We had that Infinite Crisis thread for a while, but I figured that creating a new more general comics thread would be nice, especially since I had a few things to say.
First of all, the new Flash sucks. They can Wally West because they claim that he's getting stale and then proceed to basically turn Bart INTO Wally. At this point, any resemblence to the Bart that was fresh and new as Impulse is gone. Impulse was a great character; I mean he was basically an infant with superspeed. He had no impulse control and was pure id.
Impulse the book used this to great effect, like that early issue where he tries to make friends and proceeds to **** everyone in school off to the point that they all gather at the football field to beat him up and a melee ensues. It was funny.
Now Bart is magically 20 (thanks Superboy Prime!), he's all responsible (thanks Teen Titans!), and he's basically a little surly and emo. Even with his new haircut he looks a little like Wally West. Plus, part of why I liked Flash was the giant cast and the mythology of it all, but they've managed to ditch pretty much everyone.
About the only thing the first two issues accomplished is to show that SOMEHOW Bart has been hiding that he's still connected to the Speed Force for a year, and that it's now this evil thing that is trying to kill him or something. I have no idea. They've basically complicated it to the point of ridiculousness.
Moving on to slightly brighter issues, 52 is chugging along. It's a nice read so far, but it's not blowing me away. The History of the DCU was a total failure, though. It didn't clarify ANYTHING. It basically said "All this stuff happened, but we're not going to explain the contridictions at all. Like how the Eradicator still exists." At least it's now over. As I understand it, we're now going to have individual hero profiles, but I'm not expecting much.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the industry, Marvel is blowing me away. Have you people been reading Civil War? That is a great read. The core mini-series makes sense even if you haven't read anything else (pretty much), but it does a nice job making you want to read some of the other stuff just to get people's individual perspectives. The one downside I'm seeing in the core is that Cap's side hasn't gotten enough insight, IMO. He just kind of swoops in and does his thing.
As for Frontline...that is the gem of the whole thing, IMO. Excepting the lame CIVIL WAR=VARIOUS WARS IN OUR PAST crap, the Embedded and Speedball stories are WONDERFUL. That's how you do tie-in minis, DC. Give us the insight of the common person who's on the sidelines. Slow things down a little, and show us the essential moral conflict. Plus, the whole Speedball thing is very interesting in developing him as a character and trying to see how someone in that position would actually feel and act.
I've also been liking what's been going on in Spider-man. The new issue of Amazing does a great job of getting into Peter's head as you can see him grapple with the moral ramifications of his decisions. The head to head with Cap was great.
So anyone else got any thoughts?
First of all, the new Flash sucks. They can Wally West because they claim that he's getting stale and then proceed to basically turn Bart INTO Wally. At this point, any resemblence to the Bart that was fresh and new as Impulse is gone. Impulse was a great character; I mean he was basically an infant with superspeed. He had no impulse control and was pure id.
Impulse the book used this to great effect, like that early issue where he tries to make friends and proceeds to **** everyone in school off to the point that they all gather at the football field to beat him up and a melee ensues. It was funny.
Now Bart is magically 20 (thanks Superboy Prime!), he's all responsible (thanks Teen Titans!), and he's basically a little surly and emo. Even with his new haircut he looks a little like Wally West. Plus, part of why I liked Flash was the giant cast and the mythology of it all, but they've managed to ditch pretty much everyone.
About the only thing the first two issues accomplished is to show that SOMEHOW Bart has been hiding that he's still connected to the Speed Force for a year, and that it's now this evil thing that is trying to kill him or something. I have no idea. They've basically complicated it to the point of ridiculousness.
Moving on to slightly brighter issues, 52 is chugging along. It's a nice read so far, but it's not blowing me away. The History of the DCU was a total failure, though. It didn't clarify ANYTHING. It basically said "All this stuff happened, but we're not going to explain the contridictions at all. Like how the Eradicator still exists." At least it's now over. As I understand it, we're now going to have individual hero profiles, but I'm not expecting much.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the industry, Marvel is blowing me away. Have you people been reading Civil War? That is a great read. The core mini-series makes sense even if you haven't read anything else (pretty much), but it does a nice job making you want to read some of the other stuff just to get people's individual perspectives. The one downside I'm seeing in the core is that Cap's side hasn't gotten enough insight, IMO. He just kind of swoops in and does his thing.
As for Frontline...that is the gem of the whole thing, IMO. Excepting the lame CIVIL WAR=VARIOUS WARS IN OUR PAST crap, the Embedded and Speedball stories are WONDERFUL. That's how you do tie-in minis, DC. Give us the insight of the common person who's on the sidelines. Slow things down a little, and show us the essential moral conflict. Plus, the whole Speedball thing is very interesting in developing him as a character and trying to see how someone in that position would actually feel and act.
I've also been liking what's been going on in Spider-man. The new issue of Amazing does a great job of getting into Peter's head as you can see him grapple with the moral ramifications of his decisions. The head to head with Cap was great.
So anyone else got any thoughts?
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