DCU : The Original Universe

[anarky]

Man, they killed a pretty important character in Final Crisis #1. And, from all accounts, it's done as a throwaway.

This is a character who cannot be replaced. He has no sidekick, no protege, hell, really no friends in the true sense of the word.

And, with his powers and origin, he was the one hero I always believed could've (and should've) had an ongoing title that would be one of the best, most popular titles on the market today... if they ever did the fucking thing right. TV incarnations have made him cool. Comics never made him anything but a big green doofus.

Wait, I just spoiled who it was, didn't I?

Yup. The last of his species, which died out centuries ago otherwise. Trapped on an alien planet (ours), forced to use his shapeshifting powers to blend in. Gifted with phasing, telepathic, and shapeshifting abilities, and pretty damned strong, too. Much smarter than he is strong, though. Makes his living as a police detective, using his powers and mind to solve crimes.

Yeah, that's a fucking load of bullshit right there. No one could ever make that character interesting, could they?

I'd better forget I ever watched Justice League or Justice League: The New Frontier when I say that, because J'onn J'onz was a fucking badass in both of those.

I raise a glass of the bile spewed by Dan Didio's cold, black heart in honor of thee, Manhunter.

[Rollo Tomassi]

What's going on in the DCU?

All New Atom got canceled.

Batman is confusing the shit out of me. Grant Morrison is whacked out on something. Detective is alright. Apparently Spoiler never really died during WarGames and showed up back in Robin ( thus negating the wonderful story arc where Leslie Tompkins leaves Gotham.) Nightwing is now making NYC safe. Catwoman is getting canceled with issue 82. Chuck Dixon got fired off of Robin and Nightwing unexpectedly.

Birds of Prey welcomes the return of Gail Simone writing. McKeever isnt very good.

Blue Beetle is one of the best books nobody is reading. Seriously.

Booster Gold is great too. But now Geoff Johns is gone, so it will probably suffer.

Checkmate is surprisingly good. Amanda Waller is a bitch.

Countdown sucked major eggs.

Final Crisis is brilliant but also confusing thanks to Grant Morrison.

Flash is kinda retarded as it has morphed into Flash family with him lugging his annoying children around with him all the time.

Green Arrow is a good read. What happened to Connor was awful. Go find a cheap back issue of Green Arrow/Black Canary #4 for an awesome single issue read.

Green Lantern is fucking amazing. Green lantern Corps is alright, but nothing to crow about.

JLA has had too many fill in and crossover and tie in stories, so its been weak lately, but the latest issue finally got back into the Red Tornado/Amazo storyline and that rocked.

JSA has waaaay too many characters.

The New Gods are all dead. New Genesis and Apokalips are one planet now.

Shadowpact was pretty decent, thanks to Detective Chimp, but it got canceled too.

Secret Six ongoing! Huzzah! Bane joins the team! I'm excited!

I STILL haven't started on that Superman run, so I have no idea whats going on.

Teen Titans has slipped into suckage territory. Oh, thats because its McKeever again. Titans regrettably unearthed that sad and tired Trigon for its first story arc.

Wonder Woman. As unimportant as ever. Although seeing Mark Bagley doing a weekly book at DC is interesting.

[vynsane]

The New Gods are all dead. New Genesis and Apokalips are one planet now.

what do they call it? 'new genapokasiselips'? or maybe just 'planet christopher'?

man, you really hate sean mckeever, huh? i thought his 'spider-man loves mary jane' was cute, though i'm more interested in terry moore's (strangers in paradise) mini-series follow-up.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I've liked McKeever in the past, but his Teen Titans is just awful. And I haven't read all of his BOP run, but he's no Gail Simone.

[Rollo Tomassi]

J Mike Straczynski takes over writing chores on Wonder Woman 600 by
1. throwing out her entire history
2. throwing out her supporting characters
3. throwing out her villains
4. tossing her Iconic Costume in favor of a Jim Lee creation





I smell failure.

[Diabolical]

J Mike Straczynski takes over writing chores on Wonder Woman 600 by
1. throwing out her entire history
2. throwing out her supporting characters
3. throwing out her villains
4. tossing her Iconic Costume in favor of a Jim Lee creation





I smell failure.

So, basically he's not writing Wonder Woman.

[anarky]

I smelled failure when you said "Wonder Woman."

[Rollo Tomassi]

Well, I won't disparage until I actually read the story, but there seems to be a level of double standard when DC (or even Marvel) hires a "name" writer and they just come in and tank all the continuity in favor of starting fresh. Hell, ANYONE can do THAT.

Grant Morrison comes and say "I want to KILL Batman!" and DC trips over themselves to stuff his dick in their mouth.

Dwayne McDuffie suffers all kinds of editorial mandates on JLA to the point he can't conceive of a decent storyline because they strangulate him with restrictions on big name characters like Bats and Supes, but then James Robinson signs on and is given carte blanche. And honestly, Robinson is overrated. For some reason he gets a handjob from fans, but I've read some of his stuff and its pretty mediocre.

And now JMS signs on Wonder Woman and its the same thing.

I'm pretty sure if some "lesser" writer went to DC and pitched total reboots and killing off of DC's Holy "Trinity" they would get a firm NO! Hell NO!

And I realize that after 70 years its tough to come up with fresh takes on a character, and WW has been losing readers steadily for months (and years) so something needs to be shook up, but a writer of JMS' alleged caliber should be able to write something without completely wiping the whiteboard clean except for the name.

We'll see.

[anarky]

I'll disparage Wonder Woman sight unseen. She's lame as hell. When your main powers are a lasso that makes people tell the truth and a plane that's invisible, but doesn't make the pilot invisible, you're just retarded.

I read an interesting observation about DC's "trinity" once. Don't recall who said it. The gyst was that Batman and Superman are timeless; Batman's parents could've been killed in 1927 or in 2010; Superman's spaceship could've crashed at any time... and, in about 20-30 years time, those two guys will be Batman and Superman. Maybe some minor changes to their civilian jobs or Batman's tech, but they're always Batman and Superman.

By contrast, Wonder Woman is a ridiculous 1940's (male) psychiatrist's vision of feminism by way of S&M. She's been outdated for decades, but no one wants to admit it.

Lame as the Jim Lee costume is (could be interchanged with any of the female X-Men costumes he designed), it's less archaic than the iconic version.

And, for the record, the Justice League cartoon was the only time in history when WW wasn't lame. Drop the lame origin, drop the plane, downplay the lasso, and turn her into something of a psycho bitch from a warlike tribe (yet not the same psycho bitch from a warlike alien race that Hawkgirl was), with essentially Superman's powers minus the super vision. It worked. No other Wonder Woman in history has.

[Rollo Tomassi]

In the 'what the FUCK' dept. DC has just named Bob Harras as their new Editor in Chief.

You may or may not know, Harras was the X-editor that launched the successful Jim Lee X-Men series. He also drove Claremont away from the franchise after 17 years with his heavy handed editorial mandates. And then he eventually became Marvel's EiC from 95 to 2000 where he was responsible for the SpiderClone saga, Onslaught, Heroes Reborn and most of the most creatively bankrupt era in Marvel's history. They nearly went bankrupt on his watch.

I'm so shocked at DC's choice I don't even have a clever quip.

[anarky]

They did go bankrupt on his watch. Not out of business, but I recall clearly that they filed for bankruptcy.

(Okay, that could've been on DeFalco's watch, but I'm fairly sure it was HairAss's.)

[anarky]

Lee and Johns promoted to joint publishers. Wildstorm and Zuda gone (not that Zuda seems to be a huge loss). Harras promoted to EIC despite a shoddy history, a day before Vertigo starts slashing.

This will not end well.

[Rollo Tomassi]

And let us not forget the ongoing legal circus surrounding Superman.

[anarky]

Honest to God, they'd be better off dropping all the Superman legal bullshit with an agreement that seems to be totally in favor of the families. "We'll give you a hefty payoff and 75% of all profit we receive from anything involving Superman. And we won't pull some bullshit move like releasing action figures under a name like 'Really Strong Guy in a Blue Suit with an S on his chest' to get around this agreement. In exchange, we maintain trademark and all control of the character." How simple is that?

It annoys me to no end that the typical corporate mindset, particularly within the entertainment industries as a whole, is "We'd rather have 0% of everything than a smaller percent of something huge if it means sharing. Fuck you." This is the bullshit reason why the 1960s Batman TV show still has never been released on home video.

[Rollo Tomassi]

If I was WB I'd throw this offer on the table. "If asshat Mark Toberoff recuses himself and everyone agrees he doesn't get a single goddamn cent, not even the fucking gumwrappers off the floor in the courthouse, we'll do a 50/50 split with you guys. Fuck that ambulance chaser. Fuck him right in his skull."