hot-tempered than her cousin. All the Superfamily members should have a temper in my opinion, I see that as the “Deadly Sin” of Superman and his family. But while Kal is like a simmering pot that will explode if it’s left cooking for too long, Kara is like dynamite. Light her fuse at your own peril because she will go off on you.

I also like the idea of Kara being rash. Kal’s got a maturity that came from over a decade of having to live with Lex Luthor constantly getting away with all his evil schemes. He’s patient because he’s been forced to be. Kara? If you ask for her help she’ll give it, but beware because she doesn’t really care about the long term impacts of her decisions. She’s an invulnerable teenager after all.

Really liked that Venditti Annual where Kara got tutored in history by a reincarnation of Hawkman. Kara having a passion for history is a neat trait, would be nice to see her teach Kal or Jon some Kryptonian lore, or have her lead a Kryptonian holiday celebration for the Superfamily because she’s the only one who remembers how to do it.

Sexuality wise I know a lot of people ship Kara and Lena on account of the chemistry between the two in the show. I haven’t watched the show myself but I’m fine with making Kara bisexual, the Superfamily could use some LGBT+ rep, and Lena hasn’t done anything of worth as a villain, so undo that and throw the two together. If we’re letting Harley and Ivy get away with murder I think we can let Lena off the hook too, undo the Ultrawoman weirdness and put the two together. Could be fun seeing the two building that moon refuge together.

All in all I think Kara is a great character who is a stronger embodiment of the immigrant experience than even her cousin in some ways. I hope King does a good job with her, she’s treated better than her cousin on the film side, and that overall the 20s are a better decade for Supergirl than the 10s were.

#supergirl #superman #lena luthor #krypto #dc comics

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renaroo · 5 years

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A Cass with Many Faces

About a month ago, specifically on Cassandra Cain’s fictional birthday, I made a few posts dedicated to one of the fictional characters that have had a visible, measurable impact on my life, and has continued to do so since I first picked up an issue featuring her in 2004. I was twelve years old at the time and the issue in question was the fifth of a six-issue arc starting off Superman/Batman. I picked up the issue because Superboy -- my then-favorite comic book character -- was on the cover including some other characters I was mildly familiar with. And the character that I came away with the most intrigue in was, of course, Cassandra Cain.

Next time I was at my LCS, I picked up an issue of her solo series that was still ongoing at the time [Batgirl (2000-2006) #47] and instantly fell in love.

I’ve made posts before about how a scattershot strategy can be a good thing when talking about characters in multimedia franchises. Characters are more likely to endure in these environments if they are given more presence, and more significance, when more voices are advocating for them.

In the past, I was speaking about my experience in seeing the opposite happen with Cassandra.

I can honestly say I would have never checked out Cassandra Cain had it not been for her minor appearance in a silly comic four years after her debut. I was twelve, and still fairly new to DC Comics having grown up with a Marvel loving family, and as the years went on and Cass was diminished by poor corporate decisions, I learned a lesson about strategy with characters in these franchises. If they are not seen outside of their lane, if people aren’t exposed to them outside of their one series no matter how fantastic and great it is, when that series is canceled and they are mishandled, there is not going to be any protection for them.

Bad comics happen all the time, bad adaptations happen all of the time, it’s the nature of the business. But for the thousands of terrible Batman stories that have been published and the hundreds of head-scratching Ninja Turtles adaptations, there have been, they continue to prevail and good things happen to those characters’ IP because there is enough material out there to keep people coming back.

[Superman/Batman (2003-2011) #5]

This is all a long introduction to get into saying that we are starting 2020 in one of the most unique and unprecedented ways we could start it as Cassandra Cain fans. There is, I’m pretty sure for the first time in the two decades of this character’s existence, an almost scattershot approach to getting as much Cass content out in a blitz as possible while aligning with the first time she has appeared in multimedia outside of video game DLC only a few hardcore fans will ever get a hold of.

But, as to be expected, not all interpretations of Cass are going to be the most helpful or similar to the character as we know her. And while I try to think strategically, it’s important to acknowledge these differences outright. Because if this is someone’s intro to her character, it can paint what they see and expect from her for the rest of their experience.

I can’t say how good or bad that’ll be, I am the fangirl who jumped on board when Jeff Loeb was writing and Ed McGuinness was drawing. My quality receptors will forever be in question to more purist fans! But I do want to start out by saying that most things are valid when it comes to starting out with a medium as ridiculous and unintelligible as comics, and we can destroy each other over the remaining 10% any day.

Let’s talk about some Casses.

Shadow of the Batgirl (2020)

If you or someone you know is at all interested in reading more Cassandra Cain and the 73 issues of her original series are intimidating, there is a simple solution that has been given to us by Sarah Kuhn and Nicole Goux, Shadow of the Batgirl.

In a very short first-reaction review I did the week this graphic novel came out, I mentioned that I was teary the entire time I read this graphic novel because it was just so darn impactful and endearing. And that continues to be the case.

This is a YA graphic novel aimed at introducing young new readers to Cassandra and a world that desperately needs her gifts to escape the shadows of her past and regrets in order to fully realize her potential for the future. And it is both heartwarming and gorgeous.

One of the things I have hit on for years when it comes to Cassandra Cain’s treatment in comics is that it has felt that for a good half of a decade if not more, what she lacked more than anything was a consistent advocate on the publishing side of things. Fans and decent sales -- which, to be clear, her meager appearances and even the majority of her solo did definitively have -- were never going to be powerful enough on their own to give her a publishing opportunity if there were not writers and artists there to provide good stories.

In 2020, more than any other year, I feel like we finally see the fruition of these things coming true. Sarah Kuhn’s blurbs and interviews have been filled with personal love and detail for the character and her importance, which only fueled how great it was when the Shadow of the Batgirl did come out and surpass almost all expectations.

This is a retelling and reinventing of Cassandra’s origin story told completely from her perspective from the beginning.

One of the lasting critiques of Cassandra’s beginnings in comics has always been her silence and lack of voice at the very start of her career. While sometimes these complaints grew to hyperbolism and would deny provably existent agency -- and to be clear, there’s still a lot of that to a concerning degree to this day -- there is truth to the criticism. Cassandra’s internal narration was not provided for almost a year after her first appearance which is an alienating tactic to use for a character meant to be latched onto by readership. Even when handled well, the thoughts behind this choice still deserve examination.

This was further complicated by later reveals that Cassandra’s difficulty with expression was in part due to her aneurotypical processing. These are not independently bad choices to make narratively, I have gone on for thousands of words before on how important I believe Cassandra’s dyslexia is, but the shakey start to giving the perspective of an aneurotypical character a definitive voice to tell her own story is right to be critiqued.

Shadow of the Batgirl completely circumvents this by giving Cass a clear voice from the start and focusing her central relationships on the power of expression and individuality while giving her plenty of characters of varying backgrounds and abilities to bounce her own understanding off of.

In some parts, this greatly enforced Kuhn’s take on making Cass’ story a teenage coming of age story that she has proven skillful at in YA novels. It also allowed her to directly correct many of the wrongs that have been long criticized about Cassandra’s original series, such as having Barbara Gordon (a physically disabled character who should and has shown more sensitivity and nuance outside of her terrible capital-M-Moment in Cass’ series) embrace and love Cassandra for her aneurotypical perspective.

[Batgirl (2000-2006) #54]

[Shadow of the Batgirl (2020)]

But, for those of us who adore and have attached to Cassandra for her disabilities and portrayals of mental illness in the past, there is also some nuance and representation that has been left on the cutting room floor for this new origin.

Namely, while Cassandra is shown to be perplexed by and struggling with books in the graphic novel, there is not the desperation and frustration that we actively see her undergoing throughout the original Batgirl (2000-2006) series. By issue #58 of a 73-issue comic book solo, Cassandra is actively struggling to read “It was,” and her insecurities toward it are used and manipulated by the villain by the end of the series.

However, Cassandra of the Shadow of the Batgirl shows some capacity to read from early on, and her struggles with reading are not the subject of conversation in the novel, so how much her limitations are a function of dyslexia and how much are a function of her childhood is left up to debate.

A debate with many questions that do require an answer since the form of her isolation and abuse by her far-less rounded character of a father in this graphic novel has been changed dramatically.

While I am giving these critiques and do think that we should be mindful and conscious of their removal for those fans who are seeking out those types of stories to read, I do not want to at all give the impression that this is a bad comic.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I would argue with just about anyone that this is the gold standard for Cassandra Cain stories printed in the last fifteen years, and for what I miss about the original iteration of Cass stories it can easily be exchanged for the new voice and new direction for her character this graphic novel provides for us.

Many of these critiques can be chalked up to the graphic novel being just that, a self-contained graphic novel and not a 73-issue monthly publication. And I believe its art and story are a great deal more consistent and appealing than many eras of the original series as a result.

I love its tributes, its characterizations, its purpose, and its focus above all else. There is also something just utterly charming about having Cassandra’s first well handled romance in comics come from a YA novelist who obviously understands the character and also understands what readers want in a non-toxic and adorable story.

I love the focus on Cassandra’s journey being on self-compassion, forgiveness, and the earnest belief that people can change. Including yourself, if you make the choice.

It is a good book, the best for Cassandra Cain in ages, and one I bought no less than three times already to show my support. And in just one week on my classroom bookshelf, I’ve already seen it be avidly read by five students. And those are just the ones I catch!

I would also be remiss not to mention that after complaining about this pet peeve of mine for years, that it’s happened. It took us twenty-one years but we finally did it, guys. We got a costume that Cassandra Cain got to make and design herself! And not only did she get one but she got two! An adorable (and hilarious) DIY Batgirl costume, and then ending on the high note of her official Batgirl costume to swing through the city in!

This book is precious and I hope it is the start of something new and exciting in the future. Even if that new and exciting is simply a sequel graphic novel, I will be HERE for it, and supporting it and Sarah Kuhn all the way.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)

Oh, boy. If there was one reason I was scared to make this post, it was because of this film.

Before I get too deep into this I want to first state my position on a few of the controversies that have cropped up online with concerns to this movie and its portrayal of Cassandra Cain.

First and foremost, I have no interest in telling people how they should or shouldn’t be offended on the grounds of representation and erasure. Not being able to or simply being unwilling to forego criticisms of tropes or insensitivities perpetrated by this or any other film are completely valid experiences. I have been that person in regards to other things, and I have also been someone whose first exposure to serious issues were the stances people took with regards to protesting certain media.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) has faults and plays into certain erasures (one of which I’ll discuss more below) that people may be unwilling to let go of. If that is the case for people you know or see online, you should accept and support them. Listen to them.

But I do think we should also support people who love this movie for good reason. I enjoy this movie, but it’s not life-changing for me. I support it in the hopes of seeing more and better.

There are students I have who now are wearing merch and drawing fanart of the Birds of Prey, picking up the comics for the first time, because of their exposure to the hype and “girl power” of this movie. Some adults needed this movie to be some hopeful change for them and I support them too.

We’re lucky to be alive at a time where a superhero movie is so completely told from a feminine perspective, with a huge diversity of filmmakers behind it providing female voices at every level from acting to casting to scripting to directing. We’re lucky that there’s such a diversity of the cast. I want this to continue.

I hope that it continues to do better in theaters, and I know there are some murmurs of poor box office returns for it. I hope that doesn’t affect future projects. We’ll see.

All of that out of the way, we need to talk about its use of Cassandra Cain.

The joke I’ve made with my friends is that the best thing to do with this movie is to start getting in the habit of calling the young girl at the heart of this plot “Kassandra Kane” instead because the connection between this character and that of Cassandra Cain is fairly negligible. They are both young women of East Asian descent who pop up in Gotham.

I happen to like both characters, but there’s an obvious difference between one focused on as a main character and hero of her own story and one focused on as a supporting character who has plots happen to her. Neither is a bad thing, but my preferences obviously rest with the former.

It’s the fact that they were supposed to be the same character that seems to baffle most people. Myself included.

This may have been a move more suited for a character with less history and expectation on her before her big debut, like Sin who is Dinah’s adopted daughter in the comics and already connected to the Birds of Prey, or the character who clearly inspired Kassandra Kane, Ditto from the Black Canary (2015-2016) series.

[Black Canary (2015-2016) #6]

I also think that adaptation that dramatically changes Cass wouldn’t necessarily be a terrible thing either. With some rewrites and some more agency, a younger and more hardened Cass from the streets could have also worked with the movie they were trying to make -- perhaps have David Cain be Black Mask’s main enforcer rather than Victor Zsasz. Give Cassandra’s connection to the plot more character-oriented and have her liberation work in tandem with the liberation of the adult women.

The options were there, and there are critiques to be made, but the movie also knew what it wanted to be and spent its script and filming time focused on maintaining the continuity and integrity of the adult female characters who it probably could justify putting in the rated-R situations their fights got them in more than they could young Kassie Kane.

One of the no doubt unintended consequences of this has been that online discourse revolving around Cass vs. Kass has been in justifying the decisions one team has over the other in claims of racism and ableism.

Now, to be clear, my ability to speak with authority on either of those points is minimal. I’m an ally but not a voice of those communities and I want that to be as upfront as possible. I can only speak from personal experience in the realms of being a woman and being someone who lives with and has survived mental illness. And I can speak as a critic of media at large.

There are racist and ableist connotations in many things, and I am not going to deny that those conversations are relevant and need to happen in regards to Cass’ original portrayals or in this film. They do. I know even in my first viewing I wondered how it was deemed so unimportant and so uncritical to give even a moment where Kass could display dyslexia or any other form of disability when we had entire sequences dedicated to backgrounds of characters who appeared for half a second of screentime.

But I’m seeing a lot of discourse that is especially leveling claims of racism toward Cass’ original portrayals and not always looking at the voices of fans of color who debate that argument. But I also see people outright denying any critique of Cass’ original portrayals having overtones to them that are unsavory. The answer is to maybe settle for something less radical than both positions.

Like there is no ethical consumption under capitalism and we should murder the patriarchy. Just like Birds of Prey taught me.

I enjoyed the movie a lot, Kassandra Kane was a lot of fun, but it’s a 1/5 for adaptation which is bizarre for a movie that was firing on all cylinders for almost literally every other character that came on screen.

Batman and the Outsiders (2019-) #10

When it comes to consistent monthly comic publishing, the pickings for Cassandra Cain have been incredibly thin for years, arguably since the end of her own solo in 2006. But since the DC initiative “Rebirth” in 2016, an era has been entered where, with a few months here or there as the exception, Cass has been appearing in some comic each month.

That seems like a small thing to celebrate, especially when the quality of monthly content can vary so much depending on the creative team, but it has been a hugely important development that Cass has been put on a team book for over a year now.

Bryan Hill is a comic veteran at this point, publishing comics independently and from both Marvel and DC, making him quite busy, but one thing I’ve really appreciated as a Cassandra Cain fan is that he has consistently shown love and appreciation for her character.

The Cassandra that features in Batman and the Outsiders is arguably the closest the character is to her original solo series on paper, and Hill has weaved her origin story and relationship with Lady Shiva into the overarching plot of the entire series.

For me, Batman and the Outsiders has been a little slow in its story structure, and I worry about how that will affect the future of the book and whether or not it will continue as an ongoing after Hill’s planned departure, but his character focus is also my style of comics to read. And make no mistake that there is a plethora of character development and examination in every issue.

Cassandra is sharing her page time with her Outsider teammates, but this can be a good thing. Development is easier for characters who have consistent character interactions, and I have always been a firm believer that the Outsiders as a team concept works the best for Cassandra’s specific needs. This plays out and the team consisting of Bruce Wayne, Jefferson Pierce, Tatsu Yamashiro, and Duke Thomas all compliment each other and compliment Cass very well.

I do want to mention that I love this book and think it’s great reading for Batman fans, too, even with Bruce’s reduced presence. And I think the snub the Duke and Cass are receiving in other Bat titles like Peter Tomasi’s Batman: Alfred Pennyworth R.I.P. just last week is cruelly shortsighted.

But, hey, Tomasi being dismissive and backhanded toward members of the Batfamily outside of his preferred five. Guess it’s just another Wednesday.

Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey (2020-) #1 (of 4)

After the complete circus that has been made of the Black Label Birds of Prey title meant to tie-in with the movie -- one DC thought to give to Brian Azzarello who vocally despises Harley Quinn and is divisive (to say the very least) in his treatment of high profile female characters that he does say he likes -- I wasn’t expecting DC to come through in aligning movie buzz with their comic publications. To be clear, DC has always sucked at doing this and I really didn’t think it was special to the BoP movie.

When Conner and Palmiotti got to announce their own tie-in for the movie that was supposed to be more fun and use more of the same characters, I was intrigued but also a little concerned about how this team would handle it. I can like or dislike their work depending on the project.

But my god, were they absolutely on when it came to this first issue of their four-issue miniseries.

I didn’t think I’d be recommending fans go pick up the first issue of the Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey miniseries, but I am absolutely doing that for any fans of the movie who, like me, enjoyed it but wished a better Cassandra Cain adaptation had been woven into the plot.

Amanda Conner’s history with the character of Cass and with the Birds of Prey, in general, is actually interesting. While she is regarded for her art and her storytelling now, when she first started at DC it was art only in the credits, but those credits included a BoP arc and several fun covers for the latter half of Cassandra’s Batgirl (2000-2006). When she later had the opportunity to write comics along with doing their art, she even had Cass (albeit very chattily) feature in a rare team-up with Power Girl and Wonder Woman in the Wonder Woman (2006-2011) #600 special.

And, of course, the husband and wife team have become industry heavy hitters thanks to their smash hits with multiple Harley Quinn solo series.

This is a fun and cartoonishly violent miniseries that plays to their styles properly, but the characterizations in the first issue struck me as very true and very calculated. Cassandra Cain does not speak in this entry, but that allows Conner to stretch her artistic muscles in making Cass’ actions and expressions give a lot of character to her role. Which already shows more restraint and understanding for the character than many others have with Cass -- including Conner’s freshman efforts at writing Cass herself.

Cass isn’t alone in the little joys of this comic. There are overt references to Conner and Palmiotti’s Harley Quinn miniseries and solos that place this non-mainstream comic in a more nebulous space than the Black Label imprint would initially make you think, and the strong characters feel as though they walked off of the pages of their current mainstream efforts. All of which I greatly appreciate.

Not to mention on the front of queer representation, while Harley is a mess, I’m glad that I can unabashedly relate to her as a gay mess without obfuscation this time.

If there’s any comic that new fans brought on by the Birds of Prey movie are likely to pick up themselves, it’ll probably be this one. Which is a great thing because it seems like an honest effort with strong roots in the original comic source material for everyone -- including Cass this time.

Shame I can’t recommend it to my middle school students who are loving the movie. Though, I suppose, if they are watching a rated-R movie they’re probably sneaking to Black Label comics too. Little scamps.

DCeased: Unkillables (2020) #1 (of 3)

I cannot believe the wholesome Batfamily content I’ve craved for a decade needs the zombie apocalypse to happen.

While I read DCeased last year and didn’t hate it in the vein that I thought I was going to due to it being a zombie apocalypse AU in a superhero universe that seemed to keenly pull from the surprising successes of Marvel’s efforts, I never imagined that it would join the ranks as continued Cassandra Cain content vehicles.

It must be the sign of a good decade, right? Bats are lucky, indeed.

While DCeased proper dealt with the aftermath of the Anti-Life Equation that was Totally Not a Zombie Virus as they kept telling us over and over again, it was pretty closely tied to the most main of main DC heroes and heroines and their families as they attempted to survive and escape the hordes. We didn’t see many other fan-favorite but not quite A-tier heroes’ efforts until the tie-in comics began coming out.

I, as a Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, and Mister Miracle/Big Barda fan adored A Good Day to Die, but I never saw DCeased: Unkillables coming. And even when it was announced I said to my dear friends “This will either be very good or very bad.”

I need to put more faith into Tom Taylor, he really hasn’t let me down just yet.

In Unkillables, we follow the days after the Anti-Life Equation is released on Earth now through the eyes of two teams -- one helmed by Deathstroke, whose unique physiology allows him to recover from infection and is now joining other supervillains in a doomsday cult led by Vandal Savage; one helmed by Jason Todd, whose unique position as the family rebel has apparently left him out of the loop enough to not die with Bruce, Dick, and Tim in the series proper, but not so out of the loop that he can’t access the cave and the heart monitors Bruce creepily keeps on track of all their other family and friends, letting him reunite with his estranged sister Cassandra and Jim Gordon. Who is just as confused as you are that Batman kept a heart monitor tracker on him without asking. Also, Ace the Bathound and I love it.

This is the first of three issues, but it fits a lot of character work and relationships into those pages, which if you’re paying attention, is the sort of writing that seems to be most helpful with Cassandra Cain's appearances.

I am hoping that everything continues to work well for this team, even knowing that we are going to have bloodshed and death along the way, but I think that the setting of making the last stand in an orphanage protecting children is the exact kind of thing these three characters would be united to do together in the zombie apocalypse.

This is a fun, albeit bloody and morbid, comic that is worth picking up for anyone who misses Cassandra being Batgirl as much as I do.

Also wow that family photo with Cass alongside her brothers and father. It took us this long to finally get one, huh.

Worth it. Suck it, Tomasi.

I have a lot of love for Cassandra, and a lot of opinions as well. Obviously! But what I love more than anything is to enjoy good stories with other people, and I’m hopeful and joyful that there seems to be more and more of those things intersecting on the horizon.

If you’ve enjoyed my take on any of this, I hope I can continue to point you toward content in the future. And even if not, if you want to share your takes with me, I hope I can provide some good conversation there, too!

Most of all I hope we all have something wonderful we can look forward to.

[Shadow of the Batgirl]

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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co-superman@work; MYSTIQUE: *walks in* PERSON: "i can't believe she's someone's mother" MYSTIQUE: *shapeshifts* PERSON: *gasps* "MY MOTHER?!?!?!"

shakljhfalkfhaklfhal

Okay so this is reminding me that @zee-gee was asking the other day about if Xavier and Mystique ever had any romantic history in the comics, and the answer is sorta-kinda? Like, yes, but it was Bendis style romance which means not-very.

Like, basically, for reasons unknown because Bendis’ writing style in the X-books tended to be like less “here is a plot point because Reasons” and more “here is a plot point, NO Reasons, NO explanations, just GO WITH IT and then forget it ever happened, YOU’RE WELCOME”.....

But yeah so for whatever reason, at some point like twenty years ago in-universe or whatever, Mystique just decided, oh hey, I’m gonna pretend to be Moira MacTaggert and get married to Xavier as Moira and we’re gonna have a baby because why not!

And Xavier, who of course is a telepath who knew she was really Mystique the whole time, plus was already good friends with the real Moira and so he was probably already on the phone with her in Scotland when Mystique showed up on his doorstep as Moira and then stuck around for a year, lol what is logic though, its not real.....

Like, Xavier for whatever reason of his own (aka no reasons, no explanations, just go with it), like just....never said anything about the fact that he knew damn well that it was Mystique the whole time and just went with it and they got married even though in his last will and testament he named her as ‘his ex-wife, Raven,’ not Moira.....and so yeah. For about a year, Xavier and Mystique-pretending-to-be-Moira-but-not-well-cuz-he-knew-she-was-never-Moira were married and shacking up together and then Mystique got pregnant with a second generation cue-ball of a baby, and she skipped town, had the kid, dropped him off in foster care as is her patented go-to parenting move, and twenty years later a prematurely bald telepath virtually identical to Xavier in every way showed up whilst leading a new brotherhood of (unironically) evil mutants and said HI I’M HERE TO TAKE MY DAD’S HOUSE AND ALSO KILL YOU ALL FOR KILLING HIM EVEN THOUGH I HATED THAT DUDE LIKE SERIOUSLY FUCK THAT GUY, LOOK I HAVE COMPLEX MOTIVATIONS HERE I AM A COMPLICATED DUDE!

He wasn’t really. At all. He was basically an evil clone of not-all-that-great-to-start-with Xavier, except why make evil clones when you can resort to just acting like Raven has nothing better to do with her time than to be a baby-making factory who births new characters and then dumps them off on other people because she never even wanted them in the first place and writer-bros like Bendis just think THIS IS GOOD BACKSTORY NO?

Fun follow-up on that particular note, one of Chrome-Dome the Sequel’s minions in his new Brotherhood of Unironically Evil Mutants was his younger half-brother Raze.....who basically was a red-haired, blue-skinned shapeshifting Wolverine, cuz you guessed it, like a year or so after playing the Bride of Chucky and giving birth to his unholy spawn, Mystique, who still had not come up with a hobby by then, decides hey what if I go fake being one of Logan’s old lovers (not that he can even remember who half of them are lol so “Faking It” is a bit strong, maybe)....and then WE can get married and I can have his baby that I don’t really want and will just dump into foster care to fast-track his descent into inevitable villainny because hahaha that’s just what happens to mutants whose mommies never loved them DUH.

And thus, after giving it a whole ten seconds of thought and not coming up with any reasons NOT to commit the next year or two of her life to THIS new idea(ish).....Raven then shacked up with Logan for an indeterminate period of time before running off and having Raze and dropping him off at daycare with a LOL see you never kiddo, grow up to be gay do crime and make mumsy proud of you, not that I’ll ever tell you that hahaha I’m such a good mom, take that Kurt and Rogue and your “YOU’RE THE WORST MOM” hot takes, YOU KNOW NOTHING.

And yeah, so Xavier 2.0 and Hi My Name Is Raze, Yes Its A Real Name Real People Have, We Exist grew up to be evil bad guys who are so good at it that despite their fancy pedigrees they made all of one and a half story’s worth of impact before fading into obscurity and never to be heard from again, OH NO, HOW SAD, MUCH WASTEFULNESS.

So in conclusion, do Mystique and Xavier have any romantic history in the comics?

....eh. *shrugs*

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unrighteousbooks · 5 years

Text

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey

This is the third part of a long story. What follows was told to me by a customer, and the issues he discusses -- art and character -- are things that I, too, have been thinking about. I have been thinking about them enough that I went on what could be described as a pilgrimage, and I will discuss that in the fourth part of this story.

This, however, is his story. After he told me, I asked him to put it in writing. It is about someone named Bill and someone named Ted, and although I once met two men by those names (see the previous post) I am unfamiliar with the individuals he discusses here.

* * * * *

I grew up in the age of 8-track tapes. Remember 8-tracks? I saw one in your shop once, you know. One 8-track tape, just sitting on a shelf. Not important, I guess, but yeah. The great thing about 8-tracks was that you could play them in your car. I started buying 8-tracks long before I even had a car, just because I was looking forward to the day, when I'd be sitting there in my own car, looking cool, popping in a 8-track and cruising around town, and probably I'd have a really cool car, like a Plymouth Barracuda, or an AMC Javelin.

Anyway, 8-tracks: I had a whole cabinet full of them. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Kansas, REO Speedwagon, Nazareth. But you know who I really loved? Ted Nugent. He was a fantastic guitarist. He was precise and lightning fast, and his songs had fun, catchy rhythms. Lots of the lyrics were crass and sorta vulgar, but you didn't care, because you knew it was all just a little silly. I mean, how can you get all worked up about a song called Cat Scratch Fever? You didn't expect anything thoughtful or eloquent from Ted Nugent. You just expected lots of energy and good guitar. That was Ted. You didn't take him seriously, because hey, he was just being Ted.

Meanwhile, there was also Bill.

Bill was Bill Cosby. He was a brilliant comedian, and the ironic thing is that great comedians are serious. Underneath all the jokes, there's something genuine. Good comics point out the strange things that we do without thinking, and they remind us that we're all kind of nuts. I had an 8-track tape of Cosby, too. Can't remember the name of it now, but he talked about the Revolutionary War, talked about Superman, talked about Noah getting instructions to build the ark... all kinds of stuff. Cosby was hilarious. He had these wonderful stories about his brother, and his parents, and then later on he had brilliant routines about being a father. A while after that, in the Eighties, he had a TV show. It was warm and funny and thoughtful. In the Eighties, TV didn't get much better than that show.

Now, I've never been particularly interested in celebrities, beyond the thing that made them celebrities. By that I mean, if someone was a good musician, I was interested in their music, but nothing else. I couldn't care less about what kind of exotic sports car they drove, or their supermodel spouse, or whatever. If I had paid a little more attention, maybe I wouldn't have been so disappointed later on. All I knew about Ted Nugent was his music. I started to lose interest because he started to get repetitive, and when the guitar didn't hold your interest, you noticed the lyrics more. And once you've heard the words to "Wango Tango," you can't unhear them. You're gonna wonder if the guy singing them has regressed to a mental age of 12 or 13. Even so, the crappy music he did later didn't erase the good music that he did earlier, right?

Here's the weird thing, though: Somewhere along the way, people started listening to what Nugent said, even when he wasn't talking about music. He was babbling nonsense about how war was coming to America, and how he'd would wind up dead or in jail if Obama got re-elected... weird, batshit-crazy gibberish. But apparently a lot of people thought he made sense, and conservatives started trotting him out for rallies and conferences. It was weird as hell.

And meanwhile, there's Cosby: Cosby, who seemed like the polar opposite of Nugent, until we found out that he'd been drugging and molesting women for decades. We'd been looking at his work as a comedian, and we thought we knew him. We felt betrayed when we found out that the actor had only been acting.

Bogus, right? Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. The short trip from being respected to being reviled. But that brings us to an important question: Can we separate their work from everything else? And is that even something that we should do?

Maybe we have to realize that art and artists are separate and distinct, and they have to be judged differently. A work of art -- whether it's a song, or a painting, or a monologue about giving your kids cake for breakfast -- that work can stand alone. You hear two songs by the same artist, and you love one and hate the other. That's OK. The existence of the lousy song doesn't change anything about the great one. Every work of art succeeds or fails on its own merits, and in that sense, art is simple.

Artists, on the other hand, are complicated. People are complicated. We have to judge artists the same way we judge everyone else. We'll find that they have virtues and faults, just like the rest of us. But once we've seen someone's dark side, it's not easy to ignore. I still have an old CD of Nugent's first album, but I can't listen to it anymore, because it just makes me sad to think about what he's become. The same with Cosby. I remember laughing so hard at some of his old routines, but if I listened to them now, knowing what I know, it wouldn't be the same.

What makes this even harder is that there's this little voice in the back of my head, asking: Is this fair to them? To Bill and Ted, I mean. See, when you admire someone, you don't want to know about their flaws. And when dislike someone, you don't want to know about their virtues. Once you decide you're ready to write someone off, the last thing you want to do is to admit that there might still be some good somewhere inside them.

That little voice keeps reminding me: You're not perfect either. I'd love to be able to say that I'd never done a bad thing in all my life, but I can't. If I'm going to be judged, I want to be judged on everything. Take the bad into consideration, because yeah, sometimes I've fucked up. But I think I've done a few good things, too, and if your verdict is going to be fair, you need to consider as much evidence as you can.

I don't mean that everybody gets a free pass, so long as they did something good at some point in their life. But I do think that if you want to know where someone stands, you need to be able to trace all their steps. The good, the bad, the ugly, and all the stuff in between... it's all part of the same journey.

* * * * *

After he told me this, I realized that there were certain ideas that I had been struggling with for a very long time. I began thinking about a particular story, and a particular person.

One reason that I love bookstores is that they are the perfect place to ponder ideas. Being surrounded by books inspires us to think beyond the here and now. In this instance, however, I realized that there would be a better place to think about the things I needed to consider. In this case, I needed only one book.

I grabbed the book, closed the shop, and headed out the door. I needed to visit a place called Graceland.

#bill and ted #bill and ted's bogus journey #art #artists #bill cosby #ted nugent #forgiveness #celebrity #morality #this is part 3 #a story in four parts

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tylermagnusenvest · 5 years

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He was spending more and more time in Manchester lately. Both of his jobs started in either the afternoon or the evening, for the better part of his day he didn’t have much to do, back at the castle he would’ve spent his free time curled up in the library with a stack of books and hours of quiet. Tyler didn’t read much at the house. He found he couldn’t concentrate, feeling sometimes as though he couldn’t sit still when he was there, settling filled him with an irritation he could only overcome if he pushed himself to be constantly moving or simply left. London was too known to him though, his family were deeply rooted in it, he longed to find places for himself where his mind was at ease and he could actually take in what he read. It seemed silly to work in a city that he knew next to nothing about, his family would never venture to somewhere that had such a reputation for disruption, and he had hours every day to himself that he saw fit to make better use of.

There was a different feeling to Manchester than London, one Tyler couldn’t quite put into words but one he liked. It was busy, the cities were the same in that respect, there was constant movement in every nook and cranny, the people never seemed to settle and even when they did everything around them moved at a continuous pace. He didn’t go very far on his first day, he walked the length of Canal Street, took in the array of buildings and their names, caught himself smiling when a rainbow tile in the floor caught his attention. There was a lot to take in on Canal Street if you looked closely, on the side of one building was a huge piece of art, it showed two heroes wrapped up in each other’s arms, he knew one to be Batman and perhaps the other Superman- he was not overly familiar with comics or their heroes- with the latter’s arms wrapped tight around the former’s neck. Their mouths were locked and beside them were the very bluntly put ‘kiss’, ‘kiss’ flashes. He’d missed it on the walk down the street, having started where Under Street began, but on the way back it caused him to momentarily stop and grin. The characters themselves meant very little to him but the unashamed display of their affection filled him with a comfortable warmth. It confirmed to him that his family wouldn’t find him here. It made him feel safe. That’s all he’d done the first time, walk all the way along Canal Street and back. The next time he went to explore he ventured off slightly, took the next bridge along Canal Street down to alongside the small park where the Alan Turning Memorial stood. It had Alan Turning himself (a statue of him, of course) sat upon a bench. Tyler had sat on another bench and read for a while, people passed through and by, sometimes they stopped by the memorial and Tyler would glance up when they did so. He didn’t know much about Alan Turning, only that he was a historically important gay man, he made a note to himself to do more research on him if he planned to keep sharing the park with him. It seemed only polite.

He ventured as far as Piccadilly Gardens the next time, he didn’t quite know what to expect from the name but it was different than he’d pictured. There wasn’t really too much garden to see, the space was surrounded by shops on all sides but opened up in the centre. A bridge ran through it, on the side from which he approached there was a round space set up with stone seating all around the edge, it might’ve been November but regardless the round stage surprised him when shoots of water burst from the stone and into the air. There had to be at least twenty of the fountains, reaching different heights, they’d shoot up from the stone for a while and then disappear to nothing more than soft bubbles at the base, only to shoot up again a few minutes later. He walked around to the bridge and watched them for a while. At some point a child and their parents passed, with some determination they asked if they could go into the fountains, the idea dismissed with a promise of returning when the weather was warmer. Huh. So people were actually allowed in them? Just on the other side of the bridge there was a space that, Tyler would discover a day or so later, was sometimes set up with temporary huts from which all kinds of food was sold to those who past. He had yet to figure out the pattern of when they would appear but whenever they did he liked to walk directly between them, it was busier to do so than to cut around, but when you did the air was sweet with everything the stalls had to offer and he enjoyed imagining what each think would taste like and promising himself he would actually stop and buy something one day.

Market Street ran directly off Piccadilly Gardens in an easy-to-navigate straight line. It was very busy on Market Street. The shops that lined either side were huge with two-three floors to each of them. Between every few there’d be a well-placed coffee shop or bank, both he imagined people needed a lot of in a place where there was so many options to purchase. Market Street is where he first saw the trams. Trams, Tyler decided, were completely bizarre and yet incredibly clever. They were like trains for the streets, every now and again you’d come across tracks sunk into the ground and would have to stop and check both directions lest you cause a commotion. Market Street had a large tram stop running directly down the middle, raised above the ground like some strange stage, where people mulled about and awaited their transport. He had yet to go on a tram- not really sure where they went or whether he’d ever need to- but regardless he thought they were brilliant when he came across them. In general, he had mixed feelings about Market Street. It was glaringly modern but not in a good way, the shops were all large chains and it wasn’t easy to walk at a consistent pace when people were cutting in and out of them every few steps. There were parts of it, however, that were oddly charming. Like how the walkway turned to cobble stone once you made it over the crossing, how there were often musicians busking in the centre, one moment someone strumming an acoustic guitar and the next another on a violin. He also liked the approach to the Arndale, it was not the prettiest of places from the outside but there was something amusing about the way an escalator reached down to the street and summoned people up towards the food court. He liked how if you continued past you were technically walking directly under it. There was a Costa there, under the shelter, that he grew fond of the moment he set foot inside. Unlike other locations of the same chain, it was not nearly as busy, the food and drinks were expensive but not as much as Starbucks and you got more for your money too. What he liked most of all was the downstairs, how the shop descended from street level to converted basement area that acted as a secondary seating area. It was always quiet down there, the colours were bold and modern but with a pot of tea and a slice of cake, he felt very at home when he went there. The first time he stopped by, he read for hours.

His favourite parts to explore, however, were a little diverted from the busy bustle of Piccadilly and all that spread from it. Technically it was only a few streets away but as you moved from the central shopping district everything changed. Once you hit Cross Street there were lots of new places to explore, going right would lead him down Corporation Street towards the Print Works and Exchange Square. The buildings there were equally as huge as the ones on Market Street but the architecture was vastly different, steering away from modern, industrial builds to large statements with stone carvings on the outside. Only a street away from there was Manchester Cathedral, grand and gorgeous, Tyler had never been drawn to any kind of religion but even from the outside there was something hopeful about the building. It felt safe. He could see why so many people would believe in something greater than themselves, something to guide them and something to talk to, with more answers and less worries than them. Alternatively you could carry straight on at Cross Street, not left down the street itself or right towards the Print Works, you could continue on and take the next left to cut through St Anne’s Square. It was a beautiful little spot, with a fountain and a statue, an entrance to the Royal Exchange Theatre and at the other end was St Anne’s Church itself. Everything here looked different, the buildings took upon a look of grandeur, when you cut down onto Deansgate it was clear that everything around the area was meant to be better here. There was a higher standard of stores, or architecture, the intense bustle of Market Street shifted to a consistent flow of people coming and going as they pleased but paying more mind to where they cut in or where they stopped to chat.

And, of course, Deansgate had the library. John Rylands Library. When Tyler walked past it the first time he thought it a church, that was the way the architecture seemed, with spires and dark bricks demanding attention in a street that already offered so much to see. He caught sight of the sign on the door as he passed and couldn’t quite believe it- a library, here?- and was disappointed to see the gates closed and the building seemingly inaccessible. A few strides later the pavement opened up to the side, he followed the new expanse of smooth paving and saw, to his pure delight, that attached to the side of the magnificent, old build was a slick, modern entrance hall. He walked along the sides of the building with butterflies in his chest, he wasn’t entirely sure how any of this worked, he’d never been to a library that wasn’t completely open to him and didn’t even know how to ask. The modern entrance wasn’t particularly large but it did have a welcome desk, a small area with items for sale (literature themed, of course) and a small area where you could buy coffee or a snack. He peered to the large square arch where instructions read ‘no flash photography’ and must have been looking particularly curious because a woman from the welcome desk strode around to meet him and assured him with a smile, “you can go right in, there’s stairs or an elevator, feel free to take pictures as you look around but we don’t allow flash photography in case it damages any of the exhibits.” Tyler nodded and thanked her and took the stairs around the corner. Crisp white walls, the structure of the modern extension, was suddenly replaced by dark brick. Tyler stilled on the threshold. It looked like Hogwarts. The curved windows, the old stone floors, the long corridors and intricate stone arches connecting in the ceiling above. He took a few careful steps and when he noticed a door in the corridor he went through it. It wasn’t just books, in the centre of the rooms were glass cases and within them were letters and notes and sketches from people long dead, preserved and kept safe in the heart of this beautiful building. He followed each room through, growing more pleased with each, stopping to read small snippets of information about where the displays came from, his curiosity never satisfied. The staircase was incredible, when he reached it he needed a moment to catch his breath, mouth agape as he tipped his head back and tried to take in each arch of the ceiling and spill of light from the windows. His favourite part of all was the main reading room. To reach it you had to ascend the stairs, you stepped through into a space much larger than any before it, display cases were set in the centre of the room but along each side were small reading alcoves, each had it’s own desk with every wall acting as a full book case. Above these alcoves was a second level, from the floor he couldn’t see into them but he longed to be up there, found his eyes drawn up to the expanse of ceiling as he walked along the length of the room. The details were too much to take in. There were busts of writers and teachers set into the architecture, quotes from them etched into the stone, at the far end of the room was a huge arched stained-glass window. It was a worship-place for reading. Tyler looked around it three times on his first visit and when he reluctantly had to leave he took an information booklet from the front desk and thanked them whole-heartedly for his visit.

He had a list now of places he intended to visit, he wanted to see Central Library too and the Town Hall, Albert Square and the Art Gallery. He wanted to explore the Arndale and it’s many shops and places to eat, walk through the Print Works and see a film at the cinema there. He wanted to find all the small bookshops tucked away down side streets, explore further and further each day until the city was not a stranger to him or him to it. He wanted to belong somewhere, to know it and be known, to not spend any more years of his life treading carefully and worrying about where he was allowed to go and what he was allowed to do. He wanted to be allowed to want for himself.

#[ drabbles ]#sooooo idk I just???? this is more an insight into Manchester than much else tbh #all the places mentioned above are 100% real you can google them you can follow his exploring on maps you can drop the little person down #and see exactly what I mean down to the change to cobbled streets and fountains in November #so yeah~~~~~~~~~~~~~#and idk this is also Ty's sort of beginning journey to thinking about himself more?#his brain is just 24/7 Jeremy and Loxley and idk my bub needs to think about what makes him happy #and I think he needs to learn that just because what makes him happy is different doesn't mean it's bad or wrong #a lot of the time he feels like because he's not having fun the same way as his peers he's abnormal or boring but he's just happy doing #things like this instead??? he likes just seeing things and looking around and yeah idk his thought process has changed a lot in my head

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seriouslycromulent · 5 years

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MCU’s Captain Marvel - Thoughts, review & more

I’m off to see DC’s latest superhero reincarnation Shazam later today, but I wanted to make sure I captured my thoughts on the MCU’s last superhero outing, Captain Marvel, so I don’t get my feedback crossed.

I know I’ve said in the past that I’ve been a bit burned out when it comes to comic book movie (CBM) adaptations, but there are a few here and there that still catch my eye, and essentially I’ve boiled it down to: “Does this genuinely pique my interest?”

Now, I wasn’t too interested in Captain Marvel based on the trailers and didn’t plan to see it, but I struck a deal with my Mom. (Backstory: She and my stepfather go to see all the superhero movies because, hello!, they’re the nerds that nurtured this Big Nerd. Seriously, I started reading comic books because of them, and my geekery just grew and grew. I rely on them often to fact check the fandom details most comic book nerds on Tumblr claim to be authorities on. And yes, their 40+ years of comic book knowledge and expertise puts most of you to shame.)

With that said, she wasn’t very interested in Shazam. She said it looks like they’re aiming for a kids-only audience, and that made it kind of m’eh to her. But I said I would go see it because I’m a Zachary Levi fan. Billy Batson’s OK, but for me, it’s the casting of Zach that piqued my interest. So the deal was that she would see Captain Marvel and tell me if she thought I’d like it. And I’d see Shazam and do the same for her. Based on her commentary, I went to see CM, and now I’m returning the favor.

That was the intro.

Now, here’s the set-up.

If you’ve read anything related to the CBM-world here on my Tumblr, you know that I am a supporter of the DCEU, X-Men and the MCU, but I go hardest for the DC universe. You’ll also know if you stop by often that my point-of-view rarely matches up with the popular perspective within the fandom world, in general, or in the fandom communities, specifically.

But unlike some (dare I say, many), I never want to harsh anyone’s squee! If you loved something that I didn’t. Bless you. Live in that love, and pay me no mind. I have no desire to rain on anyone’s parade simply because I don’t land on the same conclusion regarding comic book characters or their feature film adaptations. I don’t think less of you, hate you, or even care if you don’t agree with me. If you do, that’s cool. If not, that’s cool too.

But before I jump into my mini-review of Captain Marvel, allow me to prepare you for how I roll. Here are some examples of where I landed after watching many, but not all, of the films from the MCU, DCEU, X-Men, Deadpool, and Spiderman franchises. I repeat, I rarely share the popular perspective or take on a CBM as the masses. You have been warned.

I enjoyed Ant Man and the sequel. If they made a third film, I’d see it.

Logan is a brilliant masterpiece, and I would change absolutely nothing about it.

Although I’ve never been a big fan of origin stories because they’re typically written like the audience is simple and can’t appreciate anything beyond the most cookie-cutter of plots and a paint-by-numbers of good and evil characters, I enjoyed Sam Raimi’s first film of the Spiderman franchise the most when it comes to comic book adaptation origin stories. So far, he’s still the person to beat in this category.

I enjoy most of the X-Men films, but often find the changes they make to the characters unnecessary and poorly executed. I also want Bryan Singer to leave the Summers boys alone.

I found the Wonder Woman film completely underwhelming. Why? See my #3 regarding origin stories.

I enjoyed Black Panther, but was not really wowed by it.

I enjoyed both Deadpool films, but I still think his character is highly overrated by male fans. I like the movies for what they are. They don’t really say anything. You’re just meant to “Ooh!” and “Aah!” and LOL! Then go home. I can respect that.

I thought Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was brilliant, and easily one of the best comic book-based films of the last 20 years. That film is a work of art, and I’m saddened that Zach Snyder’s vision wasn’t appreciated and respected by the studio. Even if the mainstream public thinks that comic book movies should be light and fluffy with virtually no connection to any messages of substance or strong characterization, the studio should have respected his vision and let him complete it with Justice League.

I liked The Avengers and I thought Age of Ultron was pretty decent, but I felt that Civil War was a mess of poor characterization, weak execution, absurd conclusions, unresolved tension, and a dispensable villain unworthy of the audience’s time. Literally everything the mainstream public and MCU fanboys (and fangirls) complained about Batman v Superman applies to Civil War, not to BvS. Civil War was the film that was rushed, and it shows.

I have virtually no interest at all in the main storyline of the MCU anymore. I don’t care about Thanos. I didn’t see Infinity War, and I don’t really plan to see Endgame. Yes, I’m aware of certain events happening regarding specific characters. Still don’t care. The run-up to this final showdown with Thanos was so poorly done and underwhelming that I have no emotional investment in this fight anymore.

Now, if you’re still reading, I want to say thank you for sticking around and ... welcome to my brain. Since this post is already long, let’s dive into Captain Marvel.

I saw the film twice. So that right there should tell you I enjoyed it. Yet, the weekend it came out, apparently, a bunch of fanboys and a handful of critics took to their keyboards and YouTube channels to review it and cry disappointment. Ultimately, I didn’t care too much because, again, it didn’t really pique my interest.

Then my Mom told me what she thought about the film and how it was the antithesis of what the fanboys and reviewers were claiming, and this ... is what actually piqued my interest. I love a good mystery, and I felt as if I needed to see the film for myself to not only see what the hubbub was about, but to also determine who was wrong/right.

So I saw it the following Tuesday after its opening weekend. And I walked out feeling as if the MCU had finally grown up.

What I liked

The 1990s nostalgia without the 1990s “nostalgia.” That is, the language, the clothes, the tech, the venues, etc. were all great throwbacks to this oddly romanticized decade without any of the romanticizing. As someone who was a teen throughout the ‘90s, and remembers it somewhat differently than others, I appreciate that. Respect.

Maria Rambeau. She is a best friend who gets to shine and enjoy the spotlight in her own way. She also has dark skin and short hair. (Yes, it matters.) But more importantly, Maria Rambeau isn’t a sidekick. Instead, she is the best friend everyone dreams of. Not only is she smart, fearless, and a badass behind the controls of a space-worthy fighter jet, but she’s also not judgmental. I don’t know many people who wouldn’t have some residual anger over being made to believe their ace boon was dead for 6 years, then one day just knocks on your door and say “What’s up? I’m not sure who I am.”

The villain-turned-not-so-bad-after-all Talos, played to perfection by Ben Mendelssohn, has the best one-liners and reaction shots in the film. Also, we get aliens with a variety of accents, character depth, and families.

Despite the fact that the passengers on the light rail/subway car saw the “old lady” could handle herself in a fight, the surrounding passengers did get involved to try and pull Danvers off of the old lady because, from a common sense perspective, this young woman should not have been trying to beat the hell out of an old woman. Kudos to them for trying to do the right thing.

I’m scared of Ms. Monica and her guilting her Mom to fly with Danvers, Fury and Talos on a life-endangering mission. When she said, “Just think about what kind of example you are setting for your daughter if you don’t go?” I was like, “No, she did not!”

The perfect subversion of the “prove to me you can beat me without weapons” gag at the end. Not only because it means that Yon-Rogg (Jude Law’s character) might show up in later films, but because that trope is sooooooo annoying. Plus, we all know she’s stronger, so why bother?

There’s some subtle commentary about the treatment of refugees as terrorists or enemies of the people by the same people who made them refugees in the first place. I would like to think that commentary is intentional, but that may be asking for too much.

What I didn’t care for

The CGI on Phil Coulson’s face. Um, yeah. That was not good. It would seem they spent more time on getting Samuel L. Jackson’s face just right so he could look believably younger, but then they ran out of time to do the same for Clark Gregg.

The CGI they used on Annette Bening’s face is ... not great in some scenes. Not all. Just some.

Why does Danvers sitting down with Fury in the bar for a Q&A about their past provide proof that they’re not Skrull? If the Skrull can’t adsorb distant memories, then this Q&A would only fill you with confidence to trust the other person if you actually know the other person. Danvers didn’t know Fury before that day, and he didn’t know her. Sitting there and answering questions only lays the groundwork to determine if they’re not Skrull later, but it shouldn’t provide proof that they can trust that the other isn’t a Skrull at that very moment. Also, how does Fury know that the Skrull can’t shoot blasts from their hands? He’s just going to take her word for it? Although given he was told by his “boss” to stay close to her and find out what she knows, I could see this as him simply playing along for the sake of his mission.

I’m not really buying this imaginary world where a black woman in the military is taking the time to keep her hair straightened while flying jets and working on special aircraft missions. However, I will suspend disbelief this time due to the fact that Rambeau was working on a top secret project and therefore was not necessarily hindered by the typical schedule of the average fighter pilot. ... This time.

I wished we could have seen more of Gemma Chan. Yeah, Minn-Erva’s a bad guy, but ... it’s Gemma Chan. I already had fanfiction theories playing in my head about her relationship with Yon-Rogg before I left the theater.

What I loved

We go on a journey with this character. We learn about her as she learns about herself, which is what keeps us invested beyond the “she’s going to be Captain Marvel by the end of the movie, obvs.” idea. This is an origin story done in a far more interesting and captivating way than anything presented in the Marvel cinematic universe since Iron Man. We get flashbacks to the most unassuming events of her life that later turn out to be the most important ones. Where others complained about this approach to an origin story, I wholeheartedly applaud it. Nothing in CA: The First Avenger, Thor or Ant Man was as clever or interesting as this angle when it comes to introducing a superhero’s origin.

I don’t want a flurkin. But at the same time, I want a flurkin.

Having a villain who turns out not to be a villain, and a mentor who turns out to be our actual villain, was to me another sign that the MCU has finally realized that complexity isn’t a bad thing and not every story must have a one-note single-purpose villain. Yes, we get a little bit of that in Ronan (Lee Pace’s character), but to lead the audience down this road where not all the information you receive can be immediately trusted suits me just fine. It’s realistic and engaging. Danvers’ confusion mimics our confusion, but not so much that we can’t enjoy the story. We don’t have it all figured out and determined who has the moral high-ground until she does. I love that. And as a writer myself, I respect that.

I love, love, loved the 1990s songs in this movie. Not only because the songs reminded me of my adolescence and you can never go wrong with Garbage’s “Only Happy When It Rains,” but because No Doubt’s “I’m Just A Girl” is THE perfect song for the big showdown between Danvers and her former Kree brethren. I almost jumped out of my seat in excitement when I heard that music intro. Kudos to whomever made this soundtrack!

There is no love story. Unless you count the love between 2 best friends/family being reunited, there’s no love story. Thank you.

When I first started watching the film, I had to scratch my head. I thought, “Since when are the Kree good guys?” After watching every season of Agents of Shield and knowing how it’s the Kree who leave mankind dangling on by a thread, manipulating them, torturing them, and turning them into their own little ant farm, my brain had to pause and question this version of the Marvel universe where Danvers is a Kree. But as the story continues, of course, we’re led on this journey where we learn 1) I was right not to trust the Kree as good guys, 2) there are some Kree who are good and Dr. Mar-vell is one of them, and 3) the MCU is capable of writing stories where character development isn’t sacrificed just for laughs and boss fights. See what I mean about growing up?

I think that’s it for now. This review is already long enough, and I’m sure I could discuss more details about the film if I had more time. Yes, I am aware of the mainstream critic and fandom backlash against the film. I’ve heard some of the complaints, and frankly, I struggle to find the justification for them anywhere in the film.

I read one critic complained saying that because the audience doesn’t know who Danvers is from the beginning, she’s hard to root for or identify with. I disagree. The audience learns as Danvers learns. And by the end of the film, it’s clear that what matters most about her is not her name or where she’s from, but what she does with her power. Personally, that’s a great message to everyone when you think about it.

I’m also aware that a lot of the fandom backlash has been ... how do you say ... male-driven. I think that’s unfortunate given that Captain Marvel is the MCU’s first female-led superhero movie and it’s long overdue. I don’t know if CM is flawless (I doubt it), but I know I enjoyed it as much as (and in a lot cases, more than) the other superhero origin MCU films. The message was great and the character relatable.

No, I’m not saying everyone can relate to a human-turned-all-powerful-superhero by a blast that should have killed her, but we can all relate to understanding that it doesn’t matter how many times we are knocked down, what matters is how many times we stand back up.

I’m not usually one for the hokey, after-school special messaging that a lot of MCU films (and DCtv shows) push, but that message about what makes her a hero (the standing up after getting knocked down) seems just as powerful as the message behind what makes Steve Rogers a hero (it’s not the special serum, but the fact he was willing to die for his countrymen in battle). I’m not sure how Danvers’ story is less worthwhile than Rogers’ story.

As for fanboys saying the studio should have just made a film about Natasha/Black Widow, it’s statements like that that make others wonder if your dissatisfaction with Captain Marvel isn’t rooted in misogyny. You would rather watch an origin film about a female team member on an already predominantly-male team where she plays a role, but is in no way as strong or as powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with most of the team members. Hmmm?

Hear how that sounds? There’s nothing wrong with liking Natasha. She’s the bomb. But again, making a film about Black Widow instead of Danvers, leaves the Avengers with one less female character, and one less character who can kick ass and take names with the big boys. The fanboys -- whether intentional or not -- have painted themselves as afraid of Captain Marvel’s strength and the power she has to be actually considered an equal to the other members of the team.

Perhaps if they said the MCU should’ve made a standalone or origin film about the Scarlet Witch, the misogyny wouldn’t be as glaring.

I don’t know. I’ll leave that argument for others for now. I’m heading out to movies now. Shazam here I come!

#captain marvel #shazam #brie larson #zachary levi #mcu #dceu #dceu positivity #wonder woman #batman v superman: dawn of justice #dc comics #marvel comics #avengers: endgame #avengers: infinity war #zach snyder #justice league

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fred-frederator-studios · 6 years

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Arlen Schumer: The Frederator Interview

Arlen Schumer is the designer and illustrator of our Frederator Fredbot, the robot that’s inspired so many variations.

You read that right.

We all hear so much from fans about our “red robot” that I thought the time was right for Arlen to design something for us again, 20 some-odd years after his first.

So here it is! The 2019 Frederator New Year’s poster. (You can see some of the poster’s development work here.)

Arlen’s not only a fantastic artist/designer, but he’s a prolific pop culture historian with some great books and essays to his name, and a thriving lecture series on some of the famous (and even more unsung heroes) of comic book art.

How did Arlen Schumer come to Frederator? And how did Arlen come to art, specifically, comic book art? As you can read below, he and I have known each other and worked together for several years, even pre-Frederator.

All this and more, in the first Frederator interview of 2019.

Hi Arlen. When did you start drawing?

I grew up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, a great place in the early-mid ‘60s, with equal parts bucolic American suburbia and small-town Rockwellian, pop culture ambiance—everything from an uber-Jewish deli like Petak’s to Plaza Toy & Stationery, which had a classic 20th Century soda fountain: it was there, after school, that I read all the comic books of my youth while drinking chocolate egg creams (with a pretzel log, natch). And because Fair Lawn, like all of New Jersey, was in the shadow of New York City, I grew up on all that pop culture through television, not just the 3 networks but the 3 local stations that showed everything from the old Universal monster movies to The Little Rascals to The Three Stooges to the George Reeves Superman TV series.

One of those local TV shows, a children’s show called Diver Dan, which was filmed in black & white to look like it took place underwater—the actor, in a deep-sea diver’s suit (with a helmet that never revealed his face, so he was like a superhero), walked slowly like he was underwater, surrounded by pop fish hanging by wires—triggered my interest in drawing, as I watched my brother draw him first, and copied him. I’ve been drawing ever since!

What was the first comic you fell in love with?

Giant Superman Annual #7 (Summer ’63): Not only is its cover the hands-down greatest of all the great multiple-panel Superman Annual covers that Superman Artist of the Baby Boom Generation (and my first favorite artist) Curt Swan drew in the ‘60s—not only does it feature perhaps the greatest single Superman figure ever rendered by Swan (in pencil; head of DC coloring Jack Adler did the hand-painted grey wash tones over it) or any Superman artist, before or since—but it is the first comic book cover I can recall ever seeing, when I was five years old, in summer camp that year. What an image to come into the wonderful world of comics by!

What was your first professional job as an artist?

My summer job between freshman and sophomore years at art school (Rhode Island School of Design), creating black & white line illustrations for a t-shirt silkscreening company in Fair Lawn.

I know that you count Neal Adams as a primary mentor? Were there any others?

Neal Adams was one of two Gods of Comic Book Art in the late-‘60s: the other was Jim Steranko, who was described as the Jimi Hendrix of comics, because Steranko’s career was as meteoric in its rise, and as short-lived. Though Steranko didn’t die in ’70 like Hendrix, that’s when he left Marvel Comics after less than 4 years of explosive and experimental works—and, like Hendrix, his impact on both the art form and its audience was in converse proportion to the relatively small amount of work he turned out. In particular, Steranko’s design sense and typographic talents were a tremendous influence on my choosing to major in Graphic Design at RISD.

It was sometime in my junior year there that I must’ve written Steranko a fanboy letter, gushing about those very things—and much to my shock and surprise, he wrote me back, inviting me to come see him in his home/studio in Reading, PA! So I took a bus from Providence, RI to Reading, and spent the day with Steranko—except I barely remember a thing about it! Why? Because I think I was having a Dr. Strange-like ectoplasmic out-of-body experience the whole time I was with him—I, a fan, spending quality time with one of the Twin Gods of Comics!!!

He wanted me to leave RISD and begin working with him as his apprentice! I couldn’t believe what he was offering me; I remember the bus ride back to Providence in a daze, feeling the utter cliché come to life of my future like the road in front of me: I could either stay on the main highway of getting my college degree, or take that exit ramp and join the circus! What do you think I did?

I stayed in school and got my diploma a year later. Had it been freshman year, maybe I would have left; but not when I was a year away from matriculating—not to mention honoring my mom’s sacrifice of putting me through school financially. But I’ve remained in touch with Steranko ever since, and feel both fortunate and unique, that I am the only fanboy who grew up to not only work for one of the Twin Gods of Comics (I ended up working for Neal Adams 3 years after I graduated from RISD), but almost worked for the other, too!

And then, Fred, there was—YOU! You were one of the first great professionals I met/interviewed with after I graduated from RISD and moved to New York City, when you were still at Warner-Amex having just created the MTV always-changing logo [actually it was Manhattan Design; I was the company creative director]. You impressed me as someone who was “real,” who didn’t hide behind a phony “professional” mask. We stayed in touch after that, and you gave me my first real breakout illustration job when I went solo as a freelancer a few years later, designing and illustrating an animated 30-second spot for a radio station, working with Colossal Pictures in LA (who later became Pixar)—and a NY metro-area billboard to go along with it!

Since then, we’ve done a bunch of great things together, up to and including this Frederator poster! And I’ve watched you wade through your own career waters as a multi-dimensional leading man, wearing so many different hats over the years—the decades—which has inspired me to cultivate my own Renaissance Man attributes. I’ve always described you to others as a mensch, the ultimate New York pro who’s got a great big beautiful heart an d soul to match his creative mind. If I could ever be described that way one day, I would consider that to be the highest compliment I could ever receive!

How about the mentors that you never met?

My father died when I was only four months old; my mother raised my older brother (by a year and a half) and I herself. Neither of my grandfathers was alive, and, though I had a handful of uncles, I would only see them a few times a year at family gatherings. So I had to find surrogate father figures elsewhere—and I found them in the American Pop Culture I grew up with in the’60s, in roughly this chronological order: Sean Connery’s James Bond, my first idealized masculine role model (the first movie I ever recall seeing, when I was around four-five years old, was Dr. No, the first Connery Bond, at a drive-in theater); Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling, a pop prophet of moral righteousness in the vast television wasteland, looking cool as all get-out in those incredibly tight TZ introductions—all of my artworks based on the series can be seen as my ways of honoring Serling’s legacy as a son would honor his father’s; and the superheroes in comic books, first and foremost Superman and Batman (the Yin-Yang of the genre), pseudo-paternally teaching me right from wrong, good from evil, and standing up and fighting for one’s beliefs. These are the things I suppose sons learn from the fathers, as well as their religious and academic authority figures. But “Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Comic Books”!

You've published a few pop culture histories, and given countless lectures on various great, neglected figures. What got you started as an historian?

I don’t know how any artist in any genre or medium, if they truly love their work, cannot also be equally-interested in the history of that art form. When Keith Richards plays any of his classic Rolling Stones licks, he knows which black bluesman he nicked it from; filmmakers like Spielberg and Scorsese know the history of film like they know their own films. And the history of comics is as rich in artistic triumphs (and personal tragedies) as the histories of the other major 20th Century art/entertainments: film, television, popular music and rock and roll.

When I was a senior at RISD, for my degree project, I toyed with designing an exhibit of comic book art, and when I went looking for a theme, the only subject that seemed both worthwhile of my passion for the material and deep enough for the demands of the assignment was one based on the comics I grew up with in the 1960s, and the artists who drew them, the twin founts from which I drew the inspiration to become an artist. Though I never did that exhibit (I ended up doing a giant autobiographical photo-comic instead), I kept the ideas and images that I gathered, in the hopes that one day I’d use them in some other form. Many of those 1979 layouts are the same ones I’ve used in my book published in 2003, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art; its introduction, in which I place the images and ideas encountered throughout the book in a socio-political, historical framework, is composed of essentially the identical concepts from my aborted exhibit idea.

The idea to do a book instead on this period of comic book history goes back even further, to 1970, when Jim Steranko, on the heels of his amazing barnstorming stint at Marvel Comics, wrote, designed and published the first of his twin-volume History of Comics, which remain the best books of their kind, and were—and continue to be—a source of inspiration. Except they were about The Golden Age of Comics (circa 1938-1950), the period Steranko grew up with and was affected by, not The Silver Age of Comics (circa 1956-1972) that I, and the entire Baby Boom Generation, was turned on to.

Steranko himself might have been inspired by the first great book about comic book history, Jules Feiffer’s 1965 The Great Comic Book Heroes, even though it’s more of a handful of wonderfully written, witty essays on specific Golden Age superheroes Feiffer followed avidly as a boy, accompanied by reprints of the origins or earliest adventures of those heroes. Feiffer may not have realized what it was like to be an 8-year old comic book fan in 1966 and hear that there was actually a book in the Fair Lawn public library about comics!

How did you come to design the Fredbot?

When you asked me to come up with my take on the classic Japanese-influenced sci-fi trope of the giant-monster-attacks-the-tiny-people back in 1997 for your first Frederator brand image—but make it a robot, and make it look like you [I don’t remember this last part], to boot—I immediately thought of the animated robot Gigantor, one of the first Japanese anime to reach American shores in the wake of the Batman TV series in 1966. Once I started drawing my version of Big G, it was a no-brainer to add the distinctive Seibert horned-rim eyeglasses, topped by the equally-distinctive Seibert eyebrows, and voila! Fredbot!

OK, I know you love Bruce Springsteen. How come?

I believe there are Four Pillars of Rock & Roll, in roughly chronological order: Elvis, Dylan, the Beatles, and Jimi Hendrix, representing the greatest voice, lyrics, band, and guitar; hence, The Four Pillars.

Like Elvis, Bruce is a singular, dynamic presence with a commanding vocal power; his lyrics and songs have stood the test of time and made him the only one of the many “new Dylans” to actually live up to the label, living a true, real rock & roll life while writing it down, The Great American Novel but on records, great American songs chronicling not only his life and career, but that of the postwar generation that has come of age with him, timeless anthems like “Born To Run,” “Thunder Road” and “Born in the USA,” just to mention three of his greatest hits; with The E Street Band, Bruce captured the sheer joy, enthusiasm and positive energy of the early Beatles; and, like Hendrix and any of the other guitar gods—Clapton, Page, Van Halen, The Edge—Bruce has played searing, soulful, melodic leads with the best of them.

But Bruce isn’t one of those rock & roll pillars—he’s the rock & roll roof built over them, the complete rock & roller, putting it all together as no one has before. Bruce Springsteen is, quite simply, the promise of rock & roll...delivered.

His uncompromising and unparalleled creativity, body of work, attitude, and performance and work ethic have been an inspiration to me since I first heard the song “Born to Run” over a tinny AM car radio when I was 17 years old in the summer of ’75. Especially when I lecture, I employ what I call the “Springsteen Performing Style,” which is to give your 110% all to your audience, whether it’s 10 people or 10,000 people.

Bruce is also a bonafide moral leader for our age, doing what a true leader should be doing: living his life by example, and using it to inspire and exhort others to do the same.

He is the true President of the United States.

Thanks for the interview Arlen. And of course, thanks for the Fredbot! Happy New Year!

#Arlen Schumer #Fredbot #frederator #poster #2019 #The Frederator Interview #posters #illustration #interview #artist #graphic design

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damijon-supersons · 7 years

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So i've never prompted anyone before and I'm sorry if this is lame, but maybe one of those 5+1 things where it's 5 times a batfam member catches damijon kissing, and one time they get caught doing something that's definitely not kissing, up to you whether the last thing is something lewd or something funny/cute.

Whoo boy anon! You’re my first blood :p Honestly, I’m not sure what you meant by that 5+1 thing, but I did come up with this…

Bruce kind of regretted sending the drone after Damian that night.

Originally, he and Clark just wanted to check up on their sons’ progress as a team. Bruce had secretly sent out a cloaked drone to monitor the boys on their mission. He expected to see an improvement on cooperation, teamwork, coordination…he definitely did not expect to see Robin kissing Superboy on a rooftop.

Clark sat beside him, equally stunned. Bruce wished that his friend would say something, anything, just to lift the incredibly awkward silence. Finally, Clark cleared his throat.

“Did you know?” Superman asked with forced calmness. It was obvious he was still at a loss for words?

Bruce glanced at him awkwardly. “I’m the world’s greatest detective, but no I didn’t know.”

Clark stared at him for a few tense seconds, and then he grinned.

“Bruce, that’s what you said last Christmas,” Clark chuckled.

“Every time I feel like I know Damian, he keeps proving me wrong,” Bruce said with amusement. He shook his head, and the tension evaporated.

“How to be a good father to our sons is the greatest mystery of all,” Clark said with a smile.

***

Dick listened to his little brother with rapt attention. He could have told Damian to stop, he could’ve asked Jon to sit down and relax, but he didn’t. Even though he knew about them already, he let Damian talk. They both needed to do this in their own way, without any interruptions.

Damian gulped as he finished, and then glanced at Jon. They both nodded with determination.

Dick watched as Damian closed his eyes and pressed his lips against Jon’s.

“Do you understand, Grayson?” Damian asked wearily. He was holding Jon’s hand tightly, the younger boy’s fingers laced through his own.

“I understand that I have a new brother now, I guess,” Dick shrugged comically. His humor had the intended effect. Jon started giggling and the edge of Damian’s mouth twitched, as if he almost wanted to laugh.

Dick wrapped both boys in a hug.

“Coming out takes a lot more courage than putting on tights every night to soak up bullets and knives,” Dick began. “I know how much this means to you, and really, thank you for trusting me.”

“Of course we’d trust you!” Jon chirped. “You’re the best big brother ever!”

“Watch it,” Damian pouted. “He was my brother first!”

Of course, Dick thought, bickering was part of the package.

“Don’t worry, Damian. You’re both equally brats,” he laughed.

***

Jason swore. He spent the last of his cash for the week on the magazine, and this was what he saw. To be fair, he’d expected Damian to get into kissing at this age. What he didn’t expect was that Damian would be kissing Jon.

When Damian had texted him for dating tips, Jason had told Daman to meet him in the arcade. Jason already knew what he had to as an older brother—he was going to buy Damian his first porn mag. Sure, he could’ve gone online for porn, but nothing beats the classic physical porn mag to give you that “naughty” frame of mind. He was going to take one for the team and tell Damian all the ways you could pleasure a girl in graphic detail. After all, what was an older brother for?

But then yeah, Damian had kissed a boy—a Superboy. It was just a quick peck on the cheek after Jon had beaten the high score on a ring toss. It was enough for Jason to know that his plan was ruined.

He’d gotten that magazine from one of his shadier contacts who swore on five different crosses that it wasn’t probably smuggled. The catch was, there were no refunds or exchanges. Jason sighed.

“Hey, kid,” Jason said to the boy nearest him. He was just another kid at the arcade holding one of those gun-shaped controllers. Jason handed him the magazine. “Here. From Santa Clause.”

The boy stared dumbfounded at the magazine, and then at Jason, who’d started to walk away.

“But…it’s August!” he called out in disbelief.

“I’m doing summer shifts,” Jason said without looking back.

He took out his phone a dialed his friend again.

“Emil, it’s me,” Jason said. “I need a new…book. My brother didn’t like the last one. Can you get me something with just guys in it? Yes, I said what you think I just said. And yeah, my brother found someone cute, don’t worry.”

***

Everyone considered Tim to be a genius. But in this case, he’d have agreed with anyone who’d wanted to call him an idiot.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Tim groaned.

“Sorry?” Damian chided. “What you did was reprehensible, Drake! A complete disregard for me and Jon’s privacy!”

Damian huffed with his arms crossed. His indignation was undercut by how disheveled he looked and the red mark on his neck. Jon sat awkwardly beside him, his hair a tangled mess and his vest halfway off his body. He was staring at the floor and fiddling with his thumbs.

“You guys were eating each other on the sofa. Which is in the living room. Which everyone walks past on the way to the kitchen.” Tim said dryly.

“It’s midnight!” Damian protested. “No one in their right mind would come through here!”

“So I drink an espresso every midnight, no big deal,” Tim said nonchalantly. “That’s not the issue here. It’s you two.”

“What do you mean?” Jon asked, his bright blue eyes sparkling with anxiety.

Tim sighed. “I mean get a room. We live in a mansion, Damian. We have five guest rooms for goodness’ sake. You have a 70 square meter bedroom! I know you guys are head over heels for each other, but how do you think it makes me feel when we walk in on you inhaling each other’s faces like that?”

“You?” Damian smirked. “Jealous.”

Jon burst out laughing.

Tim rolled his eyes at the young teen and walked away. He needed twice as much coffee now that Damian had Jon. A sullen Damian would often annoy Tim, but a happy Damian? He shuddered at the thought.

I’m totally not jealous.

***

Damian froze. His eyes flung open and he saw that Jon had done the same. It felt somewhat odd to pause just as their lips had begun their clandestine adventure, but fear and surprise interrupted their higher brain functions. They weren’t able to pull away from each other when they’d heard the door open.

It happened much too fast than was humanly possible. Alfred had opened the door, crossed the room, and set the gleaming silver tray down on the bedside table all in the span of three seconds. It took him half a second to arch his eyebrow at Jon, whose lips were still firmly locked with Damian’s as though in a paused recording. Another second later, Alfred had closed the door.

The boys had gotten over their trance and pulled themselves apart. Alfred didn’t know, of course. They’d only told Dick, and had made Tim swear to keep what he saw a secret or else Damian would throw out all the mansion’s coffee reserves. They didn’t know how Alfred would react, or if he’d tell, or if the old butler would get a heart attack. For a minute, they were silent, their eyes speaking volumes about what they’d feared.

Suddenly, the door opened once more. It was Alfred, carrying an identical silver tray as the one he’d placed before. Damian felt a sense of déjà vu as Alfred mechanically placed the tray in front of them in exactly the same way as he’d done earlier, as if repeating that instance in time. When he opened the tray, Damian saw that it was a sandwich exactly like his own.

But unlike before, there was a pastel-colored box on the tray—it was a box of Kleenex.

Damian and Jon’s eyes grew wide as the implication hit them. With a barely imperceptible wink, Alfred swept out of the room, leaving two very red-faced boys behind him.

#ask #prompt #fic #damijon #super sons #Damian Wayne #jonathan kent #Robin #Superboy #Batman #Superman

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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Batman: White Knight Reveals New Mr. Freeze Origin

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We talk to the creators behind the next entry in the Batman: White Knight universe, Von Freeze

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Klaus Janson is a legend in comics. He’s so big that he’s best known for seven different things - he’s the guy who co-created Micro in The Punisher; or the one who drew “Gothic,” one of Grant Morrison’s first and moodiest Batman stories; or the comics storytelling professor at SVA; or the guy who finished Frank Miller’s pencils on Daredevil and The Dark Knight Returns. But on everything he does, his art is immediately distinct: it’s moody and heavy in a way very few new comic artists can successfully accomplish.

One of the few who can pull it off is Sean Murphy. Murphy, who rose to fame working Morrison on Joe the Barbarian, then took off working with Scott Snyder on American Vampire, and now has been given his own alternate Bat-universe to play in, telling an extended story about late career Batman and the Joker in Batman: White Knight and Curse of the White Knight. He’s another immediately recognizable artist: you know right away when you’re looking at a Murphy Batmobile, or a Murphy Batgirl costume design, or Murphy Gotham rubble. He’s less atmospheric and more frantic, stuffing ideas into every square inch of the page, but he’s super stylized and uses heavy inks to help set the mood around the craziness of his stories. So how do two gifted inkers and stylized artists challenge themselves with a Batman story?

Snow. Lots of snow.

Batman: White Knight Presents Von Freeze is out in November. It expands on the backstory of the Mr. Freeze we met in the pages of the first Murphy-verse Batman tale, White Knight, and gave us the opportunity to talk shop with these two talents. It’s rare to get a chance to sit in on two exceptionally talented people talking shop the way we did with Janson and Murphy, but push them on all the snow in Von Freeze and they get going. “To me, using white is, in a very simplistic way, the opposite of using black,” Janson says.

“When I ink snow, I ink shadows across snow. Even if it wouldn't look that way in real life, I just take creative license,” says Murphy. “It was just interesting to, for me as an artist, to deal with the shadows that are cast on the snow,” Janson responds.

read more: Frank Miller Returns to the Dark Knight Universe

The project isn’t just a chance for two outstanding storytellers to nerd out about craft. White Knight is in several ways a spiritual sequel to Batman: The Animated Series, and in keeping with the first book’s propensity for expounding on TAS’s universe, Von Freeze digs into Victor Fries’ backstory using the cartoon’s lonely widow characterization as canon. “I looked through the DC archives and I didn't really see a whole lot of bolstering of Mr. Freeze as far as what had happened in his past,” Murphy says. “So I thought it was a great opportunity to tie it to the real world and give him a different sort of origin story.”

That origin story ties him much more closely to his beloved Nora, and plants him square in the middle of Operation Paperclip, the US Government program that secreted a gaggle of Nazi scientists into government research jobs after World War II. It turns Fries’ father into basically Wernher von Braun, the Nazi V2 rocket engineer who later played an instrumental role in putting humans on the moon from his desk at NASA’s Space and Rocket Center in Alabama. Only instead of putting people in space, von Freeze’s father wanted to freeze them. “It is essentially the origin story of Mr. Freeze and how the influence of his father created that that person,” says Janson. “When [people] read the story, they'll certainly feel sympathy for Mr. Freeze and why he is the way he is and why he's so cold,” Murphy adds.

read more: The Secret Origin of Superman Smashes the Klan

The original plan was to add this backstory into White Knight, but the first miniseries got too big, and it had to be cut. Fortunately, it was popular enough to give Murphy a chance to go back to it in this one-shot. “I really wanted to put in volume one of White Knight, but I ran out of space. I really wanted to nail down this idea that [von] Freeze is like Von Braun with Operation Paperclip,” says Murphy. “And I was so afraid someone was going to take this idea, that I thought I need to get this out. Maybe I'll just get another artist draw to it and I'll just write it, and maybe I could pitch this to Dan Didio at DC and it have him approve of it as a one shot.”

He ended up doing better than just “another artist.” Janson is an instrumental artist to comics’ boom in the ‘80s, and kept upping his game as time passed. Murphy says, “in a way I'm a student of Klaus' because I grew up reading his stuff as well. And becoming friends with him and having to write a script for him was definitely a dream come true. I never thought that I would ever be able to use such a talented person to draw my script.”

And landing such a talented artist meant Murphy got to challenge him. The most exciting part of this project, Murphy tells us, is “...taking one of my favorite artists and bringing him back into the spotlight and me using him the way I think he should be used. Not just as an inker, but as a penciler, inker, story teller, and really helping me out with the script in some ways too.”

read more - The Secret Origin of Green Lantern: Far Sector

For Janson, the best part of the project is getting to dive into the research of the era, immerse himself in old growth German forests and architecture. “I think that the environment, for me, no matter what the assignment is, is a very big deal. New York as Daredevil is concerned, Gotham as Batman is concerned,” he says. “I really enjoyed the reference that I needed to accumulate, and the design that was involved in trying to nail that down and create a credible environment.”

Murphy, on the other hand, was most excited to see what Janson would do with a talking head page. At one point, von Fries gets called into a meeting with Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS and arguably the most dangerous man in Europe at the time. The meeting takes place in a tank factory, “and [Janson] even does some of my favorite panels,” Murphy says. “The tanks are having treads be applied so the treads are unraveled and I don't know, he must've found a great photo for that because that didn't come from me. But I loved it.”

read more: New DC Universe Timeline Explained

“Tanks are hard. Tanks are hard, Sean,” Janson replied. “Tanks are hard”

Batman: White Knight Presents von Freeze is out November 20th. For more exclusive preview art, keep scrolling! For more on the Murphy-verse, stick with Den of Geek!

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Feature Jim Dandy

Oct 25, 2019

DC Entertainment

Batman

Klaus Janson

from Books https://ift.tt/2pTL25a

#aion-rsa #Books

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mozillavulpix · 7 years

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The Importance of the Great Saiyaman

I was thinking about the Great Saiyaman mini-arc in Dragon Ball Super - probably the one and only time we’re going to see that costume in Super in a significant way, if the events of those episodes are to be believed, and thinking about what purpose those episodes served suddenly made me understand the relevance of the Great Saiyaman not only to the story Dragon Ball Super was attempting to tell, but to Gohan’s character in general.

In that I’d say the Great Saiyaman was in fact one of the most crucial parts of Gohan’s character once he ‘grew up’, which helped make him a protagonist that we could legitimately find compelling to watch (even if his stint as protagonist was brief).

People say the Great Saiyaman ruined Gohan? No. I think the Great Saiyaman saved Gohan.

First, some background knowledge. From an interview by Akira Toriyama in Daizenshuu 2.

And then the Cell arc ended. Did you think that everyone felt you would put Gohan into the leading role?

I intended to put Gohan into the leading role. It didn’t work out. I felt that compared to Goku, he was ultimately not suited for the part.

Now, everyone normally focuses on the second part of that quote: that Gohan in the leading role didn’t work out because Toriyama thought he wasn’t suitable. But the first part of that quote is perhaps just as important. Intended. Meaning some points in the series were being written with the intention of Gohan being the lead character.

The question as to when Toriyama changed his mind and why is another story altogether, and one that isn’t really relevant to this discussion. But the most important thing to note here is that, most likely during the sections where Gohan was being the Great Saiyaman and preparing for the tournament, the story was revolving around the idea that he was the protagonist.

Pictured: Gohan ready for high school, in the same page of the Muten Roshi explaining that this boy was now taking Goku’s place.

Now, if Gohan was to be the protagonist of the story, we needed to understand him. We knew he was like as a fighter, and as the child who normally hid under his father’s wing, but we didn’t know what he’d be like as an independent 16-year-old who no longer had father-figures who surpassed him in strength by a wide margin.

But there was one thing we did know about Gohan: he was generally a pretty morally upstanding guy.

Unlike Goku, Gohan was always willing to jump in to do the right thing driven by a pure altruistic motive. He didn’t necessarily like the thrill of a fight and most likely wouldn’t allow a threat to the planet to get stronger for the sake of a better challenge. Assuming he wasn’t consumed by anger, that is.

And while that did definitely separate him as a different character to Goku, it also left a bit of a problem. Gohan as a character could be seen as a little bit too...clean.

If he was always going to do the right thing, and step up when he saw innocent people in danger, he wouldn’t be Son Goku. Instead, he’d be...basically Superman. Or any sort of American-style superhero, who would be ready to use their powers at a minutes notice to do everything from stopping criminals to helping citizens escape from a major natural disaster.

But Dragon Ball was never a superhero story, and in fact, that kind of logic would actively hinder the more individualistic themes of fighting for self-improvement that pervaded the entire series. And, in particular, it would also harm Gohan as a character.

Come the start of the Majin Buu arc, once Gohan was written as a teenager who was also a Super Saiyan, his earlier role as the child with the massive amount of untapped power who followed the heroes along with the hope of being able to wield it one day no longer applied. He wasn’t really a child anymore, nor was his massive potential underutlised once he used it to save the world from Cell. The other biggest defining trait of his as a character was in fact that altruistic, self-sacrificing nature, and that would thus be something worth exploring to keep his character consistent and with a sufficient number of personality traits to stop him from being bland.

The issue with that, though, is that...always morally-upstanding heroes are kind of boring. Especially in Dragon Ball, where we enjoy seeing our characters get stronger due to their intrinsic motivations and hard work. If Gohan only acted like a morally-correct hero who always saved the day and, due to his personality, would probably do that all the time, it could start feeling a little bit formulaic. How could we find Gohan as a leading character sufficiently compelling if all we really saw of him is the hero who always shows up to admonish the villains for being evil and then beats them up because of it?

Now, that kind of protagonist does work. It can work. But it’s seen mostly in superhero stories.

So...if Gohan as the protagonist would be acting like a superhero...why couldn’t they just make Gohan a superhero?

Enter the Great Saiyaman. Gohan, seeing all the crime rampant in the world and especially around his new high school, dons a costume and a secret identity, and goes around helping people and stopping villains wherever he can.

But the important thing about the Great Saiyaman, the thing that shows that this is Dragon Ball and not an American comic book, is that it’s mostly played as a parody. Gohan’s costume looks intentionally ill-matched and overblown, and in-universe, besides Bulma, Goten and Gohan himself, everyone thinks that the escapades he puts on are ridiculous.

What makes this especially brilliant is what it does for the story and Gohan’s character. The Great Saiyaman essentially detaches Gohan as a person from Gohan as the morally-righteous hero. We know he as a character is going to do the right thing and try to help others, but those motives are then filtered through the lens of the Great Saiyaman persona. It no longer defines him as an individual. The morally-righteous hero is in fact the Great Saiyaman, leaving the character of Son Gohan to be something else, no longer bogged down by these heroic traits.

It allows us to get to see Gohan in situations where he’s not trying to save people. Like true secret identities, the superhero persona is used to separate his life being a hero from his life being a teenage boy. When he’s no longer in costume, we get to see him as a teenage boy. We see him struggle with high school, girls, keeping his power a secret, and trying to train his brother and get back into shape before the tournament. Not only that, but we get to see him as a martial artist - someone who also fights to improve himself as a fighter. Perhaps that’s not his only motivation, but he does have that motivation still. That’s something a superhero would never really show. It’s what makes it uniquely Dragon Ball.

Come the business with Majin Buu, Gohan is actually fighting the threats with the costume of the Great Saiyaman, but without any hint of disguise - his bandana and sunglasses discarded earlier on in the day. Because of this, he’s not fighting because he’s a superhero. He’s fighting because he’s a Super Saiyan. And that in itself allows us to see him as more than both the good guy hero and as just another Saiyan. He’s both. And we see both. Just like how we see his two identities.

And if we jump many years later ahead to Dragon Ball Super, we can see that’s essentially the same role the Great Saiyaman serves in Episodes 73 and 74. These episodes were almost a domestic drama focused around a jealous, insecure big-name actor attempting to destroy Gohan’s home life.

If you hear that synopsis, you might think “that sounds like a ridiculously-cheesy concept for an episode of Super.” And it is. But those episodes are also episodes of Gohan as the Great Saiyaman. He fights Barry Karn in that exact outfit, and, crucially, keeps his disguise to the onlooking spectators the entire time. And through this, these episodes, this very cheesy and somewhat predictable story, becomes a superhero story. The costume changes the genre entirely. When that happens, it becomes a lot easier to accept as a feasible story. Like the spectators and movie crew, we see this fight as one superhero fighting one monster, ready to be shot for a movie. And in this case, the movie is in fact one that is shown in-universe, a movie in which the protagonist itself finds boring.

And, crucially, it allows Gohan without the costume to shine as more than just “that guy who really cares about his family”.

It’s why I don’t really agree with people who say Gohan is bland. He’s bland only if you treat something like the Great Saiyaman as all his character has to offer. But if you look under that ridiculous helmet, you’ll realise those aren’t the only moments we see him on-screen. And it’s in fact the contrast between him in-costume and without-costume that makes him more than just the boring parts of Superman.

#dbz #dragon ball #dragon ball super #gohan #great saiyaman #mini-essay #no seriously #I wrote a mini-essay on the goddamn great saiyaman

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cnox · 5 years

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Rowen for Distant Mirror Zine #1.* ROWEN is a project between Cristahel and Cantrith Knox. They play a subgenre of the dark ambient / dungeon synth movement they call Mythical Electronic. They have years of experience and also operate Hollow Myths in New England. I thank them for their contribution to the first issue of Distant Mirror. First, Rowen is a collaborative effort between Canrith and Cristahel Knox - do you have specialties which you like to focus on when creating (someone runs the drums and arrangement, someone finds the melodies)?

Eve, Thanx for the interview. We both play synths, drum machines and write together. As of now, when playing live, Criss handles the synths, vocal whisperings and I play the electronic drums. Along with our visuals, fog and lighting. We are introducing more vocals on some new songs. In the studio, we also add our field recordings and percussion as part of composing. We sit and mix each song side by side.

Tell us about your musical histories before forming Rowen, because its somewhat obvious you both have experience which maybe led to the result of what Rowen is on "Ashen Spirit"!

Both of us have electronic music in our past. Cristahel with Minimal Synth and I with Darkbeat. One of the first ideas we had for Rowen was to start all over. As part of the experiment, finding ourselves and each other through making music anew. See and hear our music become it's own entity. We started developing the concept in '14, in '16 we began recording and had our first release in '18. We set out with a clear vision of what we want to do with Rowen.

Also tell us how you discovered music and what your first true love in music was... How did you come to find music that would lead you to this underworld of music culture?

Canrith: I discovered music on a radio at age 3. First, second and third grade, I would stay up nights crashing on Ritalin (due to being diagnosed as Hyperactive) watching the first ever music videos on a UHF channel in Colorado called FMTV which predated MTV by a year or two. Laurie Anderson - O Superman, Kraftwerk, Barnes & Barnes - Fish Heads videos all had a great impact on me as a kid. During that time, late 70's - early 80's, I was hooked on the music and image of both Kiss and Devo. One of the first albums I owned was AC/DC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap on cassette that I purchased at K-Mart. Summer '81 NYC, I saw the first video air on MTV. Later, watching another UHF channel out of Boston called V66. Heavy Metal led me to the Black Metal and the dark electronic music underground. Dark Ambient and Dark Dungeon Music have always been a particular interest of mine. Mail order distro tapes and free box extras in orders started my collection as far back as the mid 90's. In the late 90's, I got really into BM, then obsessed in '03 onward, as many UGBM labels and distros were rising on the web. We are also into Minimal, Martial, Electro, Techno, New Beat, Cosmic, Italo, 8-bit, Video Game, Soundtrack, Old School Dungeon Synth, Winter Synth and so on...

Cristahel: My first exposure to music as a child was through my grandfather, who began teaching me to play classical piano by ear at the age of four. We would sit for countless hours at his black upright Steinway as he would play Chopin, Bach, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky etc. a few measures at a time for me to memorize and string together until I had the whole piece memorized. His love and enthusiasm for music, and the time he took to develop that in me, is something I will always be grateful for. Also my cousin Sue was a few years older than me and was like some kind of magical mixtape faerie, forever bestowing masterfully crafted gems upon me filled with things like Lush, Kate Bush, Cocteau Twins, and Mazzy Star that served to mold/blow my little mind.

By my late teens it was the late 90's/early 2000's and I was immersed in a maelstrom of kraut/prog, electro, early new wave and electronic/industrial, shoe gaze. I was fortunate at the time to have a lot of friends with varied tastes and massive record collections they wanted to share with me, because back then there was like, only Napster to try and download music off this nebulous internet thing they had just invented.

I spent a lot of time not doing my homework and dancing around my room on speed and/or klonopins listening to things like Tangerine Dream, Cluster, Miss Kittin & The Hacker, Dopplereffekt, Chris and Cosey, SPK, early Human League, Slowdive, Clan of Xymox... all of which in their own ways began to inform the atmosphere of the music I create now, warped and haunted meandering electronic melodies, analog synths, string machines and rhythm boxes, pounding 303s and 808s, tape echoes, analog delays, layered sounds lost in chasms of reverb...

I moved to NY and started making music, playing shows and djing a bit (mostly playing gabber techno synth new age sets at London squat parties to kids who wanted to hear nu rave), getting into minimal synth, and beginning my love affair with collecting and recording with analog equipment.

Of course now anything you want is available immediately online, compared to how the 80’s and 90’s crowd discovered music. I’ve asked the other artists a similar question - how do you feel about the loss of mystery these days and what will happen in the future to return to that?

I feel the ability for creating mystique is greater now thanx to the internet. Almost anyone can record some music, upload it to bandcamp, make artwork, physical releases, open an online shop, start a label, etc.. If one is good at what they do, be it a hidden persona or being a face, presenting a strong sound, image and aesthetic, either way, when done right, it works. In some ways even mystery can be a gimmick.

You both are lucky to have grown up in the best time period for music. But what about movies and books people should check out?

I collect children's books, read a mess of olde and new Black Metal zines, Books about Black and Death Metal. Sexy comics about Vampiress and Faeries. Presently reading The Devil's Cradle, a hard back about The Story of Finnish Black Metal. It was a gift from Criss. Everyone should read Lords of Chaos '98 (then '03) and Lucifer Rising '99. I still need a copy of that leather bound Mortiis - Secrets Of My Kingdom book '01.

As for films, we watch obscure horror, foreign horror and documentaries.

Here are some if you have not already read or watched them;

Read: Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs ('78) James and the Giant Peach ('61) Masquerade ('79) The World of the Dark Crystal ('82) The Book of Alien ('79) Moebius - The Collected Fantasies of Jean Giraud Series ('87 - '94) Flowers in the Attic - Dollanganger Series ('79 -'86) Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo ('78) William Klein: Films, 1958-99 ('99) Wreckers of Civilisation: The Story of Coum Transmissions & Throbbing Gristle ('99)

Watch: Christiane F. ('81) Out of The Blue ('80) Deadbeat at Dawn ('88) Combat Shock ('86) Street Trash ('87) Brain Damage ('88) Zardoz ('74) Excalibur ('81) Emerald Forest ('85) Wicker Man ('73)

If atmosphere seems to be a heavy orientation for your creative drive, is your local landscape an important part of this? or is it personal experiences driving the music towards such a dark and melancholy place? something about Rowen is both light and dark.

We live on a island North East New England and seldom see others. Most of our time is spent outside, alone with the wind, the trees, on the marsh, in the mist and rain, sea side mornings, hawks at dusk and in the woods every evening. Pretty, evil and sad is what we do. We are hoping folks will also consider us in the Nature Synth category.

New England must be a very interesting place to live... what is your favorite time of year there, and what is your favorite part of the landscape there?

We love the woods, day hikes, mountain tops, swimming holes, water falls, gorges and quarries. Small towns, old houses, fields, orchards, pumpkin patches, bonfires. Train tracks, trestles, towers, castles, monuments and graveyards. I was born in October so naturally I love the fall. Hallow's Eve and all into November. Leaves turn, death comes and things change. There is nothing like a cold moonlit night in the snow. I appreciate being where we can really experience all four seasons.

Also You are so fortunate to live on an island.. That’s amazing. It’s cliche to talk about misanthropy with dark music but is this the reason for being secluded? What do you feel is the best thing for people could do with themselves in (what is in my eyes the end of the world?)

We made the decision to come here for a time of research, get to know each other, talk about our dreams, foster our ideas. Focus on only that of which we love and gives us purpose. Live away from it all. If everyone did what was the most important to them, a different world this might be.

Rowen is listed among other trees in occult literature as a tree of magical powers... Is this the reason for using the name? Is there personal beliefs at play in Rowen?

As a band we have our own ideologies, as musicians, our own theories, as artists, our own creative processes and as members, a belief system. These are shared between us and are expressed through the music, words and imagery of Rowen.

The Greeks, Norse, Celts and Druids all told mythology of the properties and significance of this mystical tree. The Greek Goddess of youth who lost her magical chalice to the demons. An eagle was sent to retrieve it. From battle, it's blood splatter on the earth grew Rowan trees. It's leaves as feathers, it's berries, the blood. The Norse myth speaks of the tree from which woman was made. And man, from a mountain ash. Saved Thor in the underworld. Runes are burned on Rowan wood. In the British Isles they tell of the folkloric tree which protects against witchcraft. The red berries of fall make up the 5 points of the Pentagram. Goes also as the Goddess or Faerie tree. The Druids used the bark and berries to dye the garments worn during lunar ceremonies black. Rowan twigs were used for divining, particularly for metals.

I had no idea the importance of Rowen to ancient people. Yes, it is true that Norse belief teaches humans were originally trees before given life and awareness by Odin, Vili and Ve. Is there any interest for you both to express your philosophy on things in the music or is this an affair of escapism and pure magic.

"The Past is not Dead, it lives on in a Woeful Drift." We are connected to our roots, our family trees, where we came from, our heritage and lands. We could only hope that our music would offer an escape. Magic is the only way.

If you could live in any time period, what time period would you live in and what would you be doing?

Canrith: I feel lucky to have been a child of the 70's and we grew up in the 80's, 90's & 00's. We were there, I wouldn't change it. I would love to live in some medieval castle in the mountains, riding a black Clydesdale, wielding a mace, reeking havoc across the land.

Cristahel: Same as Canrith but on a white Clydesdale with a halberd.

What's the most important part of the creative process for Rowen - is there a certain revelry for using old mysterious pieces of synthesizers or do you enjoy the vast possibilities of computers? There's always the game of analog vs computer in the electronic scenes, what is your thoughts on this?

For us, again, the most important part of the process is the experiment. We use all analog synthesizers, drum machines and record live. Roland, Korg, Yamaha. Same goes for our stage show. We have used and are not opposed to using digital synths on recordings and live. Casio & Yamaha synths, Simmons drums. For instance, "In Another Dream, You Were Mine" from "Ashen Spirit" was made almost entirely on a Casiotone. We record and mix on a desk top home computer.

What are you both really enjoying listening to at the moment?

Listening to cult 80's video Game music on YouTube while answering these questions.

do you have any thoughts on where this rising momentum will lead as far as the dungeon synth genre is headed, and do you feel proud of your place in that? am i wrong in assuming you both also run Hollow Myths?

We are proud of our place in DS. Though we set out to make our own mythical electronic music. And think the genre is progressing as it should. We have been very active in the scene going on six years now this November. As supporters, label, distro and band. We are most appreciative of the support we have received. And from the Black Metal Underground. Our first demo was released on pro-tape by Personnel Records, a sub-label of Seedstock Records ran by Marco Del Rio of Raspberry Bulbs aka He Who Crushes Teeth of Bone Awl. We are finishing our second release that will be out on CD & Cassette this time.

Hollow Myths, the label and distro, is the work of us two. Releases, artwork, layouts, Photography, bios, press, promo, videos, zine, jewelry, leather work, patches, we also offer clothes that we call Cryptic Raiment for After Dark. Official Dungeon Synth, Dark Ambient, Black Metal, Hollow Myths* Shirts, Long Sleeves, Hoods, Record Bags, Altar Cloths...

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Hollow Myths has had to dig deep into the underground and re-release old gems, which is like reissuing from the archives.. many people don’t really appreciate that, can you tell us about what that’s been like and if anything else like that will ever happen?

Hollow Myths* have re-released limited special versions of cult classics in a row of how I first discovered them back when. Being also from Dallas, TX, Equitant - The Great Lands Of Minas Ithil (City Of Isildur) '94 was one the first tapes I owned of the genre (and our first release from H/M* on cassette) after I found a copy of the Mournlord - Reconquering Our Kingdom Demo from '95 (SE) for a $1 in a bargain bin. These strange and very limited cassette releases helped crystallize what Dark Dungeon Music was to me. Like hearing the Caduceus - Middle Ages Demo '95 (LT) for the first time or later with the Corvus Neblus - Chapter I & II - Strahd's Possession tapes from '99 / '01 (LV). Our second re-released offering was Equimanthorn - Entrance To The Ancient Flame on cassette, another Texas born Ritual Black Ambient project with both Equitant and Proscriptor of the Mythological Occult Metal band Absu as members. After which, we made a chain of very special limited re-releases from; Gothmog, Depressive Silence, Solanum, Lunar Womb, Cain, two from Aperion, Arthur as well as Xerión with more to come. At the same time, we have introduced many new Dungeon Synth artists, some with their follow ups; Isåedor, Wyver and Wizzard to name but a few. We began in '16 and have 43 releases to date. Some mentioned above will see second pressings in the near future.

What has been your favorite release to work on this past year and what sort of artists does Hollow Myths look for?

We focus on outsider music and art and put our blood, sweat and tears into every release. Since we are primarily a physical label and distro (Tapes, CD's, Vinyl, Merch, etc.), it has been interesting to curate and mix the last three Shadowlore Compilations.

Each run over 2 hours long and feature new and exclusive songs by legions of Dungeon Synth artists from around the world. Being Digital, we offer it for Free or name your price for those who want to add it to their collections. Corresponding J-card "tape trade" layout print outs are included in the download, so one can make their own 2x cassette version. To be shared with friends, to inspire tape trading, for more reach and exposure for the artists' projects. Shadowlore Four will be released this Summer Solstice.

Other releases from last year we are very proud of: Apeiron - Stardust / A Separate Reality. Cosmic / Dark Ambient / Black Metal from Austria. '95 & '97 and featuring a never before heard hidden track from '96 titled "Dimensional Chanting" exclusive only to this release. Xerión - O Espírito Da Fraga / O Trono de Breogán. Black Metal / Dark Ambient from Spain. The first two demos from '01 & '02 with 3 new songs recorded exclusively for this release including a Windir cover. Galician Mythology and Folklore. Wyver - Tragedies of Lost Village (Demo II). Dungeon Synth / Fantasy Music follow up. (PDX) Hypogeum - S/T. Introducing outsider, Raw Black Metal from the woods of Oregon. Wizzard - The Cauldron Descent. Cryptic Dungeon Synth follow up from Sweden. Morihaus - The Empty Marches. Eccentric Dark Ambient / Dungeon Synth debut from Kentucky.

Tell us about Rowen’s plans to start touring.

We just played our first show at the Northeast Dungeon Siege MMXIX festival. Now we are working on piecing together a tour that will begin this summer in the north east coast with the plan to then head down, across the south to California, up the west coast, pacific northwest and back across the north and through the mid-west to return late fall. We recently put the word out that we are up to perform anywhere, anytime and received an overwhelming response. If we can get on tour, stay on tour, get back to Europa without haste, we would be more than pleased.

The first two shows will be outdoor camping events. Mythical Electronic, Dungeon Synth, Black Metal, Acoustic Black Metal, Death Metal, Doom, Crust, Folk, Country, . . . Both are on private land, in the forest and BYOB. Bring a tent, water, food and supplies. Crossbows and throwing knives.

Rowen Seasons of the Savage at The Sonorous Glade June 22nd Topsham, VT w/ Haxen, Sombre Arcane, Fed Ash, Gorcrow, Melkor, Black Axe, Void Bringer, Acid Roach and Wild Leek River

Rowen Woods of Gallows II August 17th West Chazy, NY w/ T.O.M.B., Worthless, Sombre Arcane, Ordeals, Malacath, Lightcrusher, Hræsvelgr, Graveren and Callous

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davidmann95 · 8 years

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Could you expand on what you liked about Irredeemable? It's been years since I read it, but I recall finding it somewhat off-putting, and never attempted to finish it.

Off-putting is absolutely the correct way of describing it. While it never goes far into direct explicitness or gore as I recall, it is a crushingly dark book from start to just about finish; a psychologically vile, relentlessly cruel 37 issues in service of maybe the most comprehensive savaging of Superman as a concept ever put to paper.

It’s the book that made him my favorite character. It may be the book that’s the reason I write.

Now look: the first issue came out when I was a little shy of 14. Great a comic as I will maintain it sincerely is (though it does go a little slack in the last year or so, and the spinoff Incorruptible is pretty much entirely a write-off), I am unquestionably looking at it through rose-tinted lenses. I don’t even know why I got it; I was just collecting the Batman and I guess Green Lantern books at that point, and while Mark Waid was surely on my radar, Boom! comics most certainly were not. Maybe I saw the Grant Morrison quote on the cover, or maybe I just thought “oh sweet, Waid writing an evil Superman”. But while I don’t blame anyone in the slightest for not liking it - not in a “I can see how they just wouldn’t get it, man” kind of way, the tone and content here are going to completely justifiably rub some people entirely the wrong way - I will absolutely stick up for it as a great piece of superhero comics, and a fascinating examination by contrast of how Superman works, and indeed has to work, as a character.

So here’s the premise:

Or as the back of every trade puts it, how did he come to this? What became of the hope and promise once inside him? What happens to the world when its savior betrays it? What makes a hero irredeemable? The answer to the third question at least is that the world is shit out of luck: millions are dead before the first page of the series, and the rest of the superheroes can’t do much to help, because they fire energy blasts or talk to machines or have wings, while he can shatter diamond in his bare grip, liquefy titanium with a glance and hear every whisper on Earth that might dare to defy him. Most of the book is from the perspective of those heroes, on the run and desperate to find a way to survive and triumph, as their own dirty little secrets and failings start to come out under the pressure. In base concept, it’s a pretty standard Superman deconstruction.

But it’s a Superman deconstruction by the world’s biggest Superman fan. And that makes all the difference.

Whatever your opinion on Mark Waid, it’s pretty indisputable that that guy has spent a lot of time thinking about how Superman works; what makes him tick, what makes people respond to him, how his world has to be for him to function. I may not agree with him 100% on all of it, but he’s damn well put the hours in to go with his passion, and when you understand the story engine on that level, you’re going to know as anybody how to take it apart; what vital piece is most necessary to keep it running, and what’s going to happen if you take it away. For Irredeemable, the cog in the machine is idea that, even with all the good intentions in the world, a person may not necessarily be emotionally equipped for the job of being a superman. And that’s a very valid concern: after all Waid noted in an interview, in the classic Superman stories, his biggest fear come to life often wasn’t that he’d fail in his mission, or lose his adopted home, but that no one would love him anymore.

With Plutonian, the reason it works, aside from Waid’s enduring skills as a storyteller, is that there’s no cop-out. He wasn’t a hidden invader, he never planned to conquer the world, he didn’t privately despise humanity all along, he isn’t detached from mankind in the sense of being an inscrutable alien whose motives and emotions are beyond us, he isn’t doing this because he just wants to make the world a better place. While I don’t want to give up any of the reveals, it’s probably fair to say he grew up to be about the best person he could reasonably be expected to given his circumstances; a guy who feels he should do the right thing, a guy who wants to be himself and be loved in spite of his issues and insecurities. Not a saint, but hardly a monster. But the problem is, he’s not a probably-okay-enough-given-the-circumstances slightly neurotic guy who’s just holding a 9 to 5 job and seeing a therapist, he has to be Superman. And when that normal, well-meaning guy has to live with the hard realities of never being able to touch someone too hard or they’ll shatter, of having skin like diamond, of never getting to believe a little white lie because he can hear their heartbeat spike or avoid knowing what people really think about him because he can hear their private whispers, of never being able to stop because he can hear every cry for help and the world expects him to answer? And when he can’t even bring himself to just stop, because being a hero is the closest he’s ever come to being loved for who he is? It all comes crashing down, wrapped up in a set of high-concept superhero horror adventures by one of the best writers out there. It’s not a world built on ‘realism’ in the sense of abiding by the laws of physics or the political fallout of superheroes, but it’s grounded in an emotional reality of what it would take out of someone to have that job that makes it all painfully, inevitably believable that even most well-meaning individuals wouldn’t be able to handle it. And that got me thinking about Superman.

Superman had been my favorite character as a little kid. Between the 90s animated series, the Fleischer shorts my dad had on tape, the Superman Adventures comics and Byrne’s Man of Steel (even if I’d later change my tune on the latter), picture books (props to anyone else who remembers The True Story of Superman, Superman: Slippery When Bad, or I Hate Superman!), and all the lunchboxes and birthday paper plates and posters and whatnot that tend to accumulate around little kids, he was #1. Even when I started to get way more into Batman and Spider-Man, he was always holding up third; I never thought of him as boring, but I definitely started to think of him as not all that deep, even if he could hold down great stories like All-Star and Birthright.

But this book was the first of its kind to make me think “Wow, being Superman would be the hardest job in the entire world. Even given the obvious differences, why doesn’t he turn out something like this? How could anyone not turn out like this, under that kind of pressure, with that kind of basic physical and mental distance from humanity?” And as it turns out, questions like those make Superman really, really interesting. The implications of someone living with that kind of power and becoming not just a truly good man, but an outstandingly, impossibly good man go as deep as it gets. And suddenly I’m looking back at the old stories in a new light and with a new appreciation, and suddenly I’m reading a lot more about him and thinking a lot more about him and what works and what doesn’t, and suddenly, oh, dang, he’s my favorite character now. More than that even, I start thinking more about characters in general, and what works and what doesn’t, and what works and what doesn’t with comics in general, and I start getting Opinions, and oh I write a lot now, and oh shit I have a Tumblr and I want to break into comics.

So that’s why I liked Irredeemable.

#Irredeemable #Superman #Plutonian #Mark Waid #Me #Opinion

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litrapod · 7 years

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I love superheroes and I love to hear what people love, if you’re so inclined, please take the time to share your Top Three (3) Lists of a) Live Action Superhero Movies b) Live Action Superhero TV Series c) Animated Superhero Movies and d) Animated Superhero TV Series. Invite others to share by tagging or copy/pasting this into a friend’s ask and of course everyone should feel free to gush! (If you’re feeling extra kind tag your post “a superhero lover’s top three” so people know where to look.)

Okay you asked for it…

Needless to say, Here be spoilers.

Top 3 Live Action Movies:

Avengers (2012): First Group movies are hard. I’ve tried to write group stories and that’s hard enough when you don’t have to worry about fitting everything into 2 -2 ½ hours, And balancing out story arcs, and screen time. This movie may not be perfect, but it comes damn close. There was a whole lot of pressure on this movie, because everyone know they were building up to it, and while I would have loved to see more of certain characters *cough* Clint *cough*, It managed to set up basically the entire MCU world from then on. It may not have been a traditional origin story, but this is the movie that kicked everything off.

The Dark Knight (2008): Okay storytime. My first job was as a lifeguard, and we rotated around the pool in increments of about an hour and a half per circuit. In the break room there was a small Tv with an old VCR. We had exactly 2 movies, The Matrix and the old 1989 Batman movie with Jack Nicholson as the Joker. By the end of the summer everyone hated those two movies, myself included, because they were the only things we ever watched. I, myself managed to see the scene in Batman where the Joker defeces the museum over twenty times. To this day that it the only scene I can remember from that movie (and I can remember it in crystal clarity) because with a 15 minute break that’s all I got to see.

I bring this up because that’s what I had in my head as the joker for a long time, and I hated it. I hated the movie, I hated the character, I hated everything about it. There was the occasional flashback to Batman the animated series, but overall, yeah, hate.

Then this movie came out. The first one was good, but this one was going to have the joker, and I detested the Joker (honestly he’s a very good character to hate) and I was floored. Not only was a sequel just as good if not better than the original, but it took the Joker in a different direction. This was something I hadn’t seen before and while I still hated him, this is a portrayal that didn’t make me drown in it and ruin the movie.

Unbreakable: This movie, I don’t even have words for this movie. I know people go on about M. Night Shyamalan plot twists, but forget that for a moment.

Just look at the opening scene. A guy on a train, a little girl making faces. A woman sits down next to him and they start to talk. He takes off his wedding ring. It gets awkward, and things start to fall apart, then boom train crash.

The attention to detail, and character building are amazing. So many superhero movies just don’t bother. They’re too caught up in the CGI or in finding a way to revamp an old character. Don’t get me wrong I love origin stories, but there’s only so many ways you can play them. Instead of making everything bigger in scale in order to keep things interesting and challenging it keeps the focus on the internal and personal conflicts just as much as the external ones, so that they feed into each other.

This movie manages to give us a truly human superhero.

A common failing of superhero movies is that the character development seems forced or clunky because the focus is to get to the big ending fight scene. Not so here. The final big fight scene is important because of what it means to the characters, not because of someone’s powers or who/what they’re threatening. Which is why the ending twist actually really works.

I can’t even describe how much I love this movie.

Top 3 Live Action TV Series:

Daredevil: So I’m going to focus on season one here.

This series took risks and they paid off in spades. It focuses on the villains almost at the expense of the heroes, but because of that we know the full scope of what Matt is facing. This isn’t just “oh I stopped a mugging” it’s full on organized crime. For half the season Matt doesn’t even know who’s in charge, or that there even is one person in charge.

The cinematography is gorgeous. Pay attention to the colors. Everything is clearly chosen for a reason. By the end of the season I was getting nervous when Vanessa wore black. There have been a couple other movies that tried to play up the color thing, but most of them had crappy scripts. It this series, the stark color contrasts only amplify what is already a great show.

It eases you into the weird. This show is canonically in the same universe as the Avengers. Thor, Hulk, Aliens, they all exist, but it’s a distant presence to the average guy on the street. And this series shows that. When an honest to god Ninja showed up I was flabbergasted, because while I knew that they could be a thing in this universe, it still felt like something i’d never seen before. ( This is also a part of my disappointment about season 2 but I’m not going to get into that here. )

In a lot of ways this is actually a season long origin story. We got the time and breadth to fully explore how Matt became Daredevil. Training montages are fun and all, but this gave it depth.

I could go on. The catholic themes, the brutality that never seemed unnecessary or over the top.

This is a wonderful show that set an extremely high bar for the rest of the Netfix originals.

Heroes: I loved this show (before the writers strike ruined it) because there were so many good characters and none of them seemed to know what they were doing. The way everything slowly wove together in the first season was great. The recurring themes that were the paintings and the company.

This show had a lot of potential and it was clear the writers had a lot of ideas. Not many of those ideas actually made it to the screen in later seasons, but despite that, this was a fun show to watch every week and a fun show to binge watch when I need to lift my spirits.

Flash: I had a hard time picking among the CW Flash/Arrow/Legends/Supergirl set.

Supergirl was the show I wished I had as a young girl. Legends has just the right amount of over the top that I love.

Flash ended up winning because Flash is my favorite superhero.

Wally was the Flash I grew up with and when the show came out I kind of wanted to hate it because DC had written him out of existence ( in both the comics and Young Justice… Seriously DC what do you have against him? ) Barry, had featured in Arrow of course, which i Loved to Death, But that didn’t mean he’d be written well or be able to carry his own show… The core of Barry’s character in any universe is that he’s hopeful. He will see the best in people and bring it out in those around him. Despite him being incredibly awkward in the first season he had that. It worked.

And then in episode four they gave us Len and he was so well done I just melted. After that I was sold.

Top 3 Animated Superhero movies:

Justice League New Frontier: If you watch nothing else on this list, watch this one.

The interweaving storylines, the art style, the plot, everything about this movie is gold. I’m a long time DC fan and the number of subtle hints, and worldbuilding they do is amazing, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a movie new fans can enjoy. Because it’s a sort of coming together of the Justice League, you don’t need to know anything beyond who Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman are. All the lesser known characters are given their own small arcs so you know what they’re about.

Then on a deeper layer it’s a social commentary on the cold war, and the space race, and the fear of the unknown. I have watched this movie dozens of times. I own an autographed copy of the DVD. Every time I watch it I notice something new.

Batman: Under the Red Hood: The Red Hood storyline in the comics is a bit of a monster. You have to be a fan and know the history in order to understand all the implications. The movie has a bit of that, but in my opinion it does a good job filling in most of the gaps.

While the Joker is the main villain he’s more of a foil for Jason and to a lesser degree Bruce. (which is definitely a plus in my book, see above rant of hatred regarded the Joker)

It’s hard to pin down exactly what I love about this one. It’s strange to say, but if I had to pick one thing it’d be the pacing. There are individual lines that are amazing but it’s the culmination that makes this a great movie. There’s a balance to it. Lighter moments even though the plot is very dark. Action and quieter moments each given their place.

Planet Hulk: This one makes the list because I have a soft spot for the Hulk and this is the first comic storyline for the hulk that I ever read. The movie isn’t as complex as the comics of course and they have to wrap everything up in a bow rather then lead into the next comic story, but it’s a good depiction nevertheless.

Top 3 Animated Superhero TV Series:

I realize this is kind of a cop out, but they really are my favorites.

Batman the animated series: It set the standard for all other superhero shows for the next few decades. It invented Detective Montoya, Harley Quinn and several other minor characters. It gave several villains backstories that are still used today, Freeze being the one that comes to mind. It was the start of the whole DC animated universe ( Batman animated, Superman animated, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Static Shock, Batman Beyond and possibly a few more I’m forgetting )

If there’s a top ten list of superhero shows that doesn’t have the Batman animated Series, then it was probably disqualified for being too awesome.

Justice League Unlimited: Everything Batman was but with a bigger cast. Minor heroes got a place to shine. While still shown as being important to the larger plot, and oh those plots. The Legion of Doom, Doomsday, Brainiac. As much as the hero’s got to shine so did the villains.

Keep in mind a lot of these characters (on both sides) hadn’t been portrayed on screen before this, and for a lot of the lesser known ones the portrayal here is still what people who don’t read the comics think of first.

Batman Beyond: It was my first fandom, so yes, I’m biased. My first multi-chapter fic is still up on ff.net.

Batman is a huge character. He’s the bread and butter of the DCU, so much so that people don’t treat him like he’s human. This show not only admitted he was human, it started asking questions, and opened a whole new world of possibilities because of it.

The first scene still gets me every time, the gun, and shutting down the cave.

Add to that that this was not only in the same world but created by the same team that did the batman animated series and you get a wealth of history that other shows can only dream of. The costumes in the cases, the trophies, they’re all the same ones from the other show. When Terry finally meets the Justice League, Superman references thing that happened in the Justice League show. And you can’t get the end of Mr. Freeze’s character arc unless you watch Batman Beyond.

Not that it’s tied down. It has a history, but with a new Batman it’s a whole different ball game. And Terry is a different Batman. He’s not dark and brooding. He sasses back to his villains like Dick. He’s got street smarts like Jason. He’s got the drive like Bruce. He may still be figuring things out but it’s clear he’ll be just as impressive.

#a superhero lover’s top three

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shesgonnachangetheworld · 7 years

Text

Alright it’s FINALLY over, so thoughts:

yeah it wasn’t very good. It wasn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen by a long shot (but then I saw a Sacha Baron Cohen movie once, so), but I watched the extended edition which is apparently more coherent (and did I mention 3 hours good lord). And it’s a shame that it wasn’t good, because it did have a lot of potential (that sure is damning with faint praise huh, it ~had potential) so I’ll go over the good things about it first

1) I thought the cast itself was pretty good. They didn’t have a whole lot to work with in terms of range, but they did their best and that’s really all you can ask. Laurence Fishburne was definitely having fun. I even thought Affleck and whathisfacethesocialnetwork guy weren’t bad, but I think those opinions are unpopular ones and I respect those who disagree

2) I actually thought the idea of making Luthor a sort of nouveau-riche-caffeine-addled-tech bro was....close to working. It didn’t quite work, but it had a lot of potential, but more on that in the “bad stuff”

3) “Batman and Superman don’t like each other because of Ideological Differences, Lex Luthor Plays Them Like a Harp, they fight until they realize That’s Stupid, and then Work Together to Stop Lex Luthor with Wonder Woman” is, in and of itself, a solid plot if you absolutely must got the “they hate each other then respect each other” route (I probably wouldn’t, but that’s going too far into “If this was a completely different movie it’d be a better movie” territory and I try to avoid that flavor of criticism)

4) I’m glad they kept the best thing about Man of Steel, aka Lois Gets to be an Actual Reporter who’s Mostly Competent (we’ll get back to that “mostly” in a bit)

5) Everyone said that Wonder Woman showing up was the best part of the movie and they were 100% right

What I’m saying is, the bones of a good movie were there! It was possible! But it didn’t work, at least not for me, because:

1) It was already built on a shaky foundation. Man of Steel was, similarly, not great, but the biggest problem was that it already made Superman into the broody, tortured hero (a Very Bad decision of which I could write an essay on by itself, let me tell you) so now that we have him meet Batman, who wrote the (comic) book on being broody and tortured, all we have is two tortured dudes brooding at each other, when the point of a Batman-Superman property is how they contrast, at least on the surface, which leads me to

2) the reasons they hate each other don’t make sense. I mean, they make sense on the surface (having Bruce Wayne be there at the battle in Metropolis at the beginning was a good idea), but later Batman does the exact same thing when he leads Doomsday back to Gotham (yes they went through lengths to have Batman say that the port was abandoned, but it a) still caused a shitload of property damage, and more importantly b) still got the giant radioactive monster way closer to civilians than it should have ever been, and seeing as Batman’s a tech guy with Alfred as his tech support, there should have been more than one way to get someone to bring the spear to the island), and similarly, Superman as Clark Kent talks about how Batman “doesn’t answer to anybody” and whatever, which like....neither does Superman. Was the hypocrisy an intentional commentary? Was it meant to be a subtle parallel? I doubt it, because nothing about this movie is subtle.

3) The thing about making Lois competent is that when you need her to do stupid, questionable shit, the fact that what she’s doing is stupid and questionable becomes all the more obvious

4) Lex Luthor as nouveau-riche-caffeine-addled-tech bro would have worked better if they had made him a little less.....quirky. I once heard someone say that it was like they originally had the joker and luthor in the movie together and then just ended up smashing them into one, which is pretty accurate. At times he comes across as too much of a loose cannon to be That Guy Who Played The World’s Greatest Detective Like Fiddle, and tbh I have no idea what they were going for with him at the end (did the Krypton Goo make him psychic? was he alluding to Darkseid? I honestly couldn’t tell ya).

But playing him as the nerd-bro-reddit-atheist-must-prove-he’s-the-smartest-in-the-room guy who grew up poor until he and his abusive father had enough money and then his father died gives him an old school lex “i worked for power and i’m jealous that you’re just born with it” motive along with with a sort of modern sensibility. Or it could have been, if they had reigned him in a bit (I’m not sure how much of that was socialnetwork’s acting choices and how much was the direction but either way, there were too many weird choices to make a consistent character)

Also, they should have just let him be bald from the beginning, or done something else with his hair because it was just distracting how bad it was

5) there’s a scene that takes place off the Indian Ocean that’s so beautiful in colors, that it makes the fact that the rest of the movie is so bleak-looking very obvious

6) Doooooom and glooooooom; occasional moments of levity from Alfred and Perry were not enough to stop it from being so dour and, tbh pretentious. It got a little too #fakedeep at times, especially considering that the symbolism and themes were constantly beating you over the head. You know that SNL sketch about the girl you wish you hadn’t started a conversation with at a party? That’s kind of the tone, but serious

Anyway, long story already long, would I recommend this movie? No What would I give it on a 1-10 scale, where 5 is average? Maybe a 4; bad, but theoretically salvageable

#text only #bvs watching #critique from a non expert #there were quite a few political issues too but it's late as hell and tbh #that could be a paper in and of itself #alright i'm going tf to sleep soon #goodnight y'all watch good movies

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