Results 91 to 103 of 103
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2014-07-24, 12:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2008
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- Enköping, Sweden
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Re: Why so many people complain about comic books they don't read?
Kingdom Come... Never read it. No opinion.
Watchmen? The single most overrated piece of crap in comics ever, written by the single most overrated writer in comic book history (just ahead of the next guy)
Dark Knight Returns? The second most overrated piece of comics ever written (unlike Year One, which was amazing) by the second most overrated comic book writer in history.Blizzard Battletag: UnderDog#21677
Shepard: "Wrex! Do we have mawsign?"
Wrex: "Shepard, we have mawsign the likes of which even Reapers have never seen!"
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2014-07-24, 12:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
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Re: Why so many people complain about comic books they don't read?
The two concepts aren't mutually exclusive, the second one has basically never happened outside a Frank Millar comic(And that's post crazy Millar to boot), her origin has only actually changed with Azzrello to an appreciable degree, with the rest just being a few details filled or removed or reworked. Her allegiance to a country she wasn't born into isn't exactly a core trait either, since even in the very first golden age stories it was portrayed less as her just loving America for it's own sake and more being thrown together due to the world war and larger forces involved.
And again, powers don't equal character. They're inconsistent, which is an issue, but you keep confusing surface elements with character traits.
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2014-07-24, 01:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2014
Re: Why so many people complain about comic books they don't read?
Golden Age Wonder Woman said she hated man (but liked Steve Trevor) basically once an issue. She was also as nationalist as it gets (never mind her not being american). Her origin changed several times: at first, her abilities were the result of training every amazon received (which she would lose if she was bound by a male). Then, she received blessings from the gods in her crib. Then, she was actually built from clay. Then, she became the daughter of Zeus.
The origins also differ on how important Steve Trevor is or if he is around at all, if she could fly or needed some magical item to do so, if she was on good terms with her mother or not and so on so forth. It's a mess.
Sorry, I forgot you're the only person who knows which are the core traits to each character.
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2014-07-24, 02:57 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2010
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- Netherlands
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Re: Why so many people complain about comic books they don't read?
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2014-07-24, 04:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Derby, UK
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Re: Why so many people complain about comic books they don't read?
Right, so you ARE saying that no-one is entitled to a (meaningful) opinion unless they have directly experienced something?
Does that not mean that you are being equally as dimissive as the folks you mention above - as you are basically saying that I cannot complain about the computer games industry - or EA specifically - sacrificing, for example, RTS games (e.g. Command & Conquer) to focus on shooters because I haven't played Call of Duty (which is basically EXACTLY the same analogy - a thing that I liked being replaced by a thing I don't), nevermind the fact that even if I played Call of Duty I wouldn't enjoy it because it's... just not a thing I like.
If that's not what you're saying, you are not then using it as an excuse to dismiss the opinions of other people who don't like what you like? Or further, people who want to vote with their wallets (which is A Thing we are supposed to do?)
(As I said - if it's a thing I don't like, I don't like it and experiencing won't make me like it. You can wave Game of Thrones or Dark Knight in my metaphorical face all day long, doesn't mean I'll give it house-room.)
A completely uniformed knee-jerk reaction is one thing - especially when used to reinforce existing prejudice - but you are saying you can't be informed without actually having experienced something in it's totality (which, by the by, essentially renders the entire profession of critics meaningless apparently).
Indeed, have you not yourself "informed" the thread of the true Thor situation? If that still means we can't judge it without reading it, what was the point?
For some people - many people - concept ultimately trumps exectution - i.e. it doesn't matter how good the latter is if you don't even slightly care about the former. It doesn't matter if it's the single greatest and most exciting football game that has ever exisited if you plain just don't like football.
Originally Posted by Shinken
And if enough people think the way I do, it does add up. (Indeed, is that not part of the problem?)Last edited by Aotrs Commander; 2014-07-24 at 05:32 AM.
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2014-07-24, 01:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
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Re: Why so many people complain about comic books they don't read?
You know, I went back and flipped through my golden age material and I'm still not seeing it. Even in the golden age Diana was still clearly in it for her own people first and foremost, even if she'd quickly become accustomed to the American way of doing things. I'm also seeing an occasional snide remark, but not much outright man hating. That's not to say it doesn't exist, Marston is very clear about his opinions on gender roles and how they were playing out in wartime(most of which were actually legitimate issues, a good number of them still talking points to this day, such as japanese treatment of Chinese women), it's just that he has the good sense to show rather than tell a lot of the time by the situations Diana finds herself in and the people she talks to.
Which is actually something Marston was probably best at out of all the golden age writers, to be honest. Instead of just saying "this is bad" he'll have a victim show the audience the scars she's got. Instead of just saying "Amazons are smart" he'll show them using cutting edge atomic science. He knows how to tell a story well enough that panels work even without the usual redundant golden age dialogue and narration, which he'll occasionally leave out of some panels just because he knows it's unnecessary.
Sorry, I forgot you're the only person who knows which are the core traits to each character.
As a general rule of thumb you should be able to identify a specific character, regardless of their costume, powers, job, or name. That's about 90% what you've spoken about, and a large part of what you've said is largely incorrect.
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2014-07-24, 10:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2014
Re: Why so many people complain about comic books they don't read?
There is also the bondage, the sexual innuendo and the implication that all women are crazy. Golden Age WW was a mess.
No, I'm saying uninformed opinions are bad. Please refrain from putting words in my mouth.
I strongly disagree. There are several characters which have their powers, for example, at the core of their recognition.
For example, Monica, from Monica's Gang. She is superstrong, bossy, short, chubby and toothy. She wears a read dress and carries a blue plush bunny around. When Young Monica's Gang came around, she was no longer short, no longer chubby, no longer toothy, she did not wear red dresses anymore and she kept the bunny at home. All that was left to make her recognizable was her superstrength - she wasn't even bossy anymore.
Young Monica's Gang is also the best-selling comic in the Americas ever since it was released.
Personality, which you seem to be insisting is the only thing that matters in a character, changes so often between incarnations of each superhero it's not even funny. You can barely say Superman is the same character he was in the Golden Age. Current Peter Parker also changed a lot since the 60s and the same happened to Cyclops and Wolverine. You can still recognize them because a character is more than a sum of personality traits.Last edited by Shinken; 2014-07-24 at 10:15 PM.
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2014-07-24, 10:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
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Re: Why so many people complain about comic books they don't read?
That's the fun of it. It's a ridiculous mess of silly pseudoscience and real issues that's told by someone who knows how to tell a story and convey a character. It's a mess that's full of things that should logically never go together, but is ordered in such a way the reader can still keep track of it all easily and understand what they're supposed to. Gold, Silver, and Bronze aged Wonder Woman are all wonderful in more or less all incarnations, because there's a brilliant madness under them that captures both the silliest and most serious bits of the medium more perfectly than probably anything else DC has ever done at various points.
Which is why I'm against New 52 Wonder Woman, ultimately. The underlying skeleton is too clean and the surface elements too messy, rather than the other way around. The story it tries to tell is fine and there's enough elements there that it makes for a decent elseworlds(and probably the best Wonder Woman elseworlds out there, to be honest), but it just hasn't got what I feel is the core of the character or the style of the story style proper, even if bits and pieces are similar.
I strongly disagree. There are several characters which have their powers, for example, at the core of their recognition.
For example, Monica, from Monica's Gang. She is superstrong, bossy, short, chubby and toothy. She wears a read dress and carries a blue plush bunny around. When Young Monica's Gang came around, she was no longer short, no longer chubby, no longer toothy, she did not wear red dresses anymore and she kept the bunny at home. All that was left to make her recognizable was her superstrength - she wasn't even bossy anymore.
Young Monica's Gang is also the best-selling comic in the Americas ever since it was released.
Personality, which you seem to be insisting is the only thing that matters in a character, changes so often between incarnations of each superhero it's not even funny. You can barely say Superman is the same character he was in the Golden Age. Current Peter Parker also changed a lot since the 60s and the same happened to Cyclops and Wolverine. You can still recognize them because a character is more than a sum of personality traits.
I mean hell, the very first comics I picked up even as a very young child, it's the consistency that drew me in. I began with Kyle Baker's Plastic Man, which was bright and cartoony while still faithful to the original backstory and character portrayals. It was about a silly rubber man in a sling bikini, but the actual draw was always the story of love and death and justice and revenge, which was still told clearly enough that a kid in single digits age could easily follow it and understand some rather heavy motivations and actions("angels with dirty faces" is still probably one of my favorite scenes in the whole medium, just because it can combine the weight of a friends death with loony toons rubber hose antics so perfectly).
As I move towards doing animation and sequential art professionally, it turns out that pretty much anyone who's done either will tell you the same thing. Design reflects personality first, and not powers. If a storyteller can't nail down what a character thinks and feels, all the effects and visuals in the world can't make up the difference.
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2014-07-24, 11:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2014
Re: Why so many people complain about comic books they don't read?
I can agree with that.
I disagree with what represents the core of Wonder Woman, but other than that I agree.
Wait, wait. I'm not saying personality does not matter. I'm saying it is the only core trait in a character.
I agree, but that does not mean personality is the only things that matters when you establish a character's core. In fact, some characters are notable for their lack of personality (like all silent protagonists in videogames) and they are still recognizable (iconic, even). Can you build your character core around personality? Absolutely, but it's a choice. You can build a foundation on background, on the character's relationships or even on the character's powers. That's what happens with most supervillains, even - they are defined by what they can do a lot more than about what they are. The exceptions are the better supervillains around, but that proves that not only it can happen, it does happen.
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2014-07-25, 12:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
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Re: Why so many people complain about comic books they don't read?
The silent protagonist didn't really start out as an artistic choice so much as a necessity, given how much data an 8 bit cartridge can hold and how much ground the dev team has to cover. Minimal dialogue was just kind of taken as a given. Even when newer games try it the idea usually gets abandoned eventually, taking Jak and Daxter for example. Jak spent the first game being silent and going through a simple by design adventure. But when they tried adding a sequel with more complexity and varied mechanics, as well as a plot more complex than "here is your villain, here are your four plot powers, hop to it", they were basically forced to give him a voice and personality, even if he wasn't terribly chatty due to that personality he still used dialogue to show how he's developed. Nowadays the only time you'll usually see a silent protagonist is in a story emulating the days when limitations made it a necessity. Otherwise, it's still personality first and foremost. Even if you're updating a silent concept, since Mighty No. 9's already shown how they choose to portray Beck as a person alongside what his powers are going to be.
I'm not just pulling this out my ass, this is fundamentals of character design as anyone who actually handles the job will tell you. Personality comes first, every single time. It doesn't need to be complex but it has to be there, or else you've failed to engage your audience in any real way right off.
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2014-07-25, 12:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2014
Re: Why so many people complain about comic books they don't read?
Correct, but that does not mean Crono has a personality. Or Serge. Or Link, even.
In fact, Link is a good example - each Zelda features a different character, identified by his weapons and clothes. He even gets different powers in different games and the few games that deal with his personality deal with it in different ways. However, you always know that Link is Link.
But that's what I'm saying. When your personality is limited to "I like swords", it is not as important to character recognition (which is the whole point - we are talking about character reboots, after all) as powers, clothes or names. Going back to the Link example, they could pull a prankster Link just fine, but wolf Link was not as well received. For some characters, personality is a very minor element. Going back to the supervillains example from my last post, it is quite common right now to introduce another character taking the mantle of minor villains that got killed. It's just an easy way to get the villain showing up instead of abandoning a character your audience is already familiar with. Most times, the "new" villain is the same guy with a different civilian name.
Going back to our WW discussion, I don't think Diana's personality is that big a concern with the public. Her most well known portrayals to the major public (the Linda Carter show and the JLU cartoon) feature completely different personalities. That's the big problem with WW, really - they can't figure out what is the core of her character, because her versions are too different from each other.
Modern Superman has his personality as his core character trait, that's a given. Him being so noble is as important a trait as him being able to fly (though both traits were absent when he was created, but I digress). Batman, on the other hand, has different personalities on different medias - he might be zanny and fun like in Brave & the Bold or Batman '66 or he could be dark and brooding like in the Dark Knight trilogy. Batman's core is on his background -- how that tragedy shaped him to be a crime fighter.
Diana doesn't have that crystallized a personality. None of her versions have stuck around long enough to be called the decisive version of her. She is rebooted far too often to be recognized for something other than her clothes and powers.
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2014-07-25, 01:23 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
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Re: Why so many people complain about comic books they don't read?
It's more accurate to say that they didn't really care, particularly with JLU. Diana was rather blatantly the most tacked on and obligatory teammate in the roster, since Superman had worked with Flash and A lantern in his own series(and even John was just there as a token black guy, Dini and Timm rather openly admit they didn't do as much as they could). Martian Manhunter was new to the series, but he the initial episodes were almost entirely focused on him. Hawkgirl was something they were obviously locked into, since they already showed the future justice league as having a Hawk before the show even premiered.
Wonder Woman though? Her entire intro can be summed up as "the network wouldn't greenlight this unless I'm on the roster". She's clearly not a character anyone on the staff was particularly interested about in and of herself, considering how much the staff rather clearly loved not just Batman, but managed to capture the core elements of Green Arrow right as he appeared, or by contrast, how they didn't with Hal Jordan back in STAS, using him as basically a generic lantern stand in(and using John to be the same thing, treating them as interchangable character wise to justify certain bits).
Some writers get some characters better than others. Perez managed to deliver the kind of story he did because he'd obviously read through damn near everything on the character and knew how to work it. But not every writer has that kind of time or inclination. That doesn't mean the traits suddenly stop existing, since he's nowhere near the only writer to consistently pick on the same details, before or since.
If you know what you're doing, it's not even really that hard. I can point to a dozen character's that've been reworked to hell and back and still have easy to pick out traits, and another dozen writers that've nailed it. It's just something you can't force to fill a quota, which is what usually happens either because Diana needs to be one of the token females or there's some legal reasons you have to rush a comic out.
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2014-07-25, 02:00 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2014
Re: Why so many people complain about comic books they don't read?
I think you're being unfair with JLU in general here, since both John and Diana undergo quite a bit of character development throughout the series. They just don't start with very defined personalities because they don't come from previous shows.
I'm not saying that there not personality traits that define Diana. I'm saying there are several versions of Diana with different personality traits. I understand you like the Perez take on her, but that's all it is - one take among many. That it disagrees with her most well known characterizations should be quite telling.
Actually, I remembered the Wonder Woman animated movie (from... 2009?) and I think it was based on the Perez run, wasn't it? So at least someone at DC agrees with you.