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I just picked up the first four issues of Gotham Academy and it's great. I love that Batman is the only franchise within Marvel or DC that has a world built so well that you can have so many stories take place within Gotham that are only tangibly related to Batman. Bruce Wayne has shown up, but other than some post trauma, Batman hasn't shown up at all.
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Feb 7, 2015 20:52
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Finally caught up on Batman and Eternal. Endgame is pretty poo poo, honestly. I guess it's cool that Joker has a face again but it's pretty much the same horror movie vibe as DotF except instead of Jason Vorhees it's Night of the Living Dead. It's also nearly impossible to buy Batman and Joker as this ultimate adversarial pair, locked in a death spiral, when how many times have they possibly gone head to head in the four years Batman has even existed? Even putting aside the "big twist" because it will undoubtedly not resolve anything, Joker will be presumed dead at the end, and they will go right back to never knowing for sure whether it was true or not, blah blah blah. I don't think Snyder waited long enough between his big epic Joker stories. There should have maybe been a few more low-stakes, one or two issue Joker adventures somewhere in there. Eternal has some good stuff in it. I really wasn't expecting a Gates of Gotham reference though it's pretty obvious they're going to hit every single Batman rogue in some way before the end of it. I like how they've handled Stephanie even though making her mom villainous is kind of a poo poo move considering the old continuity. Stephanie and Selena is going to be a pretty interesting story I feel like.
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Feb 7, 2015 22:40
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Travis343 posted:they will go right back to never knowing for sure whether it was true or not, blah blah blah. I hope so. I think it'd be best and most fitting to end with basically no resolution, knowing entirely less about him than they ever did. Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Feb 7, 2015 |
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Feb 7, 2015 23:54
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Yeah maybe I didnt phrase that well, I think it's a bad idea to ever explicitly nail down the Joker's origin, that was one of the few things I didn't enjoy about Zero Year, but when they make such a ludicrous, potentially game-changing reveal like the one in Endgame it makes me roll my eyes because I know it's not going to matter one way or the other.
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Feb 8, 2015 00:10
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I think the backups with various ludicrous Joker histories being retold by lunatics really points to the point. e: The guy giving the eternal meteorite story is just another lunatic Joker took into confidence and the miraculous live forever juice he got from him was a trick. Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Feb 8, 2015 |
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Feb 8, 2015 00:15
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radlum posted:So Croc is not her father? I haven't read Arkham Manor and I had no idea both books were connected. I just thought Croc being there meant he was her father, I guess I was wrong.
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Feb 8, 2015 01:29
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Did no one seem to think it was weird that Killer Croc had a bunch of peepholes in everyone's rooms?
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Feb 8, 2015 01:53
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Flameingblack posted:Did no one seem to think it was weird that Killer Croc had a bunch of peepholes in everyone's rooms? I don't think Croc built the tunnels, silly.
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Feb 8, 2015 01:58
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While the idea of Joker subverting Batman's Superstitious Cowardly Lot ethos, I'm a little sick of the Joker: Super Genius that has been at play since DotF. A whole lot of misdirection and badly written bullshit came out of that bloated mess.
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Feb 8, 2015 09:28
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Death of the Family was bad and I didn't like it at all, but this arc has been pretty good.
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Feb 8, 2015 16:53
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Joker: super genius has been around for a long time. I agree it's tiresome though.
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Feb 8, 2015 18:05
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I think part of the problem is that Batman has been so pumped up over the years to stand next to gods and supermen that the Joker has to be escalated alongside him to still be seen as his archenemy. When Batman is so hyper-competent and prepared that he has red son gauntlets at the ready to fight Superman or armor to let him go to Apokolips and take on Darkseid solo, a serial killer clown is no longer any kind of threat. It's one of the problems DC has with balancing street level Batman and Justice League Batman. It's one of the reasons that Marvel generally tries to keep street level guys like Daredevil and Punisher away from The Avengers. When you're fighting gods and alien superbeings it seems odd to be back to fighting the mob and beating up purse snatchers the next issue.
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Feb 8, 2015 18:41
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I disagree only because the same thing didn't happen to the Riddler or Two-Face or Penguin. If anything, those characters have been rendered less threatening over the years. I think the broader issue is that Batman and Joker's relationship has evolved into the pure distillation of the core conflict in superhero comics. The Killing Joke really pushed the idea, and The Dark Knight cemented it in the public's consciousness. Batman is optimism and the Joker is nihilism. And you can tell good stories within that framework. I think The Dark Knight works for me because that pure distillation of optimism nihilism hadn't been translated to film. It also works because the Nolans and Ledgers kept the Joker clever. He wasn't going to break Gotham through mass killings. He was going to break Gotham by forcing normal citizens to commit murder as they watch their chance at salvation turn into a monster just like him. I find the idea of Joker being the thing Batman is afraid of an interesting one, and Snyder does a lot better with it in Endgame than he did in DotF. Still, Joker has reached this point where he transcended gimmicks and I feel like that's given less shape to the character allowing writers to go to crazy lengths with him because being an evil clown or a comedian who tells jokes through crime has become secondary to his relationship with Batman and being a street level Darkseid.
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Feb 8, 2015 19:21
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I'm not sure I can think of the current Batman as optimistic versus nihilism as much as justice at all costs versus chaos. Optimistic Batman wouldn't constantly be spurning his family and friends to crawl deeper into the grim dark. How many times since the Dark Knight Returns has Batman punched out Dick or belittled Barbara and her team or just straight up sulked his way through a crisis? if you want to frame Batman as optimism you'll have to go to the Animated Series version. Even towards the end of Justice League Unlimited where he was angling towards what he is now he still had a lot of compassion for the world at large. And I still find the idea of red sun boxing gloves hysterically mary sue.
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Feb 8, 2015 20:01
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Batman is the biggest mary sue in the history of fiction. I say this as a huge Batman fan. And DC absolutely has tried to ramp up the other Bat-villains to be more threatening, wasn't there a story where Mad Hatter made a bunch of people drown themselves for no real reason other than "whoa look at this BAD GUY"? But rather than making them omniscient in the case of Joker it just results in a constant grimdark arms race to see who can rack up the most dead civilians before Batman kicks their teeth in.
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Feb 8, 2015 20:18
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Travis343 posted:wasn't there a story where Mad Hatter made a bunch of people drown themselves for no real reason other than "whoa look at this BAD GUY"? That was in Batman: The Dark Knight, written by master author David Finch IIRC. The silver lining is I think B:TDK was just a out-of-continuity book DC gave Finch so he could draw pretty pictures and come up with Character Find Of The Year 2013 One-Face, so that doesn't "count".
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Feb 8, 2015 20:45
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Trast posted:I'm not sure I can think of the current Batman as optimistic versus nihilism as much as justice at all costs versus chaos. Optimistic Batman wouldn't constantly be spurning his family and friends to crawl deeper into the grim dark. How many times since the Dark Knight Returns has Batman punched out Dick or belittled Barbara and her team or just straight up sulked his way through a crisis? if you want to frame Batman as optimism you'll have to go to the Animated Series version. Even towards the end of Justice League Unlimited where he was angling towards what he is now he still had a lot of compassion for the world at large.
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Feb 9, 2015 01:39
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Was Taters posted:Joker: super genius has been around for a long time. I agree it's tiresome though. Azarello and Nolan's Joker was a good mastermind type, using his apparent Insanity as a cover... But DotF was like Joker had cheat sheets to everything.
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Feb 9, 2015 03:00
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Wait am I missing something or is Batman 66 getting killed off? I don't see it in the returning comics.
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Feb 9, 2015 03:58
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Cabinet posted:Wait am I missing something or is Batman 66 getting killed off? I don't see it in the returning comics.
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Feb 9, 2015 04:26
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Phew. I was worried that the best Batman book ever was getting killed off.
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Feb 9, 2015 04:37
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FilthyImp posted:Joker as a master planner has been tossed around as an alternative to Whacky Fun Chaosmaster Joker, but DotF took it to ridiculous levels with the Implication that he had sneaked into the Bat cave, knew what Bruce, Dick, and Babs had been doing for ages, gave the Batmobile a tuneup, and could predict exactly where everyone would be.
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Feb 9, 2015 04:58
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redbackground posted:Bruce going to meet the Joker AS BRUCE and doing nothing to hide his appearance probably didn't help, either. God, that was stupid. But he actually seems surprised in Endgame when Joker knows who he is.
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Feb 9, 2015 05:05
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Doctor Spaceman posted:There's some optimism in Zero Year, especially with his public speeches as Bruce Wayne. I guess you could argue that it's an origin story and he's moved on since then though. I love that one page (I think from Zero Year) that's "What do you love about this city, Bruce?" with all those little snapshots of daily life around Gotham. That's since grounded the city and his devotion to it/optimism about it for me.
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Feb 9, 2015 12:31
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Yeah, that was good. One of the things I enjoyed in Zero Year was Snyder's efforts to distinguish modern Gotham from Miller's analogue to 1970s / 1980s crime-ridden New York, and the optimism played into that.
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Feb 10, 2015 01:07
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 Doyle, Snyder, Black Canary artist Annie Wu and the Batgirl and Gotham Academy teams.I like the idea that their editor can't frown.
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Feb 10, 2015 02:41
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Something about Doyle's dorky smile while everyone is trying to be all scowly is so adorable 
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Feb 10, 2015 02:45
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Wu's the only one that looks actually badass.
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Feb 10, 2015 02:49
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Gaz-L posted:Wu's the only one that looks actually badass. She's just doing Blue Steel.
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Feb 10, 2015 10:21
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Teenage Fansub posted:
Man Doyle making to move to Burbank really was the best thing to happen to DC in years.
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Feb 10, 2015 10:24
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So Hush is not responsible for the poo poo in Eternal, and the person behind it was pretty obvious in retrospect.
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Feb 12, 2015 00:30
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bobkatt013 posted:So Hush is not responsible for the poo poo in Eternal, and the person behind it was pretty obvious in retrospect.
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Feb 12, 2015 00:44
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bobkatt013 posted:So Hush is not responsible for the poo poo in Eternal, and the person behind it was pretty obvious in retrospect. Hush was beat, going "oh man you don't know whats coming!" a while ago. Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 00:49
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Was it Riddler again? Because I kind of wish every Hush story ever ended with Riddler.
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Feb 12, 2015 01:22
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HitTheTargets posted:Was it Riddler again? Because I kind of wish every Hush story ever ended with Riddler. Supposedly the big bad is Ra's now. I don't buy it because it kind of makes things with Robin Rises a little screwy.
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Feb 12, 2015 01:40
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I hope Eternal keeps going long enough that it starts looping back around to the villains they've already been through. Like in six months, holy poo poo, it really was Hush! A week later, no wait, it's the Riddler! The real mastermind was Crazy Quilt all along
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Feb 12, 2015 01:42
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lotus circle posted:No. They aren't already? You'll make your head explode trying to figure out where 'Batman and Robin' fits between Eternal and Endgame. Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 01:45
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Teenage Fansub posted:They aren't already? You'll make your head explode trying to figure out where 'Batman and Robin' fits between Eternal and Endgame.
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Feb 12, 2015 02:04
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lotus circle posted:I doubt it's him. Probably another fake-out. It is always another fake-out and I can not fathom how in the world the same Scott Snyder who writes Batman that I enjoy is writing this crap. Is there maybe another Scott Snyder who writes comics out there? Evil twin? CLONE? I mean this is comics, anything is possible. But seriously if anyone thinks immortal Joker over in Endgame is a bullshit story, they really need to go pick up Eternal and read the story of how
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Feb 12, 2015 05:40
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It's going to be Talia Al Ghul at the end. They haven't brought her back into play yet and didn't the first issue open with a shirtless Batman chained up somewhere?
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Feb 12, 2015 06:02
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