#if you havent read the og comics i really recommend you to do it

[gh0stsblogs]

LOOK AT HIM, HE IS JUST A KID, I LOVE HIM.

[planetamarte]

(anon who talked about dragonball from a couple days ago) yoo i didnt expect someone w a sonic background would resonate so much with early dragonball..!! but admittedly i dont know much about sonic, outside of like . snapscube, wayneradio, general common knowledge, etc. i couldnt find if someone asked this before erm but do you have any recommendations or favorites in the sonic franchise? i have always wanted to get into it + its like cultural exchange :) lmao

YEAHHH im liking it so far! if u dont know about it yet then once you learn the lore about the chaos emeralds specifically you'll see what i mean by the amount of inspiration sonic takes from dragonball LOLLL

my #1 recs for sonic will always be the games - for the majority of the series, sonic isnt really the type of thing where you absolutely Have to start from the beginning to understand its stories so u can just start anywhere! my personal favorites are both of the adventure games (especially 2), frontiers, generations and unleashed. the adventure series were the first 3d sonic games and where story started being more upfront. frontiers is the most recent and its story actually builds up on the chaos emerald lore in a way they hadnt done in decades. (this one has 2 prologues! the knuckles animation, divergence, and the comic tie-in, convergence.) generations is the one getting a remaster + new story content with shadow this october BUT the original game's story is very light and it's basically just a real nice glorified collection of levels from past games. i havent actually played unleashed since i was a kid (i might again soon) but this is the one with werehog sonic. its story is one of my favorites :)

im not much of a classic/2d player but i had fun with mania! origins is a collection of the classics that i havent played but ive heard it's pretty good and has a mechanic that makes losing lives less punishing than the originals. sonic 1, 2 and cd also have free mobile ports. the murder of sonic the hedgehog is also free on steam, it's a cute and casual little murder mystery visual novel and a real nice introduction to the cast of secondary characters!

(honorary mention goes to fangame dr. robotnik's ring racers, it's a pretty hard kart racer with a bunch of mechanics to memorize but is real fun once you get the hang of it and the tutorial has real cute interactions between eggman and tails. modding characters into this game is pretty easy and ive been working on putting in an oc of mine lol. this game is a sequel to sonic robo blast 2 kart, which is a mod for 1998(!) fangame sonic robo blast 2. another one i like is sonic and the fallen star, a 2d/classic style fangame with a cute artstyle and i know it has a sequel in the works!)

outside of games theres the idw comics! these take place after forces (the game before frontiers) but i think they establish an understanding of prior events pretty well that, again, u wouldn't Need to know everything before reading them. the archie comics are a beast i havent personally touched much of, they ran from 1993-2017 so theres a lot to them LOL

out of all the sonic shows and movies, sonic boom, the sonic ova (also known as the OG sonic movie) and sonic x are my favorites. all of these have super different takes on the world sonic lives in - boom is a silly little sitcom series w really funny meta humor, the ova is a 1996 pilot for an anime series that never happened, and sonic x is an anime series that DID happen where sonic is actually from a different world and gets isekaied to earth. (i recommend jp with subs for this one)

I THINK THATS IT...... i could keep going and be here all day but i will leave it here. theres way more stuff u naturally find getting into the series! the thing i like most about sonic is that i personally think theres something in the franchise for everyone. i hope all this info isnt too intimidating cause truly u can take this series at ur own pace. i hope u have fun anon ^__^

[literalite]

As a comic newbie what do you recommend? (I've only read Marvel Runaways so far)

oh my god i love runaways... im assuming based off of only this u like diverse teams with a more family dynamic who r on the younger side... the young avengers, cloak and dagger, new mutants and champions might be up ur alley. these are all marvel recs to keep it simple 😁

obvs if u havent already done so i'd go thru the entire runaways like story from the beginning so the og 2003 comics and kind of. follow each members' trajectory from there including that really terrifying battle royalesque run that nico and chase had to go thru in avengers arena. idk the way i read comics is i find a team or a character i like and just read everything theyve ever been in. nico's been in a few other teams away from the runaways so i'd focus on her and then if any other characters u meet pique ur interest u can always google like. x character reading guide and ppl a lot more well read then me will have smth up. i'm very picky when it comes to what i like to read in comics so i can't guarantee ik everything going on

[lysical]

I was introduced to a lot of the Batfamily via the Morrison run. How screwed up is my perception of them? Comics are an effing minefield of characterization—I know, I’m a Hank Pym fan because I ran into him first in one of his highly rare likeable periods. Any tips/recs? It feels like everywhere I go the characters aren’t the “real” ones, and idk where to find these “real” ones. (This goes for Tim too, although you seem understandably down on him lately & might not want to talk Drake anymore

It does vary by character, actually. There are some fundamental things he does that are a bit out of there, and other things that are just plain offensive, but he’s not the absolute worst to come in on, as damned by faint praise as that is. 

Long post ahead

Bruce: Morrison and I fundamentally see the character very differently. He sort of subscribes to some ideas about Bruce as Batman that I just don’t like re: emotions, life, family. He uses a lot of allegories and devices in his work and the depth is there, I just don’t agree with what he was doing and had to say about Batman on a fundamental level. Post-Crisis Bruce is a bit all over the place. A lot of different writers got their hands on him and the dark and gritty post-Jason transformation of the character was intense and permanent. Because of this, coming into Morrison doesn’t really hurt you that much--especially since for a lot of it he’s functionally dead. Maybe check out some runs like Hush (more emphasis on the family), Dark Victory (some young Dick Grayson), Batman: Year One (say what you want about Miller, but it’s a decent book and the atmosphere and art are great for an introduction to the modern character), and then hop over to some of Bruce’s team books. Sometimes characters get distilled well over in their team books compared to their solos (especially since the Bat Department is...weird at times). Maybe check out Superman/Batman, the old team up from the early 2000s. For Bruce it’s just best to cast a wide net and read a variety. JLA: Tower of Babel is a good one to see Batman and the wider superhero community in conflict, which brings in a lot of Batman’s negative aspects in a way that was decently balanced and didn’t villainize him via narrative even as the characters might have felt that way about him (Young Justice certainly did XD), but I havent’ read it in a long time so ymmv. 

Dick: One of the few characters that didn’t get that bad a hand by Morrison, or too much of a characterization shift (his character shift had happened during the Chuck Dixon and Devin Grayson period, although the latter more than the former). Unlike new 52 onwards, while he was softened a little to pair effectively with Damian, it wasn’t too much as we saw at times later and how fandom kind of tends to portray them (’Shut the hell up, Damian’ comes to mind). The Dickbats run was a nice change and development for Dick, a natural progression. The things that were sort of tweaked to create conflict with that transition (Dick not wanting Batman, some characterization behind that) were pre-Morrision, during Battle for the Cowl and the setup to Morrison, so while they follow on from that they’re mostly absent from the run. For the modern Robin Dick stories, go for Teen Titans: Year One, Dark Victory, Batman: Year Three, a couple of the other year ones are decent, although some incorporate those characterization shifts, but that’s comics. I’d go back to New Teen Titans (starts in Pre-Crisis, goes into Post, but the book doesn’t have a huge change due to the crisis and it’s just a really good run, deserving of being the benemoth during that time period that it was) to get the best of Dick on a team, then maybe check out Prodigal (follows on from Knightfall, Dick’s first run as Batman), skip Nightwing: Year One (it’s got tiny amounts of Dick and Jason bonding but Dixon ripped everything else about Dick’s early Nightwing period to shreds). From there, depends if you want his solo or his team stuff, he’s a pretty easy character to follow. I like to start chronologically with him because then you see the shifts happen as he falls back under control of the bat-books, and his solo and team stuff have some interesting contrasts (I lean towards his team stuff generally because Dick has always been about that for me, rather than running solo). 

Babs: Birds of Prey is her essential stuff, I don’t think Morrison really did that much with her but my memories of it all are a bit vague now. I’d personally take anything when she’s romantically involved with Dick with a grain of salt, that relationship was a bit of a disaster and they both do terrible things to each other (I believe the one responsible for it all is Devin again but it’s been a while since i visited that train wreck) and there’s some victim-blaming that happens that’s not so good. I prefer Oracle having a bit of distance from the Batfam, as she’s just surpassed being someone who is under Batman’s authority and is just crucial to the entire operation of the superhero community in general, so Bird s of Prey. 

Jason: Hnng. Here’s where Morrison really just decided to throw away established DC continuity and try his hand at a bunch of crap that fell completely flat. Just toss it and purge, tbh. Winick got Jason back late in the run but it was too late for that. Maybe there are tiny aspects of characterization that aren’t bad (Pride and Prejudice) but Morrison misunderstood Jason on a much more fundamental level. Also the red hair was probably some attempt to make a witty visual pun and add ‘depth’ but there are so many problems with it. Continuity-wise it makes so sense with how pre-crisis and post- worked, particularly for Jason, and additionally Morrison is realllllly wishy-washy with his ‘EVERYTHING IS CANON’ stuff that it rings false, plus in Pre-Crisis he was like...blonde I don’t understand. The implications of Jason being forced to dye his hair are absolutely disgusting for Bruce and go back into that fundamental problem I have with how Morrison sees Bruce. Jason, Post-resurrection suffers a lot of DC writers not knowing what to do and unloading a lot of DC’s baggage and some unconscious, problematic tropes onto him. Read his Post-Crisis origin (Batman 408 on, there’s the origin and some issues after set up by his original Post-Crisis writer Max Collins) and maybe all his Post-Crisis, pre-Death stuff since there’s honestly not a lot and it’s fairly obvious when Starlin starts pushing for his death. For post-resurrection, Under the Red Hood, Lost Days (it goes off the rails at the end, so I only half rec it honestly), Outsiders 44 and 45, Countdown (but only if you’re skipping the plot and just reading the Jason (&Donna &Kyle) bits, it’s one of the most even-handed treatments he actually gets in Post-Crisis but the book is otherwise terrible). Then just go straight to RHatO Rebirth. 

Tim: Ignore new 52 and Rebirth entirely. Red Robin is a book a lot of Tim fans really like but I personally think it’s bad in general and also don’t like what the writer does with Tim, but ymmv. Tim’s origin is also pretty weak and his initial mini and series aren’t that great at establishing him as a proper character outside ‘this kid is Robin pls like him we want to get away from the controversy of the last one’ so it’s hard to connect with him there without nostalgia glasses. By Knightfall (1994ish) on, that’s where he’s more of a character himself, and his stuff from about then through to the early 2000s is the best (before Geoff Johns got him in Teen Titans and Didio started doing Things, which basically led us to today to be honest). Personally, I think Tim functions best in a team, there are aspects of what his writers do in his solo where they just...missed the implications and it kind of grates on me. His stand out book imo is Young Justice (the og comic not the cartoon which only shares the name and nothing else tbh). 

Steph: Another who actually got treated decently well during the Morrison-era, as opposed to the crap she was dealt earlier during her time as Robin and War Games. Steph’s Batgirl run is something I definitely recommend, and her stuff with Dick and Damian in Morrison’s era is contemporary with that. Her origin is actually really good and compelling, so I’d dig into that (TEC 647, i think, is her first appearance). She kind of just revolves around Tim during his run and their relationship is kind of...there are implications there that are a bit cringe. Her stuff with Cass on the other hand is really enjoyable so I’d recommend those. Her brief Robin run is decent if melancholy considering what we know happens, and I wouldn’t touch War Games with a ten foot pole. 

Cass: Shafted from the mid-2000s on, tbh. She got a bit blessed with a solid creative team to start her off in her Batgirl run, it attempts some pretty deep and interesting explorations of her character that while not perfectly executed are still really good comics. I’d just read her No Man’s Land stuff, follow her book and stuff with Steph and pretty much just ditch out when One Year Later hits. Her Black Bat outfit is cool and there is some retroactive backpedalling by DC to justify shafting her but it’s all Morrison era anyway so you might be familiar already. 

Damian: Morrison created him and he took a lot of liberties with that backstory which unfortunately have had a lasting impact for Talia, which is frustrating. As Damian’s creator, what you see is what you get. Morrison didn’t want him to be likeable and he also didn’t really want him to be permanent (ties in again to how Morrison sees Bruce and family tbh), other writers gave Damian development later, but despite being around for over a decade now, there is still a lot of push and pull between writers about his characterization and development. It’s unfortunate but there’s a noticeable lack of consistency with Damian and his development that is frustrating to read. Probably read Tomasi’s stuff if you want Damian’s softened, developed arc and avoid other stuff. I’m not the best for Damian because most of his stuff is during the new 52 which I wasn’t around for and am picking through only occasionally. 

Hope this helps.