#it’s not like the green lanterns were an original concept anyway i’m sure he could have gotten away with something

[roobylavender]

If I may ask, what exactly is the issue with the Emotional Spectrum? I'm kind of mixed on the execution, but given the elements of the Green Lantern mythos, it seems like a logical extension.

i don’t think the logical extension of there being an emotional spectrum is what bothers me per se (well. with the star sapphires as a notable exception) i am just not really keen on the idea of there being multiple corps in existence bc it undermines why the existence of even one was so ill-advised and prone to abuses in power. modern green lantern lore in general is very unfocused to me like sure there are some cool ideas wrt space adventures and warring factions and different rings lining up with different life experiences but in the end what i read green lantern comics for was the critical political element and commentary and i don’t see that reflected to quite the same effect in the way johns reworks the mythos

[agentnico]

Free Guy (2021) Review

“Don’t have a good day, have a great day!”

Plot: When a bank teller discovers he's actually a background player in a brutal open-world video game, he decides to become the hero of his own story - one that he can rewrite himself. In a world where there's no limits, he's determined to save the day his way before it's too late, and maybe find a little romance with the coder who conceived him.

Last time I watched such a hyper-actively positive film I was seeing little LEGO figures jumping about on screen with Morgan Freeman hanging off a string in ghost form. Yes, The LEGO Movie shares a lot in common with Free Guy, not just in its opening sequence where Ryan Reynolds’s loveable Guy is starting off a perfectly good day every day with a nice cup of coffee and wishing everyone not a good, but a great day, goes to the job at his bank and goes back home, and rinse and repeat. But the character of Guy himself is basically Chris Pratt’s Emmett from The LEGO Movie - full of sunshine and innocence and taking everything that comes with child-like excitement and energy. You can also treat Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” song usage here like “Everything is Awesome” with how many times its played, but damn if it isn’t catchy! And the film comparisons don’t end there. You wouldn’t be faulted for seeing references to Ready Player One with all the cameos and Easter Eggs and pop culture references thrown in the mix, to The Truman Show based on the general concept and obviously certain video games such as Grand Theft Auto, Saints Row and even Sims due to the video game open world that the movie creates. 

Speaking of the video game open world that is created, you could tell director Shawn Levy and the producers went through a lot of effort to research modern video games and all the tiny little details and quirks that exist. For example it was a lot of fun seeing characters tea-bag someone they just killed to then a character glitching out and jumping into the wall repetitively or the obvious inclusion of Fortnite inspired dance jiggles. You also get cameos from various real-life game streamers such as Jacksepticeye and DanTDM, and I found an interview on IGN where those guys spoke about in regards to how Hollywood can never seem to get video-game-to-film adaptations right, and how they appreciated that the producers of Free Guy went to them and asked questions and actually showed interest in wanting to create a realistic feeling video game in the movie and getting the terminology right. Evidently unlike other video game adaptations Free Guy manages to succeed from the fact that it doesn’t need to replicate a specific game from real life. There are nods to certain games as I aforementioned, but otherwise they’ve created their own entire game and as such there is no expectation to impress a certain individual fan base. So in conclusion what I’m saying is that I guess Hollywood should stop trying to adapt film versions of popular video game franchises and instead do their own original stuff maybe? Then again I do want to see that Ghost of Tsushima adaptation come to life, so yes, I’ll just go and kindly shut myself up.

Taking the video game matter aside for the time being, I found Free Guy to be an absolute delight from start to finish. Well, to be exact from 20 minutes from the start to finish. Honestly when the film began I was concerned if the movie was going to turn out to be the typical “I live in a simulation” story, and though as a basis it is exactly that, there’s so much goodness thrown into the mix with funny jokes to the cameos (the cameos are to die for!) to the visuals to the music choices to the performances - the movie is such a joy to watch. Speaking of the cameos and pop culture references, Free Guy is also an interesting film outside of its narrative. This movie was in production during the time the studio that was behind it - 20th Century Fox - was being sold to a certain little known company called Disney. As such, you can tell after the studio’s transfer to Disney was complete, this film underwent some additional reshoots and last minute changes, mainly in the finale because there are certain surprises at the end of the movie that will be a geek/nerd’s wet dream and were only made possible after Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox, now known as 20th Century Studios. Personally I still have my qualms about Disney being the massive conglomerate business giant that is buying out all the other studios, but not going to lie even I got excited and jumped up like a kid in my cinema seat when a certain something happened at the end of this movie. Luckily only my lovely fiancée saw me like this as she was sitting next to me, and yes, I’m certain that me revealing my true nerd colours definitely lost me some attraction points from her, but nevertheless I don’t care, the Easter Eggs at the end of this movie are real fun!

The entire cast is top notch here. Ryan Reynolds does his usual shtick that he’s been doing ever since he found success with Deadpool, however naturally here he’s kept PG-13 and not swearing every other breath. That being said, his charm and sarcastic charisma really worked for the role of Guy, and he presented himself as really loveable and naïve and it was impossible not to like him in this film. Jodie Comer in her role has also been getting humongous praise from critics and reviewers alike, and yes, the rumours are true, she shares great on screen chemistry with Ryan Reynolds and also is proper cool and badass as to be expected. That being said I was told by a certain someone that they know someone who knows someone who knew someone who spoke to someone who said that they worked with Jodie Comer on the set of Killing Eve, and this was just some behind-the-scenes worker, and apparently in their experience they found Comer to be a real diva and challenge to work with. So that’s now me here spreading some gossip for no apparent reason besides causing a little stir and now I can move on. Joe Keery has a much bigger role in this film that the trailers made it seem, and I must say the lad has really been doing well for himself ever since his appearance in Stranger Things. Whenever I’ve see him in anything since such as Spree or Death to 2020 he’s always been wonderful to watch. Here in Free Guy he’s no different, getting to play a character who at first comes off as a villain but then is revealed to simply be a guy working for the wrong person. Speaking of that wrong person, the villain of the movie is played by none other than actor-director Taika Waititi himself, and his role is really interesting seeing as he plays the owner of this big video game business company who only cares about money and sequels over art, which I found quite ironic seeing as this movie is distributed by Disney that’s all about sequels, remakes and reboots. Just saying. Also found it funny how even though this movie marks a little reunion of sorts for Ryan Reynolds and Taika Waititi, they don’t share any scenes together which was probably for the best, as last time they worked together Green Lantern occurred. Anyway, Taika is as goofy and over-the-top as you expect him to be, and I can see him being very divisive. You’ll either find him hilarious or super annoying. However both opinions would work seeing as he’s the villain.

Free Guy is an absolute cuddly crowd-pleaser full of casual mayhem and crazy ideas, and is sure to be a welcome boost of fun in a summer that naturally lacked bigger blockbusters due to what’s happening in the world right now. However nonetheless, this and The Suicide Squad have really made a point that cinema is back, hopefully to stay.

Overall score: 9/10

[daresplaining]

Should we see a fusion of normal Daredevil and the public domain Death-Defying Daredevil? And why is it yes? :P

    Yes! Well, maybe. I’m not sure I would want a fusion, necessarily, but I would love a team-up! 

    I realize that some people might not be familiar with “the OG” Daredevil and the Golden Age, and I haven’t discussed them yet on this blog, so here’s a little history: 

    Daredevil debuted in Silver Streak #6 (Lev Gleason Publications) in 1940, as part of the Golden Age of superheroes kicked off by the success of Action Comics (Superman) in the late 30s. This Daredevil was an orphaned, mute (for a little while, anyway) circus acrobat named Bart Hill, who wielded a boomerang and fought the bad guys in a spiffy red-and-blue costume and spiky belt. 

[ID: A comic illustration showing Golden Age Daredevil standing poised to throw a boomerang. He is wearing a head-to-toe spandex suit split down the middle (red on the left and blue on the right), little red-and-blue superhero undies (blue on the left and red on the right), and a yellow spiked belt. There are two WWII-era soldiers on either side of him, firing guns, and a big American flag in the background.]

    The comic was hugely successful. Alongside his thrilling swashbuckling, Bart did all of the typical World War II-era superhero things, like punching Hitler and fighting racist Japanese caricatures. However, the end of the war brought with it a severe drop in readership across the whole genre. Suddenly, people were no longer interested in reading about superheroes, and many comics publishers went under, taking their characters with them-- including, sadly, Lev Gleason Publications and Daredevil. This slump marked the end of the Golden Age. 

    Two of the surviving companies were Detective Comics (DC) and Timely/Marvel, which continued to make money with other genres of comics-- romances, horror anthologies, westerns, etc. But then, in the early 50s, the clever people at DC had an idea. They would try and revive the superhero genre-- not with new characters, but by salvaging code names and concepts from defunct Golden Age comics and reinventing them. They tried this first with the Flash, transforming chemist Jay Garrick, who got his powers in a lab accident involving hard water, into forensic scientist Barry Allen, who got his powers in a lab accident involving a shelf of chemicals and some well-placed lightning. And it worked! The new Flash debuted in 1956 and took off (...as it were). And so they did it again, repurposing lost Golden Age heroes like Green Lantern, Blue Beetle, and the Atom into newer, shinier forms and selling them with great success to an audience that was once more becoming receptive to superheroes. 

    Timely/Marvel didn’t revive their own superhero success until a few years later, but they did it almost exclusively with their own characters. The debut of the Fantastic Four in 1961 was a rousing success, and then Spider-Man appeared the next year and changed everything. Superhero comics were popular again, and the creative minds at Marvel went into overdrive to pump out more issues and new characters to feed the fans. As I said, most of the characters were their own creations, but a few key exceptions were Ghost Rider, the infamously lawsuit-plagued Captain Marvel and, first of all, our guy Daredevil, who was snapped up out of public domain obscurity and salvaged for parts. Matt Murdock bears almost no resemblance to his Golden Age predecessor, but he certainly wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Lev Gleason's Daredevil. 

    There’s one more detail to mention, and it’s relevant to my answer: 

[ID: The cover of The Flash #123. In the foreground, a man is cringing as a steel girder falls toward him. The image is split down the middle by a brick wall. On the left side of the wall, the Silver Age Flash is running forward toward the man, and on the right side, the Golden Age Flash is doing the same. The man is saying “Flash! Help me!” and both Flashes are saying “I’m coming!” A red caption box in the bottom left corner reads, in yellow lettering: “Featuring ‘Flash of Two Worlds!’ A spectacular story that is sure to become a classic!”]

    DC could have just taken their fancy new Silver Age heroes and moved forward from there, but they didn’t. In the groundbreaking story “Flash of Two Worlds” (The Flash #123), Silver Age Flash Barry Allen meets Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash, and rescues him from the parallel dimension in which he has been trapped. With this story, Jay was integrated in his full original form into the new DC superhero universe, and soon the same was done with all of the other Golden Age heroes, bringing them back alongside their younger, hipper counterparts. This process was not only a wonderful way of preserving those original characters, but it also created the DC Universe’s rich tradition of superhero legacies, which has continued to this day. 

    Marvel did not do the same with Bart Hill, and I think that’s a huge shame-- not necessarily because I want a Daredevil legacy (I am very attached to Matt’s origin story as it is), but because it would've been fun to have his character kicking around the Marvel Universe. Fortunately, he is still around-- as mentioned, he has been re-dubbed the Death-Defying 'Devil and has appeared in comics from both Image and Dynamite Entertainment. But he and Matt have never teamed up, and I really think they should. I would read the hell out of a “Daredevil of Two Worlds” story. 

[glapplebloom]

The Four Episode Crossover Event between Teen Titans Go and the DC Superhero Girls!

So the concept is both teams got a free vacation to the Space House and decide to wing it. As they get their rooms, Karen (aka Bumblebee) doesn’t like her room because it looks like an evil cryo-chamber is leaking. And she was right because the alien that she thought she saw in there escaped and is in the house. So Babs thinks this is a good time for her to face her fears while trying to prove she’s the best detective compared to Robin.

On an aside, you think with the Superhero Girls I would consider Supergirl or Jessica Cruz my favorites since one is the Rainbow Dash equivalent and the other is a Green Lantern. But Bumblebee is my favorite of the group. She has the attributes I like in Fluttershy but added love of technology, shipping, and stuff you know are bad but just can’t help but enjoy. A kindred spirit if you will. Anyway it ends with her beating Starro who just wanted to vacation there and regretting not throwing Robin out instead. See, kindred spirit.

In Part 2, Beast Boy gets Smegal with Jessica’s ring, making it fall into Zatana’s Hat and thus magical world within. So Jessica, Robin, Zatana, Wonder Woman, and Raven go inside to prevent Beast Boy from getting to the ring. Meanwhile Supergirl and the rest decide that they can handle it and continue to watch Muffin Wars. This includes Karen. Again, kindred spirit.

Now this part has many flaws. While its Zatana’s hat, it feels closer to the TTG side of things. Robin is trying to give a motivational speech to Jessica about not needing powers, only to prove that they do. And Raven and Zatana don’t do much but be magically powerful together. Beast Boy gets the ring, becomes a monster, but Jessica out thinks Beast Boy and manages to get the ring back from him. Now Starfire is obsessed with his new tiny form. This story overall felt more Teen Titans Go than balanced. Granted, Part 1 was definitely DCSHG focused, but Part 3 and 4 will fix that.

Part 3 has a Meaty Ore heading towards him. Its up to Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Starfire and Cyborg to stop it. But they all got their own ideas. So they decide to use simulations to see what would happen. Supergirl’s Plan: Be awesome. Didn’t work. Starfire’s plan: live on the meaty ore. It worked better but eventually spoiled milk. Wonder Woman’s plan: Steve Trevor. After all, he worked in the military so he could in theory come up with a good plan. 

Its a shame he’s her Kryptonite. Whenever he’s around, she shuts her brain off. So she spends the rest of their panning time living out a fantasy with him. So all they got left is Cyborg’s plan: re-enact the Armageddon movie. Be Oil Drillers, slow motion walk, crash into the meteorite, Beast Boy playing the role of Bruce Willis’s Daughter and having to leave one body there to detonate it. If only they played I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing. Don’t worry, they all made it out since Cyborg can use his body without his head.

Part 4 has the super obvious reveal that it was Brainiac behind all this. He gathered every super hero from every universe (including the Animated Series, Brave and Bold and original Titans) to get a collection. But this is Go’s Brainiac and he’s basically a stereotypical nerd who lives with his mother. The duo make a deal with him that if they can turn him into an adult, they will let go. After some terrible results, it works.

Thing is now that he’s “matured”, he’s now done with collecting and is now having the hobby of blowing up planets. So all the heroes and villains, not just the DC Superhero Girls and Teen Titans Go, but everyone, worked together to defeat Brainiac. It ends with the two teams we’ve been following ditching everyone else there so they can go to a Space Beach. I’m sure they can figure out how to drive their houses like the two did.

Also Teen Titans Go Superman, Young Justice Superboy, and Krypto the Superdog Krypto!

Overall, its a fun story. Part 2 was the weakest to me and Part 4 was annoying, but Part 1 and 3 were definitely my favorite parts. I recommend watching those two parts before Part 2 and 4.

[davidmann95]

Reviews?

I assume this is for weekly comics reviews - I got this a bit ago during a week that didn’t have much to offer in terms of things to say, but this past Wednesday most definitely had some stuff worth reflecting on, one in particular. Spoilers, inevitably.

DCeased #3: So people think Superman killed Pa at the end of this one? I just saw him as fusing the lock shut, which admittedly would kill him unless a cure is found, but it’s not like he blew his damn head off the way people are saying. Anyway, fine, but certainly not as good as the first couple issues.

The Adventures of the Super Sons #12: A decent conclusion to a decent book.

Sea of Stars #1: One of the three rare Dark Horse purchases this week, and frankly? Quite a disappointing one. Aaron’s clearly not on scripting duties, and the others involved failed to grab my attention.

No One Left To Fight #1: This one on the other hand? Probably my shock fave for the week, absolutely living up to its high concept. For most of you who probably haven’t heard of it, it’s an unabashed Dragon Ball riff asking what happens to Goku after…well, the title happens, and it’s colorful and energetic and emotional, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing where this goes.

The World of Black Hammer Encyclopedia: I read the first year of this book out of the library some time ago and liked it quite a bit; I grabbed this because my dad’s interested in Black Hammer/Justice League so it’d be good to have a refresher, and because I always enjoy these sorts of infodumps. Couple clever twists with this one and a number of really solid artists involved, so even if you’re not a reader of the title, if you’re as up for a high-concept download as me this one’s worth plopping down a few bucks for.

Justice League #27: Aw shit yeah, gimmie those Final Crisis references and Superman being great bits. And Javier Fernandez is turning out to be a Travel Foreman on Ultimates2-level “I already knew this artist was amazing, but never in a million years would I have guessed this was a type of project they’d be such a perfect fit for” revelation.

Ms. Marvel Annual #1: Decent enough, liked that one guy’s name.

Secret Warps: Soldier Supreme Annual #1: The closest I think I’ve ever seen to Al Ewing phoning it in? It’s still charming as hell, and I suspect this’ll get better as it goes along, but this is one of the only comics I’ve read from him where I get the sense that he’s writing it purely as A Gig rather than something he’ll elevate by sheer force of will.

The Immortal Hulk #20: This, on the other hand, was beautifully true to form. AND THAT ENDING.

Lois Lane #1: Ruled, and in ways I’m surprised DC let Rucka and Perkins get away with.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #46: This is still a functionally perfect comic.

The Wild Storm #24: This felt really sudden and blunt to the point of almost perfunctory, but in a way that Ellis endings often do? And in a way that was considerably more satisfying than usual, especially given there’s more immediately on the horizon between his WildC.A.T.s with Villalobos and an inevitable The Authority relaunch.

The Green Lantern #9: Give me a Superwatch book right this instant.

Doom Patrol: Weight of the Worlds #1: Yeahyeahyeah!!! This feels incredibly different from the first ‘year’, but while I think I preferred the overall vibe of that one, the execution here might be even more up my alley. Very much looking forward to wherever this one’s going.

Superman: Up In The Sky #1: So I didn’t actually pick this up, but that’s because I’ve been grabbing the Walmart giants so I saw these awhile ago. I could have sworn I wrote something on the first half of this when it initially hit shelves, but I dug it just fine, it taps into a bit of Golden Age/80s flavor and feels relatively gritty while still distinctly, iconically Superman. The second half, however, is at least in the running for my favorite Superman story of the last 5 years.

I’ll admit, part of this is probably because, since I saw the first two pages of this in an online preview originally and therefore when I picked up the actual copy I sort of skimmed those and jumped right into it, the trick caught me a little more by surprise than most. But fundamentally, Just Luck is the best answer to the last decade-plus of Superman stories I think we’ve seen, doing everything - to cite the most prominent example - Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice tried and failed to do with him as a character in 12 pages. It’s Superman grappling with the question of whether he realistically does more harm than good in a way that looks like the most unpleasant, gut-churning, Tom King-on-his-worst-days-ish way possible way of exploring the concept, only to turn on its head as it becomes clear this is instead the most Grant Morrison Superman story that guy never wrote. Moreover, it takes the whole detached, stuffy ‘Superman deals with the ramifications of being a god’ borderline-meaningless abstraction that’s gotten so much wind under its sails and grounds it in the struggle we all face to reckon with the imposing scope and complexity of the world we live in and how to do right within it, only for Superman to find helping others to of course be the light that guides him through - because while as noted on the last page, while he might not be infallible, when someone needs him, he’s going to be there. It takes every dumb major Superman story of the 21st century and finally squeezes out the diamond so many others were sure was just waiting to be found within the coal, and it’s because of that I think it’s easily in the top 5 Superman stories since Morrison left Action, and very possibly the best of that lot period.

[fantastic-nonsense]

@colpfiction replied to your post “me: *sees a post on r/AskHistorians about comics history*me: ”

Always. I've learned more about comics and comics history and stuff from your blog than I think I did in college.

Lol, thanks! I feel honored!

Anyway, the original question asked was “Comic books featuring superheroes in the 60s-70s are typically more lighthearted and laden with sci-fi themes than earlier examples. In the 80s there was a sharp u-turn towards more grounded and dark subject matter. What trends caused this shift towards (relatively) grittier realism? What social trends led to this shift? Was it just a matter of sales or was something bigger happening in entertainment/media/society?

Me being me, I busted out pretty much the entirety of the bare bones of the history of the Comics Code and the switch from the Silver Age to the Bronze Age to the Modern/Dark Age of Comics. Also, I’m not sure if it’s good or just sad that I basically wrote the majority of it off the top of my head and really only needed to Google things to source dates, specific title and author names, and a couple of quotes. Now granted, r/AskHistorians specifically asks for and curates in-depth, sourced responses, but still:

“In terms of actual comics that contributed to the sharp turn towards "more grounded and dark subject matter," there are four or five comic events people usually credit as marking the general "turning point" between the Silver Age and Bronze Age of comics where comics began to get progressively darker and less silly: Gwen Stacy's death in "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" (which had a huge impact on the readership of Spider-man comics and comics readers in general), the 1971 "Snowbirds Don't Fly" drug abuse storyline in Green Arrow comics, Green Lantern being turned over to Denny O'Neil and Neil Adams, Jack Kirby's New Gods, and the revival of the Teen Titans with The New Teen Titans. However, unlike the progression from the Bronze Age to the Modern Age, there is no true clearly defined group of comics you can point to as being the definitive marker.

However, you can point specifically to the four comics usually credited with ending the Bronze Age and kicking off the "Dark Age/Modern Age" of comics: The Dark Knight Returns (1986), Watchmen (1987), The Killing Joke (1988), and DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline (1986) that saw a universe-wide reboot and restructuring. While Crisis completely revitalized the DC Universe's sales, The Killing Joke, DKR, and Watchmen were so enormously popular that they literally redefined the superhero genre and inspired years of "grim and gritty" comic books. In fact, DKR was so popular and so influential that in a lot of ways, the entire modern conception of Batman is loosely, in one form or another, based on Miller's work (despite DKR being a dark alternate future and completely out-of-continuity even to this day).

In terms of societal trends and influences, you had quite a few things going on: in comics specifically, you had writers and artists beginning to stretch the bounds of what was considered "acceptable" by the Comics Code Authority guidelines, which was implemented in 1954 after the moral panic surrounding comics, juvenile delinquency, and "bad influences" that culminated in Senate Subcommitee Hearings into comic books and their influence on children and teenagers (the moral panic itself was kicked off due to the infamous book Seduction of the Innocent by psychologist Fredric Wertham). Incidentally, this is why the Silver Age is so well-known for its light-hearted subject matter: comics companies were trying desperately to stick to their self-imposed censorship code, which you can find here.

Stan Lee has talked multiple times about the story of how Marvel Comics famously defied the CCA in 1970 by publishing a Spider-man story dealing with drug abuse (at the request of the US government). His deliberate refusal to adhere to the Comics Code with "Green Goblin Reborn!" in 1970 led to DC publishing the influential and seminal Speedy/Red Arrow storyline "Snowbirds Don't Fly" in 1971, depicting Roy Harper becoming addicted to heroin. Together, these two storylines would form a big part of the basis for depicting darker storylines. "Snowbirds Don't Fly" is considered one of the big watershed moments for the depiction of mature themes in comics, and particularly at DC, as the arc was the start of an era of socially relevant Green Lantern/Green Arrow comics.

Michael McAvennie and Hannah Dolan actually mention this in their book DC Year by Year: A Visual Chronicle:

"It was taboo to depict drugs in comics, even in ways that openly condemned their use. However, writer Denny O'Neil and artist Neal Adams collaborated on an unforgettable two-part arc that brought the issue directly into Green Arrow's home, and demonstrated the power comics had to affect change and perception."

These two stories triggered a re-examination and revision of the Code in 1971 with standards that were slightly looser (though not by much) and helped contribute to a culture where writers/artists were interested in stretching the boundaries of what they were allowed to depict. As the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's History page states:

The 1971 code relaxed the restrictions on crime comics and lifted the ban on horror comics (while still prohibiting the use of “horror” and “terror” in titles). In addition, the liberalized standards on sex reflected changes in society. After the Spider-Man controversy, the CMAA added a section on how to handle depiction of drug use. The code, although it was less restrictive, represented a lost opportunity in its reaffirmation of comic books as a medium for children.

So you can generally point to "Green Goblin Reborn!" and "Snowbirds Don't Fly" in 1970/1971 for the re-introduction of socially relevant topics such as drug abuse, the revision of the Comics Code in 1971 for allowing the growth of supernatural and horror-related titles (as well as an explosion of non-superhero genre titles throughout the 70s), Gwen Stacy's death in 1973 as marking a trend towards dealing with death and darker subject matter, Jack Kirby's move from Marvel to DC and his "New Gods" storyline as marking a fundamental change in the storytelling priorities of both companies, the revival of Teen Titans under Marv Wolfman and George Perez as marking a change towards character-based storytelling, and the introduction of several minority heroes (particularly John Stewart as Green Lantern, Luke Cage, Storm, Black Lightning, Vixen, and Cyborg) as marking a trend towards the attempt at inclusion and greater diversity (and thus socially relevant storylines regarding prejudice and racism). All of these things combined led to a "perfect storm" where comics began to deal with darker and more gritty/realistic subject matter throughout the 70s and into the 80s, culminating in the publication of stories like Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke, A Death in the Family, and Crisis on Infinite Earths in the mid-80s (and later on in 1992, The Death of Superman) which led to the start of the Modern Age/Dark Age of comics.

There are probably three other big societal trends that helped contribute to the depiction of 'darker' subject matter in comics throughout the 70s and early 80s: the change of marketing trends where young children and girls stopped being specifically targeted as comic readers; the end of the careers of many of the veteran writers and artists of the time (or their promotion to management positions and retirement from regular writing or drawing) and their replacement with a younger generation of editors and creators; and the rise of direct market distribution, where specialized comic book distributors could directly solicit orders and distribute directly to retail outlets rather than the old system where wholesalers delivered the comic books to retailers along with other magazines. I suspect that the beginning of the "War on Drugs" and the rise of the Women's Liberation movement in the 70s also played a huge role (you can read a little bit about the revitalization of Wonder Woman and her impact on the Women's Movement/second-wave feminism here), but I only know about how social trends affected specific comics like the Batman, Green Arrow, and Wonder Woman comics rather than the industry as a whole.

As a sidenote, there are a couple of really good books on Wonder Woman, her history, and her impact on the feminist movement: The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore and Wonder Woman Unbound: The Curious History of the World's Most Famous Heroine by Tim Hanley.

For further research on this matter, I would suggest you look up books relating to the Comics Code and the Seduction of the Innocent scandal (David Hadju's The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America is particularly good) as well as any articles and academic papers on a) the rise of minority superheroes throughout the 70s, b) the impact of "Snowbirds Don't Fly", and c) anything relating to the impact Gwen Stacy's death had on comics.

If you're more interested in the switch from the Bronze Age to the Modern Age, I would focus on the rise of independent publishers such as Milestone Comics and Marvel/DC's non-superhero publishing lines Vertigo and Image, the near complete dissolution of the Comics Code in 1989 (with the final hit being Marvel completely withdrawing from the Comics Code in 2001), authors like Frank Miller (who wrote extensively on Daredevil and then went off and wrote DKR and Batman: Year One) and Alan Moore (especially Alan Moore, considering he wrote Swamp Thing, Watchmen, and The Killing Joke), Crisis on Infinite Earths and the lasting impact it had on both DC Comics and the comics industry as a whole, the death of Barry Allen in Crisis on Infinite Earths and the installation of Wally West as the Second Flash, and the development of the X-Men franchise.”

[tumblunni]

....Man, I think Haunter is my favourite pokemon again. I usually have a brief period of each generation’s best new ghostie temporarily stealing the number one spot, but i usually tend to lose the hype for them around a year later and they join my just Gigantic Pile Of Second Favourites I Cannot Choose Between And then I used to dislike Sableye, Banette and Rotom but they all took the top fave spot as soon as I was like ‘hey if i actually use on on my team maybe I’ll like it- I REALLY LIKE IT’. but I mean, when i love them more because of my personal one i had on my team, or my headcanons or fanfics or etc, I think maybe that’s a dishonest fave cos they’re not my fave on their own benefits? And Rotom stayed in the top fave spot for a really long time cos it not only had a lot of love as my main heavy hitter in platinum but also has a big role as the main mon of one of my fave characters. And like five other fave characters in random anime one off episodes! And then it was a pokedex! EVERYTHING ROTOM TOUCHES TURNS TO GOLD

Buuuuuuuuut.... Haunter was like.. My Original Favourite My first favourite pokemon was pikachu, and then chansey, but Haunter was my first favourite ghost and it says a lot that it still holds up even all these generations later when the type finally got fleshed out with as many members as other types. Man its so funny in retrospect that I’m pretty defined as The Super Ghost Fan nowadays but I wasn’t really into them for the first three generations of pokemon. There just wasnt ANYONE except the haunter line in gen 1, and only misdreavus got added, and then in gen 3 I didnt initially like banette’s design in its first pretty awful sprite so i felt like duskull was the only good one and i didnt like its evolutions. Another reason to love sinnoh: it added great ghosties, evolutions for past ones, and made a lot of past ones available at the same time, and i mean we got our first ghost legendary too! The generation of spoop hype! (until kalos was even more of that, but it was less of a big deal cos ghosts werent so rare now)

ANYWAY Haunter is REALLY GOOD AND GREAT Its design is so simple yet perfect?? Like I know it was designed to be one of the most literal middle evolutions ever, its just meant to be basically.. half of gengar. With its oldest pokedex entries that was back before they really decided what they wanted to do with the ghost type, it was all ‘its a mysterious creature from an unknown dimension and nobody is sure if its a real ghost’. So its unclear whether its design is really meant to be the head pokemon gastly growing its first baby arms, or like.. all three stages are the same pokemon slowly emerging into our dimension, with Gengar being the true form? In any case, I never really felt Gengar was very special, aside from the fan theory it’s a doppelganger of clefable. (I mean its name is literally a mispelling of doppelganger!) like.. it always felt like a letdown of a final form? it would be so great on its own, its just a nice solid silly ‘monster under the bed’ type of ghost, a fluffy bugbear with a lot of sass and the minor original trait of its face being super big and kinda in the wrong place compared to clefable. Makes you imagine it scares people by going full cleff mimic and then just turning around in an alleyway XD I actually had a fan pokemon as a kid called Gambal which was literally just a chansey equivelant of gengar, and had powers of bad luck and stuff. But then the name ended up going to an entirely different fakemon instead who was a rabbit thing that was a game corner prize. Oh and I also had a geng of celebi! Called Tanka just cos that was my name for all my ocs at the time. Its just a type of poetry that i thought sounded Hella Cool for no logical reason. But yeah, I drew like a million pics of every pokemon as a ghost version and its just funny how subconciously i was a ghost fan even before there were more than four ghosts in existance XD

BUT WHERE WAS I Oh yeah, gengar is dissappointing! And its unfair cos if it was an unrelated pokemon on its own, I would like it! It just doesn’t hold up favourably to how awesome haunter and gastly’s concepts are. i mean, look here we have two different quality takes on the ‘floating head’ concept and then its final form isn’t a floating head. HOW DARE YOU. I guess gengar kinda still keeps the aesthetic with its oversized face, kinda? Like its a giant head just mimicing being a regular pokemon? But I mean i think a giant head with arms and legs stops being a giant head. Its why Nanimon and Mamemon aren’t as cute as regular sperical types. I think the only exception is when its a giant head with ONLY legs, and they’re small rabbit legs specifically- like Lotad or Tokomon!

Anyway, nowadays I’ve grown more appreciation for Gengar (again) because I had one in my team and I love him so I can’t not love my best friend. He has an interesting story cos he’s actually That One Haunter, lol! That memorable npc in DPPt who trades you a haunter but its holding an everstone so it doesn’t evolve. I was still equally annoyed at her even though I’d planned to press B and keep it as a haunter anyway! XD But then the cute default name Gaspar made me get really attatched to him, and man i have so many super detailed story and personality headcanons for this little goofball. Eventually he did actually evolve into Gengar, cos I traded him temporarily to a friend in order to transfer him between generations, and i forgot gengar was a trade evo so i didnt tell her to not do it. I still feel really bad that i overreacted about it, i worry that maybe I made her feel guilty! Ultimately, it was probably a good thing, because I kept my other bestie Reaper the Sneasel unevolved forever cos i dislike Weavile, and like.. obviously he kinda sucks in battle because of this. I still love all my pokemon regardless of whether they’re useful in competitive, tho! Oh and mega gengar is pretty sweet, too! It brings back a lot of haunter’s appeal! I just wish that i never saw its feet, seriously. I thought that it was just a head and arms again, but apparantly it just spends 99% of the time phased into objects and its legs just look really awful and unfitting when you see them. It makes it like a top heavy buff design and that really doesn’t work?? It sucks cos i LOVE the other ‘skipped leg day’ pokemon Mega Swampert, so i dunno why I don’t like the same thing on ghosts! Dusknoir and Jellicent are my least favourite ghosts ever. So yeah my opinion on gengar now is like... mixed? i don’t dislike it like I used to, but I don’t really love it on its own benefits or anything, i just don’t dislike it cos i associate it with a sweet and cute bestie who saved me a lot in sinnoh due to his hypnosis attack. But I still think it’s a worse design than haunter, which is The Best Design In All Of Pokemon. Even when I flip flop on what my favourite POKEMON is, I still think it’s my favourite design! Rotom is maybe the most creative design CONCEPT amoung the ghosts, but Haunter is just... so good at what it set out to do.

LETS TALK AGAIN ABOUT HOW GREAT HAUNTER IS I mean just LOOK AT IT, its just SO GOOD Floating heads are great, and gastly was a great way to take that concept and make it ghostly! And its so cool that its basically a hitodama/will of the wisp/generic spooky flame face from every jrpg ever, except made more original because its made of like.. pure darkness smog mist instead. The colour choices for it are really good too, i always really loved the dithering effect they used to make it in the sprite-based games! Its one of the few pokemon where i love the regualr better than the shiny, even though the shiny isn’t one of those terrible neon green ones. It has one of the best shinies and that shade of smoky purple still captures my heart more! i think i would prefer the shiny if regular gengar was bedsheet white though, not blue and only turning white when it mega evolves. That’s weird. AND THEN HAUNTER IS JUST AN EVEN BETTER FLOATING HEAD It loses the cool smoke but it gains these pointy ears/cliche vampire hair shaped head protrusions that just work SO WELL. Like its a floating head that isn’t just a plain sphere! That’s the one part of floating head monsters that generally sucks, a lot of them outside of the creativity of pokemon tend to be super samey generic bald spherical angry man heads. A floating head of a guy with a cliche horror B-movie hairstyle is great! And especially when its a really unhumanoid jack-o-lantern face that’s just like.. replicating that hairstyle without actually being a hairstyle. thats my fave kind of humanoid type pokemon, I love when they’re still animals or monsters or even inanimate objects that are MIMICKING humans, not just a lazy thing that looks like an actual human wearing a costume. I’m probably in the minority but this is why I prefer Mr Mime to stuff like Machamp or Delfox or Incineroar. And then also I love how it takes Gastly’s grumpy eyes and softens them a bit to look more mischeivious instead of angry. Looking always in a bad mood is probably the biggest reason i don’t like Gastly the most, i just feel sad for it. Another reason why I love sinnoh lol, it had a big happy mischief face on its sprite! (shame platinum ruined it a bit, but HGSS was even cuter) And then its just such a creative way of giving a floating head some limbs while not ruining its floating head aesthetic. Floaty rayman arms is such a ghostly thing even though there arent many ghosts that use that design aesthetic!

Honestly thats the biggest reason haunter is so great, really. it just.. encapsulates ghost, even though it doesnt have like ANY cliche ghost design elements! its such a good original concept for like the simplest and most basic pure image of ghostliness in this world. It somehow feels like its exactly what ghosts are, without taking any shortcuts from other popular ghost characters. its so simple and iconic! Its a new thing that could fit in perfectly with all those ancient B-movie creatures and I’d never question it! Gastly is at least slightly based on a will o wisp, and gengar is a bugbear/monster under the bed/shadow creature/doppelganger super combination creature. But in the aim of making something in-between the two, they accidentally made something that doesn’t look very much like ANY of them and stands out miles above them! I think this entire evolution line has had such great staying power because every member of it looks really distinct from the others, while also vaguely fitting together with theme and colourscheme so they don’t seem distinct in a BAD way. Any of these would be equally beloved as entirely separate mons, but linking them together makes them oddly endearing as a weird ragtag bunch of buddies! Its like the addams family!

Oh, but my one and only complaint is that Haunter’s gameboy era design looks better than how it got changed once the graphics got better.

To be entirely honest, I think that the changed version was their intent right from the beginning, and the cooler aesthetic one was just an accident of the limited graphics. Cos I mean the anime had that design from the beginning, after all! BUT STILL, I love it so much more and I wish it could have been proper canon. or at least remained as its shiny form or something! (A mild blue hint instead of a mild purple hint is really boring, this shiny only looks good on gastly...) The glowy outline is probably the best part, though i do also like how the colours stay more matched with gastly instead of the smog colour becoming the body colour. Actually its not even that, its just a random less appealing deep purple, it might have been cooler if it remained that lighter shade of lilac? Also it sucks that haunter retained the glow around its hands at least in the gameverse until we got 3D models. It never had that in the anime so i guess they removed it to remain consistant but like.. WHY! It doesn’t look as cool with red glow on purple as opposed to purple glow on black, but I still really liked it. Like you could have at least kept the glow when it uses attacks or something?

Oh, and isn’t it so weird that so many ghosts have had all black removed from their design as the generations go on? Like.. I mean I don’t think they did this to haunter cos they feared it was similar to Jynx, it isn’t remotely humanoid and it doesn’t have a stereotypical face or anything. And it wouldnt make sense cos they kept it on gastly. But then also banette has gone from black to an increasingly lighter grey, and its EEEEEEEVEN lighter on merchandising! I waited ages for an official banette plush, and it is a really sweet little thing thats so perfect... but then its light grey? I don’t mind cos it makes my plushie feel like more of an individual at least. Also its annoying that mega banette started off as the same dark grey/black that banette originally was, but then its one of the few pokemon that got a big change between XY and SuMo, aside from new animations and stuff. now its light grey too! Booooooo! Other ghosts that’ve experienced The Greying: Duskull, Dusknoir already started off lighter than its pre-evo and then still got more so as time went on, and Misdreavus turned green and then blue instead of grey but its still the same sort of thing. Now the only real black/dark grey ghosts we have left are Yamask and Phantump, and its just.. so weird?? Cos like none of the black dark-types have had big colour changes except Sneasel. I dunno, maybe they’re doing this to make the ghost and dark types more distinct, making it more like purple is the signature colour of ghosts? But I mean its the type icon colour for poison and psychic too so this just makes the colourschemes LESS distinct... Also I just think that the dark grey banette and the black haunter looked so much better, so it sucks that out of all the ghosts it had to be the ones I love! And out of all dark types it had to be my favourite too! (And sneasel is my fave ice type too!)

...anyway GHOSTS and HAUNTER I LOVE THEM and I’m sorry i rambled for like an hour writing all this THEYRE JUST SO FUCKING CUTE AND SWEET

oh and one last thing!! I love how haunter established the trend of ghost types being more mischievious and misunderstood than actually evil Well, i mean all three of its evo line starred in that episode of the anime, but Haunter was the one that went with ash at the end and got one more episode of cuteness afterward. That whole mini arc was the MOST MEMORABLE PART OF THE SHOW for me, I couldnt believe it was so short when i rewatched it! I totally misremembered haunter sticking around for half a season or something, cos it was so endearing to me. And its still so endearing to me every time the games decide to make a new ghost be harmless or sad, or harmless and sad. or even harmful and sad! i mean i cried the most at banette even though its past of being an abandoned toy is supposed to just be a justification why its the most angry and dangerous ghost. I’M SURE I COULD HEAL IT WITH HUGS, yells bunni, as they essentially glomp the pokemon equivelant of a shark...

god i just love ghosts so much and specifically haunter the most much hug your haunter today also your banette also your rotom also pumpkaboo and litwick and phantump and duskull...

[wbwest]

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West Week Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 1/13/17

In movie news, we got a trailer for CHiPs, starring Dax Shepard and Michael Peña. That’s right, the California Highway Patrol are gonna get their own film. And I couldn’t give two shits. I’ve probably seen 3 episodes of that show in my lifetime, so there’s no nostalgia factor for me there. I’m going into this the same way I went into Starsky & Hutch – another show I’ve never seen. I thought the trailer, however, was kinda funny. I’ve heard a lot of folks ragging on it, as they see it as the “21 Jump Street Model” being applied to the CHiPs franchise. I feel like, without it being a comedy, there’s not really much you can do with that concept. It’s cops on motorcycles. How do you add drama to that? One of them gets a flat tire? I like the fact that it’s a comedy, though the trailer is far from the funniest thing I’ve seen. There’s no way I’m setting foot in a theater to see it, but I’m totally gonna watch it, either via Redbox or “Other”. I mean, Peña is a national treasure. He’s great in everything he does, and I feel like the only reason he doesn’t get more accolades is due to his alleged ties to Scientology. Anyway, a CHiPs movie is coming. Tell your grandpa!

During the Television Critics Association winter press tour, The CW surprised everyone by announcing the early renewal of 7 shows, including Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, The Flash, Supernatural, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Jane the Virgin. This is a major win for Ex-Girlfriend, seeing as how it’s the lowest rated show on broadcast television. This will also be whopping season 13 for Supernatural, which I can’t even believe. I joked on Twitter that star Jensen Ackles must’ve made some kind of Faustian deal around season 5 that he can’t figure out how to get out of. Like, those dudes are completely typecast at this point, where they have nothing to look forward to other than a life on the convention circuit. But it’s good work if you can get it!

Anyway, the most surprising news was that The CW was resurrecting Constantine, starring Matt Ryan…as an animated series. Yes, Constantine will join Vixen as a CW Seed original webseries. Ugh. I’ve expressed my disdain for webseries in the past, but it’s not like I was gonna watch it anyway. I only liked Constantine in his cameo on Arrow, but never watched his series. And the Vixen CW Seed show was so forgettable that I can’t even remember if I finished both seasons. But who knows? Maybe this will be good? I’ll wait til someone I trust recommends it.

Surprising no one, it’s being reported that Girl Meets World is being shopped around to other platforms. In recent interviews, it was revealed that Disney Channel wouldn’t let the show explore some themes that the writers wanted, but I still think it got pretty heavy for Disney fare. Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up at Freeform or Netflix. It seems like everyone would be on board, and maybe it could last as long as its predecessor.

In the world of comics, it was announced that Brian Michael Bendis would be writing a Defenders comic, to be released around the time of the Netflix series of the same name. The series will feature Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. I feel this is bad news for writer David Walker, however, who happens to be writing the current Power Man and Iron Fist comic. Sure, there are multiple Spider books and multiple Iron Man books, but I just don’t see those guys carrying multiple books, especially considering the low sales on PM & IF. I don’t know if I’m looking forward to this or not. On the one hand, I love Jessica Jones and, besides Miles Morales, think she’s the greatest Bendis contribution to comics. I also love how he writes Luke Cage. He got his chops writing Daredevil, so he should be good there, too. At the same time, he’s not the writer he used to be, so I’m not sure if he’s got “It” right now. Still, I’m a dumb fanboy, so I’ll be checking it out when it hits stands.

Things You Might Have Missed This Week

The cast of Downton Abbey has been told to clear their schedules for a possible film. I still need to get past season 4, so I don’t even know what a movie would be about at this point.

Love Connection is returning to the airwaves, courtesy of Fox. Chuck Woolery, however, will be replaced by Bravo’s Andy Cohen.

Speaking of Fox, primetime soap Empire was renewed for season 4. I finally gave up on it this year, so good luck with that!

Breaking Baddie Gus Fring is rumored to be showing up on Better Call Saul next season.

American Horror Story has been renewed by FX for seasons 8 and 9. I’ve never seen any of them, but I know some of y’all liked the early seasons at least.

David Goyer and Justin Rhodes have been hired to write a Green Lantern Corps film, which will star Hal Jordan and John Stewart

This adorable 4-year old, Daliyah Marie Arana, has already read over 1,000 books and visited the Library of Congress as Librarian for the Day

Sky TV in the UK was going to air a special about Michael Jackson, but the episode has been cancelled after fan backlash when a photo of White actor Joseph Fiennes as Jackson was released

The 74th Annual Golden Globe Awards were held last Sunday, celebrating the best in television and film. Surprising everyone, freshman show (and former West Week Ever recipient) Atlanta won the Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy in Television. To top things off, though, its creator and star, Donald Glover, won Best Actor in a Comedy. It was well deserved, as the show was nearly perfect, and Glover was behind all of it. Well, Glover’s week got even better a few days later, as he inked an exclusive development deal with FX Productions. The only bad news was that FX announced season 2 of Atlanta will be delayed until 2018 because Glover’s so damn busy. After all, he’s got to film his Lando Calrissian scenes for the upcoming Han Solo film. So, I think it’s safe to say this was Donald Glover’s week, which is why he had the West Week Ever.

Programming Note: I’m skipping next Friday because it’s the inauguration, and I’m sure this post will be the last thing on your minds. BUT tune in next Wednesday for West YEAR Ever!

[tessatechaitea]

Justice League #15

Well, it's got to end sometime, I suppose.

Okay, maybe she's not a time traveler. But she definitely knows what's going on in the future. So she's some kind of time something or other. Probably a Time Witch.

• Superman and Batman learn from the Infinity Corporation that something is rewriting time. You know, the way that sometimes happens. Usually it only happens when an idiot believes a thing they think they remember even when the proof that they're remembering it wrong is right in front of them, like that book with the incestuous bear family and that movie with the African-American Djinni. But in the DC Universe, when something changes in the past, things are rewritten slowly enough that people with a time traveling office building can pick up some hitchhikers and try to set history right once more. Although what is right, really? If the Infinity Corporation hadn't picked up Superman and Batman, they'd be fine! It would just be slightly different versions of them in the new reality. Which might be the better reality. Or maybe the real reality! If time can be changed so easily, whose to say this change wasn't setting it back to the factory settings?

This is how philosophy can be misused by idiots. He's got the whole concept backwards. It's not "The future is malleable so the past must be too!" Because that's fucking nonsense. It's "If the past is immutable, why would you think the future was? Boom! Free will is an illusion!" It's so obvious. Once you make a choice and the present becomes the past, it can't be changed. So why would you think you ever had a real choice anyway? Fate, motherfuckers!

• Also, the guy's ability to philosophize is terrible if he's saying things like "You think somebody ten years in the future reading about you fixes your choices?" Of course that doesn't work! Because the future isn't happening simultaneously with the present, dum-dum! I mean, I suppose it could be. Without our ability to observe it, all history would just happen in the blink of an eye. Our observation slows it down. So why can't it all have happened spontaneously and immediately. That's why some beings are omniscient, like dolphins and gerbils. • During the United Nations fight, Cyborg winds up in 31st century Metropolis beside Brainiac 5. I guess they're all surprised by this happening because The Flash quickly distributed all of the bracelets which kept them from being obliterated by the Timeless. • The Green Lanterns wind up in the 26th Century where Washington, DC, has been devastated. It's probably been that way for five hundred years now. • The Flash winds up in Central City on the day he received his powers. Apparently they've all time traveled to different points in time where the Timeless have set up "temporal nukes." See? It's easy to get your heroes on the mission when you have somebody from the future saying, "This is what is happening and here is the problem and now off you go to solve it!" • Molly the Keeper explains that if these bombs go off, the fans will be super fucking pissed again. A whole new DC Universe! This time it won't be Wally and Steph and Cassie who disappear forever. This time, it'll be all the superheroes. Which would make for a really boring DC Universe. I'm not sure even I would keep reading any comic books telling stories from it.

I wish every time somebody said this in a time travel movie, they'd get punched in their stupid face.

• From this moment on, whenever anybody asks me, "Where are we?" or "Where am I?", I'm going to reply, "When might be a better question!" • Batman and Superman wind up in a time when Earth has built a bunch of scaffolding around the planet. Hopefully somebody will tell them that they have a temporal nuke to disarm. The Ranking! No change! If I wasn't being so lazy and not wanting to change the sidebar, I'd probably drop this a ranking just for being another terrible "The present is changing because of time travel shenanigans that must be corrected!" bullshit story. I mean, isn't it lucky that Molly the Keeper appeared to help everybody save the current timeline! Without her intervention, time would have just changed and nobody would have been the wiser. Readers probably would have been confused though if they picked up What's the Justice League? #15 about a bunch of people who don't remember the Justice League and never mention them at all in whatever boring tale of mundane life Bryan Hitch decided to tell. Probably a story about an artist who is trying to finish the facade of a building with a ton of tiny details on it but he has to pee really fucking badly. Does he finish before he goes? Does he go before he finishes? Does he make a huge mistake in one of several possible scenarios?!

[eridianshores-blog]

Availability Update - Character Cars & Carships

Retail stores, some of them anyway, are finally starting to recover from Christmas, albeit slowly.  Week after week I’m doing my rounds, trying to find what I can.  The good news is that a lot of stuff that was brand spankin’ new on eBay a month or so ago has begun to appear in stores.

DC Super Hero Girls - Character Cars

Shortly after these came out, I spotted a couple at the Cary Barnes & Noble (B&N).  Then I spotted a few more at the B&N over at Triangle Town Center (TTC).  Just recently, like within the last week if I’m not mistaken, they began to appear en masse over at the Toys R Us (TRU) behind TTC:  Wonder Woman (the Super Hero Girls version), Supergirl, & Batgirl, all there for the taking!  They don’t have a ton of them, but they do have more than one of each the last time I was there.

Marvel Character Cars

Technically the newest Marvel Character Car is Iron Fist, but before him, we saw the release of Elektra.  Elektra also marked the change in packaging for the Marvel cars (absent numbers, grrr) along with the re-release of several others, seemingly at random.  In almost record time, this new batch began appearing at Targets in the area, particularly the one here in WF and a couple others in Raleigh (I can’t remember exactly which ones, sorry!).  Along with Elektra, you can also find Groot (a good chance to snatch him up if you missed the Guardians of the Galaxy wave), Wolverine (blue version, and I swear this blue is from a different dye lot than the original release), Hulk (purple pants / “Avengers Assemble” version), and a few others.  I don’t remember exactly who ships with those cases except for the aforementioned and Spider-man, and most likely Iron Man, though I’m not sure which version.

Star Wars Carships

Man, I made an awesome discovery today.  I was trying to take a shortcut from the Flea Market over to Crowemag (the only used/collectible toy store in the area) and at one point I took a right when I should’ve taken a left and what did I see tucked away at a busy intersection...?  A freaking Walmart that I didn’t know existed!  I know most people are hard-pressed to get excited over stumbling across yet another goddamn Walmart, but a hunter like me can’t help but be excited.

As I said this place was kinda tucked away and I could immediately tell that it was one of the old Walmarts, before “Supercenters” were the norm.  I instantly recognized this as a good sign - places like this may not get the super duper inventory, but what they do get tends to remain safely planted on the shelf, especially when it comes to toys.  Walmarts without the full grocery store nowadays seem contradictory to the entire concept of going to Walmart in the first place!  I’ll put it this way: finding a non-Supercenter Walmart is kinda like finding a really nice K-mart where the actually give half a damn about their toy section.

They didn’t have anything in the way of Marvel or DC cars, and the Star Wars cars were the usual - lots of Vader, Zeb, BB-8, and maybe Zeb - but what caught my eye amidst it all was a First Order Special Forces TIE Fighter CARSHIP!  It turned out to be the only one they had, but still.  A little more searching yielded 3 or 4 Poe’s X-Wing carships, several from the original 4 that were released, a single TIE Striker carship, and a single Partisan X-Wing carship.  This was all good news as my son wanted some duplicates for when he plays with them - specifically he wanted an extra Striker, Partisan X-Wing, and SF TIE.  Well ok, he also wants an extra U-Wing, but unfortunately they seem to be super-rare, even becoming difficult to find online.  And this is why I go ahead and snatch them up early - I’m glad I at least have one!

What’s so strange is that this little hole-in-the-wall Walmart had carships that, so far, I’ve never seen in stores.  The best I can figure, the carships were released as such: Wave 1 - X-Wing, Millennium Falcon, Slave I, and TIE Fighter; Wave 2 - Ghost, Vader’s TIE, and TIE Striker; Wave 3 - U-Wing and Partisan X-Wing, and most recently, Wave 4 - First Order SF TIE and Poe’s X-Wing.  Those first 4 from Wave 1 are virtually every where.  Before Christmas, I spotted the Ghost and Vader’s TIE at a Target here and there, but I have never, ever seen any of the other 5 in stores.  Even so, this Walmart only had 1 of each of 3 of them, and there was no U-Wing to be found at all (though I did look really carefully all around the area to make sure).

DC Character Cars

This isn’t as big of a find, but if you’ve got some holes in your collection of DCU character cars, a nearby Target may be able to help.  At least 3, if not 4, surrounding Targets appear to be getting in new cases of DCU character cars.  What’s weird is that these do not support the new packaging (like the new Deadshot etc. cars) but I’m 100% sure that these stores were not pulling in cases of these cars on the reg.  For the first time ever in a store I saw The Flash, and for the first time in several months I spotted Green Lantern, Robin, maybe Catwoman and Two-Face.  I’m not saying these are impossible to find, but the DC stock has thinned out over the past few months, with pretty much the only staples being Man of Steel, Armored Batman, the Penguin, Hawkman, and the occasional Mr. Freeze. The Flash is the real one worth mentioning, but like I said, it’s been a while since I’ve seen some of the others, particularly Green Lantern.  Check early and often though, because I’m pretty sure there’s only one per case.

Star Wars Character Cars

The character cars in the new packaging have been steadily gaining ground in most Walmarts around here, though I think the only purely new car in that batch is the Jawa. (I could be mistaken.) Anyway, the good news is that Sergeant Jyn Erso, who seemed to trickle out after the main wave, is becoming more widely available. At first I would only spot her in a B&N now and then, but a couple of weeks ago there was at least one at TRU, and then about a week ago I spotted one at my local Walmart, and then sometime in the last several days I counted a total of 4 at the Brier Creek Walmart, and they're actually kinda crummy when it comes to staying on top of the Star Wars character cars. With a little bit of luck and a little bit of perseverance, pretty much anyone should be able to locate Jyn for themselves.

Star Wars Starships

This is more of a non-report than anything...I still can’t figure out what happened to these things.  Walmarts, in general, are the best carriers for these starships.  Target might have a few old ones, TRU may have some laying around, but Walmart easily has the largest variety.  It’s worth noting that you can get lucky at a B&N though, which I’ll be checking at some point in the near future.

Anyway, finding all the usuals is pretty easy - Tantive IV (us older guys used to call it the “Blockade Runner”), Imperial Shuttle (funny, the Blockade Runner is now known by the name of the actual ship; back in the day, we called this Tydirium, the name of the actual ship!), lots of TIEs, A-Wings, and so on.  The Partisan X-Wings do seem to be recovering very slightly; I see one or two pop up here and there, but I have yet to see the Mandalorian Talon Fighters resurface.  I’ve only seen the X-Wing / TIE Striker 2-pack twice.  I still haven’t ever seen the Millennium Falcon / TIE Interceptor 2-pack, a single Striker, the AT-ACT, or the Chicken Walker (or whatever its equivalent is known as in Rogue One). 

So yeah, I don’t know what the hell is up with these guys.  You can find pretty much any of ‘em that you want on eBay, but more often than not you’ll pay through the nose.  Hopefully supply will catch up with demand sooner or later.

That’s all I got for now!  This probably won’t mean much if you’re not local to my area, but maybe it can help point you in the right direction.  Just believe me when I say it is 100% worth it to check different Walmarts, Targets, etc.  It’s baffling that the toys they carry can be so different, but c’est la vie!  Clue me in to your awesome finds and let us know where we can find ‘em if we find ourselves in your neck of the woods!

[davidmann95]

It's probably not smthn super interesting to you but, all the new Superman costumes when I looked at them just... reminded me of Connor, mostly? (I ended up playing with them to make a Superman Connor which was fun.) But my main question is, do you think that "Superman" is a name that could ever really be passed down, kind of like how Dick was given Batman (briefly)? Not in the way of lots of people rushing in, but DC seriously trying to introduce a new Superman? Who would you give that role?

Yeah, I can see that. Same basic design, just with a yellow negative space in the S and the yellow buckle on the belt.

As for the successor business, the idea of certain superhero identities as ‘off-limits’ has never quite sat right with me. Not everyone exactly demands that another hero take up their mantle - if Peter Parker was the one and only Spider-Man I don’t think many New Yorkers would notice for long, in-universe he’s a B-list superhero at best - but they’re bigger-than-life characters, often standing for things to their city or world larger than their own physical selves; it means something for that symbol to continue past whoever started it. I never liked old-school Earth-Two Dick Grayson staying Robin forever because he ‘wasn’t worthy’ to be Batman; the guy himself would have wanted that, he’d been doing it longer than Bruce by the time he died, and he had the same training and resources and motivation. And at least there’s the question with Batman of whether you legitimately could logistically equal the decades of unrelenting globe-spanning training he went through; with most heroes, if you have the power and the goodness of heart, you’re off to the races. Batman isn’t a mythical totem bound to the heart and soul of a single individual only to fade into the wind when Bruce Wayne passes on, it’s a suit he puts on that Dick Grayson or Tim Drake or Damian Wayne could put on too, and would have good reason to. And if Superman isn’t going to be Superman forever, whether that means he dies in battle or gets old or he goes off into space, there’s absolutely a reason for someone to fill that gap. Even if his immediate family didn’t, someone would.

Not to mention a lineage of Supermen and Superwomen stretching from the present to the 853rd century and beyond is just really cool. It gives you all kind of weird variants and possibilities even before you factor in the Multiverse, lets you do wild cross-time teamups, and plays with the ever-changing future of DC at any given time. And that they manage to exist is maybe the most tangible impact of Superman’s ideals across the breadth of space and time: the Starman legacy may eventually go rotten, the Green Lanterns may die out, the Allen/West line of Flashes has died about by Legion times, but eighty three thousand years down the line the moral imprint Kal-El leaves behind is still so strong that his great to the power of a hundred grandchildren, each and every one of whom could conquer galaxies, are to a woman and man the greatest heroes of their era. That such an impossible standard continues to be met in the face of infinite temptation in a time far farther away from us than the beginning of recorded history is the most monumental testament imaginable to how good Superman actually is at bringing out the best in people.

So who starts it?

Well, Kara as Superwoman’s an obvious choice - she’s got the power, she’s got the heart, and she’s the only other survivor of Krypton up to the task. But she’s always felt off as a successor to him for me - they spring from the same incident, so her motivations and origins are parallel to his rather than springing from him and his deal. She doesn’t wear the S-shield because of him, even if he’s the reason she calls herself ‘Supergirl’. It seems odd to discuss her as a successor in the same way as Batwoman for Batman - they’re associated characters, yes, but they’ve got their own things going on. More importantly they’d keep doing pretty much the same things they were already doing, in which case why bother getting rid of another character in the first place? Taking Superman’s place doesn’t do anything to Supergirl that her just growing up wouldn’t do with time anyway. It has to be someone where them entering that role represents a change.

The idea of Conner having to become Superman is loaded with potential, but that’s kind of the problem: I think the idea that he could be Superman one day is way more interesting than him actually being Superman would be. Maybe this is in part because I generally think of him as being a character of unfulfilled narrative potential, but the idea of this kinda goofy, rough-’n-tumble kid playing around with weird Kirby concepts and hanging out with the Teen Titans and resenting having to go to high school wondering if he might actually have to be Superman one day has a lot more going for it than whatever he’d actually be as Superman. I like the idea of the hybrid of Superman and Luthor being able to save the world in the way neither of them ever could, but only Luthor’s more unsavory aspects seem to be hinted at as a potential part of the package for Conner rather than his mighty intellect or ambition, so it mostly comes down to a stock Good Genes vs. Bad Genes argument that’s settled once and for all once he puts on the cape. Similarly, that he might fear the idea of being Superman the way a teenager fears having to get a 9-to-5 job when he grows up is fun - he knows that’s ultimately a thing he has to do to take care of those around him, and something he’ll probably be okay with when the time comes, but right now he’s not so sure he’s wild about it - but that means either he gets over it, or we get another Superman who often seems to hate being Superman. Plus he doesn’t have much of a background to draw on given he literally woke up on the day of his birth as a superhero, so again, aside from having to be a role model it’s not much of a logistical change for him. All-in-all while it’s interesting to see him in that role in potential futures, I think any destiny for Kon-El would probably be best served by him finding a different job title.

While I’d hope to see him in something a little more stylish than the above -maybe he could change costumes a lot, every time we see “Superman Secundus” he seems to wear a different uniform, so that could be a character detail - I think Jon Kent, the Boy of Tomorrow, would be the best option for a new Superman. For one big thing right upfront, while it’s probably about to be retconned out of him in March (probably for the best), he’s the one of the bunch who himself is the last son of a doomed world. Hell, more than that he’s the last son of a doomed DC Universe, the one way to feasibly one-up the significance of Krypton; even when he’ll have just been born on Earth, the idea of him as the final product of a classic DC has some potency.

That sense of legacy plays into something else with him: he’s the only one of the gaggle who actually thinks of Superman as Superman. Kara knew from day one that was just her cousin, Conner was born to be Superman, but Jon’s the one who grew up with Superman as his hero, not knowing just how true that was. He looks at Superman the way you look at Superman, and then he finds out his dad is Superman, coming at the idea from an even more direct place than Wally West. And being raised by Superman means he becomes a different character from him: he doesn’t grow up lonely and lost in the same ways Clark did, but he doesn’t have to go through the same trials or endure quite the same harsh lessons either. He’s could be the Nightwing to his Batman, not quite having the same kind of focus and drive but overall a better-adjusted person, which lets him go through the same basic motions you expect of Superman while still being a meaningfully different character.

Plus, he brings back a lot of Silver Age elements that don’t quite work for Superman anymore. I’m not a fan of Clark in-costume defending Smallville as Superboy, but Jon has Hamilton, meaning he can live out the whole Superboy status quo of defending a small town while also living as a normal schoolkid concealing his powers and super-brain. And while Clark becoming Superman is an all-but-meaningless name-change for Clark if he’s already been Superboy for years, for Jon that’s the biggest thing ever, making a career as Superboy much easier to pull off for him without invalidating anything. Plus, while the doofy Chris Reeve-style disguise doesn’t quite feel right anymore for Clark, it’d fit perfectly for someone as energetic and occasionally clumsy as Jon (especially if he parlays his obvious genius into the world of mad science as his day job when he grows up). You get the original Superman succeeded by the Silver Age Superman just as he was in the real world, and Jon brings enough to the table personality-wise while still being able to do the classic stuff (he can learn more about Krypton, but it’s fundamentally altered by being the home of his unknowable ancestors rather than the place he was born, for instance), and that differentiates him from the other two candidates. Obviously a lot of this is just potential no one has seized on yet, but if Superman set down the rules of the DCU, Jon grows up as a pure embodiment of that world, Super from childhood on and living without the burdens his dad had to. That to me makes him the most interesting possibility of the lot to see as a second Superman.