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It always needs posting.Alan Moore posted:So actually, sort of, Rorschach became the most popular character in Watchmen. I meant him to be a bad example, but I have people come up to me in the street saying, ‘I am Rorschach! That is my story!’ And I’ll be thinking, ‘Yeah, great, can you just keep away from me and never come anywhere near me again for as long as I live?’”
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Dec 28, 2015 04:56
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Ozymandias is the best. Someone must cut the Gordian knot.
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Dec 28, 2015 04:58
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Xand_Man posted:It always needs posting. i like him as an interesting character, because he is kinda of tragic character seeing how hosed he was from the start and how he ends up becoming why he is. but role model no.
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Dec 28, 2015 05:13
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Dapper_Swindler posted:i like him as an interesting character, because he is kinda of tragic character seeing how hosed he was from the start and how he ends up becoming why he is. but role model no. The only proper way to like Rorschach, honestly. I'm inclined to like Alan Moore, even if he did set off the dark age of comics thanks to being depressed during the 80s. (  And who the hell wouldn't be depressed by the double whammie of Marget Thatcher and Ronald Regan?)
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Dec 28, 2015 06:18
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Is there a reason why people keep misspelling Reagan? Is there a joke I'm missing or something? Also Alan Moore is Literally The Best Comic Book Writer Ever. And yes I hate Rorschach. I have a relatively close friend who loves Rorschach and I need to send him that quote sometime. My sister used to like him too "for sticking up for what he believes in and not caving in" and then I explained to her that Rorschach is the example of what happens when you take "fighting super villains" to its logical extreme and combine it with sociopathy. She didn't like that at all but she's come around to understanding why Rorschach is a bad example.
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Dec 28, 2015 06:31
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Rorschach deserved to be turned into a fine mist. loving punk couldn't get with the program.
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Dec 28, 2015 06:41
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Being a violent psychopath is considered a positive quality as long as your aggression is against the correct people. There's really not much ideological difference between Rorschach and Chris Kyle.
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Dec 28, 2015 06:42
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mr. mephistopheles posted:Being a violent psychopath is considered a positive quality as long as your aggression is against the correct people. Yeah that's basically it. Good Guys (TM) in white hats righteously murdering Bad Guys (TM) in black hats with no remorse because the Bad Guys (TM) always deserve it.
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Dec 28, 2015 06:45
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Elephant Ambush posted:Also Alan Moore is Literally The Best Comic Book Writer Ever. This is true in that Moore is the best example of a comic book writer, whose likeness belongs in some future museum reminding children of a more enlightened age how far they've come.
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Dec 28, 2015 06:45
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Rorschach kind of came around in the end when he tried to get back to New York to expose Ozymandias's hosed up plan, but because he was a right-wing lunatic, he would have gone to the shitrag that he left his journal to.
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Dec 28, 2015 06:46
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poo poo, has Frank Miller come up in this thread yet? He's easily the rightest-wing voice in mainstream comics. Dark Knight Returns is basically his love-later to the Great Man theory of history, and his outrage at OWS is legendary...
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Dec 28, 2015 06:56
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Elephant Ambush posted:Yeah that's basically it. The only thing stopping a Good Guy with an electrified toilet is a Bad Guy with an electrified toilet. moths posted:poo poo, has Frank Miller come up in this thread yet? He's easily the rightest-wing voice in mainstream comics. Dark Knight Returns is basically his love-later to the Great Man theory of history, and his outrage at OWS is legendary... Probably. DKR is actually one of his better works- it wasn't until the late nineties that he went insane and started writing poo poo like Holy Terror.
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Dec 28, 2015 07:06
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DKR is fascist as gently caress.
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Dec 28, 2015 07:08
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Seriously, DKR's TL;DR is that everybody but Reagan and Batman are mindless sheeple in constant need of warcrimes and throat punches from Daddies Who Know Best.
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Dec 28, 2015 07:14
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People notoriously back the wrong person and it's kind of interesting to watch them do it. They cheer for Walter White, while ignoring that he set up an old man to suicide bomb a nursing home to kill his rival. they cheer for Rorschach while ignoring the people he murders and the fact that unbending ideology isn't exactly a good thing. I mean, I think Punisher is a fun character, but I also recognize he's a psychopath. There's a scene in Civil War where Captain America (who he idolizes) kicks him out of their team because he instantly murdered two villains who were helping them out and didn't see why everyone was upset. Like, that's funny, but it's certainly not something to aspire to. It's also fun to hear people complain about Skylar being annoying on Breaking Bad. The complaint always boils down to her getting in Walt's way. How dare a woman care about herself and her son while her husband is becoming a murderous drug kingpin? Push El Burrito fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Dec 28, 2015 |
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Dec 28, 2015 07:51
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BUBBA GAY DUDLEY posted:People notoriously back the wrong person and it's kind of interesting to watch them do it. They cheer for Walter White, while ignoring that he set up an old man to suicide bomb a nursing home to kill his rival. they cheer for Rorschach while ignoring the people he murders and the fact that unbending ideology isn't exactly a good thing. I mean, I think Punisher is a fun character, but I also recognize he's a psychopath. There's a scene in Civil War where Captain America (who he idolizes) kicks him out of their team because he instantly murdered two villains who were helping them out and didn't see why everyone was upset. Like, that's funny, but it's certainly not something to aspire to. A good barometer for people when it comes to stuff like this and Breaking Bad is to see how they feel about Walter turning down the job offer and healthcare coverage from his rich friend. I've seen a lot of people defend him not wanting to take "the hand out", while unironically finding his murderous actions after that point cool. With regards to Civil War, the movie trailer has me a bit worried. In the comics, Cap was pretty clearly the good guy, and there wasn't really much that was debatable about his stance. The trailer terrifies me because his stance seems vaguely Libertarian from the few seconds of dialog we get. I wouldn't really ever classify Cap as a right winger (at least from my knowledge) and it would be sad to seem his movie version slide into that dumb poo poo. If anything Stark should be the one spouting right winged BS. Wasn't there a write up somewhere about Iron Man 2 being a libertarian fantasy?
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Dec 28, 2015 08:13
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ToastyPotato posted:A good barometer for people when it comes to stuff like this and Breaking Bad is to see how they feel about Walter turning down the job offer and healthcare coverage from his rich friend. I've seen a lot of people defend him not wanting to take "the hand out", while unironically finding his murderous actions after that point cool. There was a captain america in 1953 for a while who was a different character and a communist-fighting conservative but otherwise he's been pretty patriotic liberal I think. I'm not well versed in comics but apparently they retroactively (in the 60s) made that guy a different dude than the regular cap to explain why he was so radically different politically and philosophically
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Dec 28, 2015 08:35
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Aesop Poprock posted:There was a captain america in 1953 for a while who was a different character and a communist-fighting conservative but otherwise he's been pretty patriotic liberal I think. I'm not well versed in comics but apparently they retroactively (in the 60s) made that guy a different dude than the regular cap to explain why he was so radically different politically and philosophically Yeah, during the 50s Captain America was basically a McCarthyist anti-communist and his comics at the time were subtitled Commie Smasher  The sales were fairly disappointing (if I recall this coincided with a moral panic over comicbooks) and so this series didn't last long. Later when Captain America joined main Marvel continuity, they ignored the 50s Captain until the late 70s, when they revealed that the 50s Captain was actually a dude who was so obsessed with Steve Rogers he changed his name to Steve Rogers and enlisted in the same program that created the first Captain. However, he didn't get the complete treatment and the serum turned him paranoid and psychotic, making him into the racist imperialist Captain America of the 50s, and later he started calling himself the Grand Director... and dressed like this  This has been useless semi-political comics trivia.
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Dec 28, 2015 08:58
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I don't get it. Is he a bad guy? This comic is too subtle for me.
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Dec 28, 2015 09:17
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Dr. Killjoy posted:I don't get it. Is he a bad guy? This comic is too subtle for me.  Leaning towards "misunderstood anti-hero" maybe? I think he's a proud American patriot who just has some misgivings about unlimited illegal immigration.
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Dec 28, 2015 09:25
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BUBBA GAY DUDLEY posted:People notoriously back the wrong person and it's kind of interesting to watch them do it. They cheer for Walter White, while ignoring that he set up an old man to suicide bomb a nursing home to kill his rival. Uh, not saying Walt's an angel or anything, but I think you could have used better examples to make the same point (like poisoning that chunky Hispanic kid). The old guy was a former gang leader who, like the rival he wanted dead, was trying to kill Walt. I think in this particular case, Walt's actions were justified.
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Dec 28, 2015 10:09
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ToastyPotato posted:A good barometer for people when it comes to stuff like this and Breaking Bad is to see how they feel about Walter turning down the job offer and healthcare coverage from his rich friend. I've seen a lot of people defend him not wanting to take "the hand out", while unironically finding his murderous actions after that point cool.
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Dec 28, 2015 10:48
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ToastyPotato posted:A good barometer for people when it comes to stuff like this and Breaking Bad is to see how they feel about Walter turning down the job offer and healthcare coverage from his rich friend. I've seen a lot of people defend him not wanting to take "the hand out", while unironically finding his murderous actions after that point cool. I'm pretty sure the intent with Civil War the comic was for you to side with Iron Man's side according to one of the writers. Civil War was just really poorly done.
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Dec 28, 2015 11:39
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My takeaway was that the show was about a man who should have died and every day he lives the lives of the people around him get worse. You know, like the title. The problem with civil war was in the main book it was supposed to be a grey area who is right and who is wrong, but in the spin offs various writers made iron man look like a dick.
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Dec 28, 2015 11:39
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BUBBA GAY DUDLEY posted:People notoriously back the wrong person and it's kind of interesting to watch them do it. They cheer for Walter White, while ignoring that he set up an old man to suicide bomb a nursing home to kill his rival. they cheer for Rorschach while ignoring the people he murders and the fact that unbending ideology isn't exactly a good thing. I mean, I think Punisher is a fun character, but I also recognize he's a psychopath. There's a scene in Civil War where Captain America (who he idolizes) kicks him out of their team because he instantly murdered two villains who were helping them out and didn't see why everyone was upset. Like, that's funny, but it's certainly not something to aspire to. At the beginning of Breaking Bad you were kind of supposed to cheer for him. He was just a regular guy who got put in a lovely situation and dealt with it the only way he could find. Kind of the point of the show was that he quit being the good guy and progressed into being a bad guy. There wasn't a clear point where a ridiculous mustache and a top hat appeared on him and he said "yup, I'm evil now" he just kind of drifted into bad land. On one hand you were supposed to still feel sympathy for him but on the other hand you were supposed to really start to not like him anymore. The whole story is pretty tragic but really by the end you weren't supposed to be pulling for Walter anymore.
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Dec 28, 2015 11:41
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I'm still somewhat- personally- convinced that most of the reason people root for Walter is that he's the main character and if it had been focused on Skylar's perspective, people would've been more on her side.
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Dec 28, 2015 12:07
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I think the problem that some media and comic books specifically fall into is that the villains are so absurdly over the top, that these lovely murderous heroes look good because that's almost the only way to deal with them. Like the Joker is a mass murderer on a ridiculous scale and there's no real person on Earth that's like that and also able to just walk through the system and constantly kill innocent people in gruesome ways. Even the lower tier comic villains have usually killed more people than your average criminal and the comic book legal system is hilariously unable to deal with it. When you write a comic about a guy that finally snaps when he tracks down a dude that murdered a little girl (and probably did something bad to her beforehand) and fed her body to a dog it's hard to not make him look heroic. I got the message of Watchman but I don't think Moore should be that surprised about the reception of that character. If anything he should have predicted that readers would like fascist characters when the situation is a horrible dystopia where criminals are able to kill with impunity and the best scenario in order to stop nuclear war is to kill New York City. Look how popular Trump is and how little that took for people to gravitate to him.moths posted:Seriously, DKR's TL;DR is that everybody but Reagan and Batman are mindless sheeple in constant need of warcrimes and throat punches from Daddies Who Know Best. I kept hearing how great DKR was so I flipped through it in a store and thought wtf this is ridiculous.
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Dec 28, 2015 12:33
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Rubber bullets. Honest.
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Dec 28, 2015 13:53
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Mr Interweb posted:Uh, not saying Walt's an angel or anything, but I think you could have used better examples to make the same point (like poisoning that chunky Hispanic kid). The old guy was a former gang leader who, like the rival he wanted dead, was trying to kill Walt. I think in this particular case, Walt's actions were justified. He put a bomb in a nursing home. It's not about the target but about the complete lack of disregard for everybody else in the area that makes it a good example of how lovely Walt is.
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Dec 28, 2015 15:17
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BUBBA GAY DUDLEY posted:People notoriously back the wrong person and it's kind of interesting to watch them do it. They cheer for Walter White, while ignoring that he set up an old man to suicide bomb a nursing home to kill his rival. they cheer for Rorschach while ignoring the people he murders and the fact that unbending ideology isn't exactly a good thing. I mean, I think Punisher is a fun character, but I also recognize he's a psychopath. I was thinking about this the other day watching The Godfather and you're right. Vito and Michael Corleone, Tony Soprano, and Tony Montana spring to mind in terms of what you're talking about.
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Dec 28, 2015 16:00
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I don't think it's hosed up in the context of the show to root for Walter white just because basically the whole thing is focused around him and his perspective. It'd be wrong to root for someone like that in real life but people put a lot of emphasis on how other people react to Walter whites character that they don't for other shows or movies focused on criminals. People related to Tony Soprano, Tony Montana, etc despite the fact that they're pretty actively bad guys because it's focused around their experience and humanizes them. There's not really anything wrong in rooting for the main character in a fictional universe who's basically the bad guy. Walter White is the protagonist of Breaking Bad, there's not really any other way around that. There's always going to be people who idolize grey-evil morality characters in fiction in real life scenarios but those people are maladjusted idiots or teenagers. Edit: wow op dropping the Tony bombs right before me
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Dec 28, 2015 16:03
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There are also protagonists like Alex from Clockwork Orange that I think are crafted to be actively despised the more you learn about them. Walter White is still fairly humanized and relatable because of what we know about him even when he reaches the pinacle of his druglord poo poo
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Dec 28, 2015 16:07
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Yeah, it's silly to say you shouldn't root for a fictional character because they are bad. Supporting Chris Kyle, however... Even if you don't disagree with any of his wartime actions, he had some really disgusting beliefs and the world is better without people like him.
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Dec 28, 2015 17:44
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mr. mephistopheles posted:Yeah, it's silly to say you shouldn't root for a fictional character because they are bad. To be fair his life seemed almost entirely fictional
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Dec 28, 2015 17:49
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I've never got the whole "rooting for Walt" thing. It's not just that he's murderous and uncaring but he's also whiny, immature and cowardly. By the end he's seriously annoying more than anything else.
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Dec 28, 2015 17:51
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ToastyPotato posted:A good barometer for people when it comes to stuff like this and Breaking Bad is to see how they feel about Walter turning down the job offer and healthcare coverage from his rich friend. I've seen a lot of people defend him not wanting to take "the hand out", while unironically finding his murderous actions after that point cool. I dont think its more liberterian, i think its more Cap wants to keep bucky from justifiably going to jail. yeah bucky was brainwashed to poo poo and back but he still killed dozens of shield agents plus JFK. the government wants him gone, super jail or dead. but cap doesnt want that because he is "muh friend" in either case i actualy agree with stark on this one. Pope Guilty posted:DKR is fascist as gently caress. yeah which is sad because i like year one and batman in general.
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Dec 28, 2015 18:08
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Aesop Poprock posted:To be fair his life seemed almost entirely fictional i like whoever said that his life was a cracked.com article and his death was an onion.com article
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Dec 28, 2015 18:09
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Aesop Poprock posted:To be fair his life seemed almost entirely fictional well didnt he make up a ton of stories about himself. like the gas station one and the superdome sniper one. plus he breaks a major taboo for soldiers about talking about how many dudes he killed.
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Dec 28, 2015 18:11
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Babylon Astronaut posted:My takeaway was that the show was about a man who should have died and every day he lives the lives of the people around him get worse. You know, like the title. I think the problem there is that it's pretty clear the initial idea was one side being "can we really trust masked vigilantes to do the right thing when they take the law into their own hands" and the other being "yeah but the government has a lot of shady history when it comes to people with powers". But honestly asking the first question undercuts the genre of superhero comics pretty deeply, and the setting wouldn't be allowed to return to the status quo as always expected if so. In the end writers had to make it pure black and white where the first side was going full-bore fascist and the second had to retroactively insist that like after literally leveling cities on blind rampages the Hulk had never let a single person die. I guess what it comes down to is that the big superhero worlds all function as right-wing/libertarian fantasies about big strong men selflessly guarding the status quo from the villains who want to tear it down while the gummint (outside of those who have secretly allied with the villains) either backs them up, gets out of their way, or is left shaking its fist at those "menaces" who saved the day. And at the same time, are very often written by people further left than that makes it sound and who found that tying in some plots on social issues gets them "real literature" cred with certain critics. So comic books are always really awkward when you examine them for politics. Killer robot fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Dec 28, 2015 |
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Dec 28, 2015 18:12
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Dapper_Swindler posted:well didnt he make up a ton of stories about himself. like the gas station one and the superdome sniper one. plus he breaks a major taboo for soldiers about talking about how many dudes he killed. Which is why a lot of analysts were saying he was likely a psychopath, because most soldiers are generally pretty mum about the people they've had to kill, let alone very proud of having done it. At most, most soldiers just say 'I did what I had to do'.
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Dec 28, 2015 18:15
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