Flamingbaby

Okay, I just finished Watchmen. I was very unimpressed. I found the story to be long, drawn-out, preachy (about politics and such), and just not very entertaining. I was mildly interested in the characters which is what kept me reading. I grew to like Nite Owl, Laurie, Rorschach, and Dr. Manhattan. Their backstories had me interested in how they got into the hero business in the first place, but I was very uninterested in the "present timeline" story. I didn't even find the discovery of the person behind the conspiracy to be that interesting.

... that is until the last chapter. The comic went from not very good to pretty frackin' amazing in the last chapter. The comic actually gave the reader something to think about. Laurie said it best, "All we did was fail to stop him saving Earth." Who's morally correct? Laurie, Nite Owl, and Jon who all decided to keep quiet in the name of saving Earth? Rorschach who's uncompromising principles could have led to the end of the world for the sake of punishing evil? Were the acts truly evil since they were committed to save the world? It was a very interesting read.

I definitely wouldn't put it above Hush. Hush kept me interested in it's entirety while telling an excellent story. I wouldn't put it above DKR either. As good as Watchmen was, it was such a struggle to get to that great ending. DKR was entertaining from beginning to end with no parts that were difficult to get through. In fact, I would probably even put The Long Halloween and Dark Victory above Watchmen. I'm definitely not trying to say that Watchmen is bad. I'm definitely glad I read it. I just don't think it is the greatest comic like most critics proclaim.

I know I bought them primarily for my wife, but since she isn't reading them right now, I have started in on the Sin City graphic novels. I just finished The Hard Goodbye. I have been told by a couple of people that if I've seen the movies, I don't need to read the graphic novels (at least the ones the portrayed in the movie). This was actually a complaint about the movie. Even before reading this graphic novel, I didn't understand how this could be a complaint. How can a movie be too faithful to the comic that it is based on? After reading the graphic novel, this is still my stance.

The Hard Goodbye is the Marv/Goldie story. The comic and movie are very similar. In fact, often while reading the this story, I could almost see the movie actors on the pages before me. That's how beautifully the movie captured the spirit of the graphic novel. There are some scenes and internal dialogue from Marv that are in the comic that got cut in the movie version however, so even if you've seen the movie but haven't read the graphic novels and are convinced by the arguments that the movie is too good of a depiction of those graphic novels, this would still be reason to give them a read.

Honestly, I'm still trying to understand the complaint. Can we criticize the movie for being too faithful when we so often complain of movies not being faithful enough?

Can we criticize the movie for being too faithful when we so often complain of movies not being faithful enough? No, the more faithful the adaptation the better.

The obvious argument for not being too faithful is Tom Bombadil, but since I've never read the LoTR books I don't know if that's valid or not.

Bauh4us wrote:The obvious argument for not being too faithful is Tom Bombadil, but since I've never read the LoTR books I don't know if that's valid or not.I actually didn't mind Tom Bombadil. Plus, eliminating him also eliminated one of my favorite scenes in the first book: the Barrow-wights.

In my opinion, Sin City wasn't faithful enough. If it were, Jessica Alba would have been topless!

I've finished all seven volumes of Sin City. Very excellent setting. It makes me think of Gotham City if there were no Batman or Commissioner Gordon (although, Hartigan reminds me a lot of Gordon, and Gordan may have shared a similar fate in Sin City). I think that's what I like the most about these graphic novels. Frank Miller created a setting and tells stories within that setting. If you take the time to analyze it, most of the stories are in some way related either by characters, their interactions, or events happening throughout the city. However, the stories are entertaining on their own for those who do not wish to look deeper into the chronology of events in Basin City.

I watched the movie first, and my favorite story from the movie was That Yellow Bastard. It is a very good story and almost my favorite of all the volumes. After reading the graphic novels, I really like the Dwight McCarthy stories. I didn't realize the depth of his back story that wasn't portrayed in the movies but was in A Dame To Kill For. I hope the second Sin City movie includes that story. I also like Family Values... although it didn't really add anything to his character, it was still an excellent story that included him and Miho.

I also really like Booze, Broads, & Bullets. From what I can tell, they are a bunch of shorter stories that take place in Sin City. Very enjoyable. It seemed almost like snapshots of different events taking place throughout Basin City at different times. I think Frank Miller did an excellent job of setting up compelling scenes without explaining the entire back story for those scenes... even though it's written in a way that suggests that there are events taking place in the background that affect the very scene you're reading about. He did a very good job of not making them seem just random. An assassin was introduced in these stories that I really like... Delia. She plays a role in Hell and Back, the final volume of Sin City.

Reading Sin City was very enjoyable. I feel as if I've read them almost too fast. I think I finished them all in less than a week. In fact, I think I have read all of my comics now. I need to get back to the states and stock back up on comic reading material. I guess it's back to novels for the time being.

Superman Retcon... Bauh4us, explain yourself... if you don't mind (I read your comment on Facebook). What is going on... besides Bruce and Clark being like stepbrothers?

Well, a couple issues ago in Action Comics, Brainiac appears in a ship and is seen kidnapping cities somewhere out in the galaxy. I think OK, Brainy's got a new ship (he's also back to looking like a green alien instead of a big robot). Then Supergirl, who is apparently now (with no explanation) from the same Universe as Superman (the original Supergirl from our universe was killed by the Anti-Monitor in Crisis On Infinity Earths, the current Supergirl was, until a few issues ago, from a different universe), gets all scared and talks about how Brainiac took the bottle city of Kandor before Krypton was destroyed.

At this point I'm on board because I'm thinking she's referring to her Universes Brainiac, because Kandor has been in the Fortress of Solitude for like the last 15 years. But instead of Superman being like "Yeah, I got Kandor back at the fortress", he gets all worked up and goes to find Brainiac, because apparently HE'S NEVER HEARD OF BRAINIAC! Even though he's fought him like 20 times, even though a couple years ago comic time he turned all of Metropolis into a technological marvel for like 3 years, even though he already got Kandor from him, HE'S NEVER HEARD OF HIM!

So he goes to fight Brainiac, who now apparently is into taking cities from random planets and then destroying the planets by making their sun go nova. He beats up and kidnaps Superman, then shrinks down Metropolis and sends a probe to destroy the sun. Lois is freaking out at this point and Supes gets all badass cause Lois is threatened, beats down Brainiac and saves metropolis and Kandor. Oh, and while this is happening Pa Kent has a heart attack and dies. Kandor pops up in the artic near the fortress. So now there are like 100k kryptonians with superpowers running around earth.

During the course of this story they also allude to Supes having powers when he's very small, which contradicts the John Bryne version of events where Supes didn't develop powers till he hit puberty. In the new version he's always had his powers. This is stupid for the obvious reason that a baby that could literally punch your head off would be difficult to take care of.

From what I've been reading, some of the bigwigs at DC want to combine the Smallville origin with the actual origin to make the TV audience feel better about themselves. This pisses me off because now it seems that someone who's been watching Smallville and its retarded "Lois, Lex, Aquaman, Flash, BlackLighting, who ever the fuck else they can think of: came to/from Smallville" ongoing TV storyline now arguable knows more about the origin of Superman than I do. I'm hoping this trend kills itself when crisis resolves. Though honestly, Final Crisis is getting so convoluted it's stupid.

Currently in Final Crisis there are like 8 different Crisis storylines, couple that with Trinity, the Red Lanterns, and the RIP saga and there are like 11 storylines that theoretically effect the entire DC universe, yet they all seem to be self contained. Normally with a storyline of this magnitude (ala: Crisis on Infinity Earths, Zero Hour, Final Night, Invasion, World at War, 52, Identity Crisis, etc) all the DC books are effected in some way and the story stays relatively coherent.

But now it seems like they are just throwing stories at the wall with no thought as to how they will fit together. Hell in RIP the different Batman comics seem to be telling entirely different stories even though they are all RIP (Nightwing's lobotomized, now he's not, Batman is Zur-el-sur Batman, now he's normal.... infuriating). I'm hoping I'll have this mess sorted out by Christmas, but I think I'm going to have to have a long ass talk at the comic shop to do so.

In good comic news, Fantasy books just bought the Fantasy shop in Fairview. Freaking awesome.

...and this is why I generally avoid superhero comics.

Wow... I don't know what to say. Smallville is a good show, but to make it canon in the DC Universe... ? Also, if you watch Smallville, Lex becoming a villain is basically Clark's fault. Clark saves Lex after Lex hits him with his car as Clark is walking on a bridge, and they both fly off of the bridge into the water. Clark rescues him from the automobile insisting that Lex actually missed him. Lex and Clark become friends, but Lex KNOWS Clark is lying to him. This leads Lex to do a lot of things to discover the truth that he might not have done if Clark wouldn't have been dishonest with Lex in the first place. Also, the beginning of the JLA starts in Smallville. The thing that annoys me a bit is that all of this is going on, and Clark isn't even Superman yet. It's a good show. If you haven't seen it, you should take the time to check it out. I can see why you would be frustrated though.

Nem$$ wrote:
...and this is why I generally avoid superhero comics.If you avoid superhero comics, you miss great stories like The Dark Knight Returns, Hush, The Long Halloween, and Dark Victory... great Batman comics.

generally =/= always

Nem$$ wrote:
generally =/= alwaysTouche.

Actually, good point. I missed your qualifier.

Another reason Superman is the best, he beat the KKK IN REAL LIFE!

In other news, I finished RIP, I can give a rundown if you'd like.

Bauh4us wrote:In other news, I finished RIP, I can give a rundown if you'd like.Please! Is Bruce Wayne still Batman?

Please! Is Bruce Wayne still Batman? In a couple words, no idea. OK, so Dr. Hurt, leader of the Black Glove recruited Joker to help destroy the Batman, Joker pretends to play along, but is actually interested in screwing over the Black Glove, because if anyone is going to destroy the Bat it's going to be him. After Jezebel Jet turns on Batman in the most obvious betrayal ever (even Batman expected it) Joker turns on the Glove and jacks up a couple of them including some guy in a sombrero and clown makeup (cheap Mexican rip-off Joker), and operating on some hunchback doctor guy that's trying to lobotomize Nightwing (the hunchback dresses up as an ugly guy to do ugly things, Joker makes the ugly thing permanent).

Meanwhile, Batman in his crazy multicolored Zur-en-arrh form... is buried alive. At this point it's revealed that Batman had foreseen someone trying to break his mind like Dr. Hurt and programmed himself with a "backup human operating system", which for some reason dresses like Batman in the Technicolor dream coat.

Oh, I should also point out that after talking with Mike from Fantasy that the timeline of the stories across all Bat books does not follow the chronological order of publishing date. The main story in Batman takes place after the main story in Detective Comics. Which explains why the Batcave is wrecked by the Black Glove in Bats, but fine when Hush gets in there 4 months later in Detective. Honestly I don't even see how the Hush storyline from Detective is in any way related to the RIP storyline, it's cool, but all it really does is give us some more info about Hush and Bats relationship with Catwoman.

Back to the main deal, Batman wakes up in the coffin, with Dr. Hurt and the rest of the Glove waiting for him to wake up and dig out. They are expecting a broken zombie Batman. Joker informs them before he leaves that Batman probably wanted this all along, and basically tells them they are the crazy ones if they think a little thing like being buried alive is going to stop Batman (Joker probably knows what he's talking about here since he's tried it himself a couple times).

Back in the coffin, Bats wakes up and through thought bubbles informs the reader that there are only a finite number of ways a human can be killed, and he's prepared for all of them... This sounds a little retarded but I'll go with it for now. At this point the Glove (who is hanging out in Wayne Manor) realize that they are locked in, can't leave and maybe this "attack Batman" thing wasn't such a good idea.

Bats comes in, fucks up a bunch of them and Dr. Hurt tries to get away in a helicopter. Batman jumps on the copter and tries to take him out. This is what we've been building toward. It goes something like this (I'm paraphrasing here).

Dr. Hurt: I'm your father!
Batman: No, you're not, you're some actor guy from a movie called the Black Glove.
Dr. Hurt: Maybe I am, or maybe I'm not. Maybe I wear his skin, the shoe fits.
Me: Huh?

Then the helicopter crashes into the harbor. Next we see a picture of them searching the harbor and Nightwing holding his cowl. Somehow I doubt a helicopter crash is going to phase Batman, a pretty lame way to leave me in suspense if you ask me.

Overall, I'm pretty disappointed so far, but it's got a couple more storylines to it. Next up we have a two parter called "Last Rites", then a "What ever happened to the Caped Crusader" which sounds a lot like Alan Moore's "What ever happened to the Man of Tomorrow" storyline which was the last Superman storyline before John Byrne's retcon.

I've also heard that the "really real" ending to RIP is in Final Crisis (which doesn't make sense because Batman was kidnapped by Darkseid's minions a couple issues ago...)so we'll see how that turns out.

Jesus Christ man... this sounds pretty retarded.

Bauh4us wrote:Dr. Hurt: I'm your father!
Batman: No, you're not, you're some actor guy from a movie called the Black Glove.
Dr. Hurt: Maybe I am, or maybe I'm not. Maybe I wear his skin, the shoe fits.
Me: Huh?Excellent paraphrasing!

It really does sound fucked up. I do like the idea of the Joker fucking over those who are trying to destroy Batman. That's exactly the type of thing I can imagine the Joker doing. If anyone is to destroy Batman, Joker has the mentality that it is going to be him. I also have the interpretation from the comics I've read that the Joker doesn't want Batman destroyed... broken, beaten, his life turned upside-down and inside-out, but not destroyed. However, my interpretation is from a select few comics.

Let me know if you read the conclusion to this RIP storyline. It almost sounds as if the writers realize that getting rid of Bruce Wayne would be a horrible idea, so nothing permanent will be changed... unless that's wishful thinking on my part.

Also, how is the Superman retcon going? Has much been changed in Clark's world? I know you said that Lois might turn her back on him. Also, anymore connections between Clark and Bruce... you know, being stepbrothers and all?

I went back and reread