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Oh, according to Wikipedia, Nightwing and Flamebird are just aliases of... Superman and Jimmy Olson on Kandor.
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Sep 12, 2023 16:59
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Asgerd posted:Given comics' long history of Superdickery shenanigans, it always confused me why people got so up in arms over the "Hail Hydra" Captain America thing. Obviously he's going to turn out to be brainwashed, or an evil clone, or Cap from an alternate dimension, or conducting an elaborate scheme to trick the real villains, or whatever the real answer turned out to be. Everyone knew that as well. But it sucked to see a character created by Jewish men dedicated to literally punching Nazis have his history retconned so that he’d been a Nazi all along. It felt like a betrayal of the character in a way “Oh no HYDRA has mind controlled Cap!” doesn’t.
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Sep 12, 2023 17:09
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Asgerd posted:Given comics' long history of Superdickery shenanigans, it always confused me why people got so up in arms over the "Hail Hydra" Captain America thing. Obviously he's going to turn out to be brainwashed, or an evil clone, or Cap from an alternate dimension, or conducting an elaborate scheme to trick the real villains, or whatever the real answer turned out to be. Generally I'd say the difference is that the superdickery stuff was a different era, usually by a good 40/50 years and also didn't delve into real life racism/atrocities, like people found Captain America essentially becoming a Nazi (Hydra always had Nazi elements but they went whole hog after the movies made that more of a thing I'd say, they used to be more like Cobra or something like that, depending on who was running them) and then as a result having Miles Morales and Rick Jones being pursued by skinheads inspired by this new Cap and other things of that nature, slightly distasteful.
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Sep 12, 2023 17:13
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I don’t like Nazi Cap. Unpopular opinion maybe but I prefer clean cut Boy Scout Captain America who does the right thing all the time and, I presume when off screen/page, helps old ladies cross the street and delivers meals to old folks and carries cans of dog food for hungry dogs that approach him outside (all the dogs approach him because they can sense he’s a good person)
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Sep 12, 2023 17:15
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It was also right around when Trump got elected, and also the author denounced Richard Spencer getting punched, so there was some element of "too real" to it. Also the overall story arc was just bad even for comics.
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Sep 12, 2023 17:20
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Well partly it was that Superdickery usually gets resolved within the space of the singular comic that had the ludicrous cover, Nazi Cap went on and on seemingly for years. And yes, obviously it was a deal where he's brainwashed or something, but the author kept insisting, over and over, that no, this wasn't that, he was legit just a Nazi now for serious. And obviously he was lying and it would eventually go back to the status quo, it's a loving comic book, but the kayfabe was gratingly self-serious.
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Sep 12, 2023 17:50
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Asgerd posted:Given comics' long history of Superdickery shenanigans, it always confused me why people got so up in arms over the "Hail Hydra" Captain America thing. Obviously he's going to turn out to be brainwashed, or an evil clone, or Cap from an alternate dimension, or conducting an elaborate scheme to trick the real villains, or whatever the real answer turned out to be. IIRC marvel was saying stuff like “it’s not a clone. This is the REAL cap” which imo was just dumb.
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Sep 12, 2023 17:54
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muscles like this! posted:Which usually lead to rather unhinged stories revolving around the idea that Superman doesn't lie but he will gaslight everyone to get what he wants. Like the time Jimmy accidentally got Superman's secret identity written on his hand and instead of explaining the situation Superman makes Jimmy think he's turned into a merman and can breathe water. So that way Jimmy will spend all his time underwater and nobody will be able to read what's written on his hand until the ink wears off. This is exactly why Silver Age Superman is the pinnacle of comics
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Sep 12, 2023 18:04
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Asterite34 posted:Well partly it was that Superdickery usually gets resolved within the space of the singular comic that had the ludicrous cover, Nazi Cap went on and on seemingly for years. And yes, obviously it was a deal where he's brainwashed or something, but the author kept insisting, over and over, that no, this wasn't that, he was legit just a Nazi now for serious. And obviously he was lying and it would eventually go back to the status quo, it's a loving comic book, but the kayfabe was gratingly self-serious. It was a giant crossover event across dozens and dozens of issues from April to August back in 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Empire_(comics)#Issues_involved Basically Hydra used the Cosmic Cube to rewrite history and change Captain America into a Hydra sleeper agent and the other heroes had to piece the cube back together so they could change history back. It wasn't really much of a mystery, they revealed the Cosmic Cube angle early on and Iron Man came up with the plan to change everything back in the second issue of the Secret Empire comic series. Byzantine posted:It was also right around when Trump got elected, and also the author denounced Richard Spencer getting punched, so there was some element of "too real" to it. Here's a long article that collects a lot of the tweets he made asking people not to punch Nazis: https://www.vulture.com/2019/04/marvel-hydra-captain-america-nick-spencer.html Snowglobe of Doom has a new favorite as of 18:09 on Sep 12, 2023 |
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Sep 12, 2023 18:06
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Randalor posted:Prankster is just loving annoying and Superman is doing what we all wish we could do to him. Fling all "its just a prank bro" men into the sun IMO
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Sep 12, 2023 18:18
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Is the Superdickery site still going? It was always good for some larfs, but a while back it got infested with malware ads.
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Sep 12, 2023 18:28
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MrUnderbridge posted:Is the Superdickery site still going? It was always good for some larfs, but a while back it got infested with malware ads. Nah it shut down earlier this year E: you can stil relive the glory days via the internet archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/www.superdickery.com
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Sep 12, 2023 18:37
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OK so still media, still comic book related. I've not read this in probably two decades. Is "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" by Michael Chabon problematic? I liked a lot of his books but haven't re-read them.
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Sep 12, 2023 18:51
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I enjoyed Jews in Alaska and Jews With Swords etc. but I feel like his main theme being "Jews do ???" might be an issue? EDIT: "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" and "Gentlemen of the Road" respectively
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Sep 12, 2023 18:52
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A lot of that weird Silver Age stuff was because of the Comics Code starting in 1954. DC was extremely eager to play ball to avoid being labeled degenerate, anti-American communists, so they had to make sure their stories didn't break any rules. So they couldn't be too violent or scary like the EC horror comics, they had to be careful about having too menacing of bad guys, showing law enforcement agencies in any kind of negative light, etc. But how do you still make compelling comics with tension that people want to read, following all those guidelines? They settled on coming up with bizarre, convoluted setups, with clickbait covers to attract attention, throwing in sensational but inoffensive (at least at the time) science-fiction concepts, and eventually revealing everything that seemed the most menacing was actually just a misunderstanding or fake-out. In Grant Morrison's book Supergods, they also talk about how in postwar America the public's attention shifted from the struggle for existential survival to the craving for hypernormal domesticity and the whole 50s 'perfect nuclear family' concept. So suddenly the tone of the Superman stories shifts from more grim realism to more situations where he's dealing with situations involving Lois and Jimmy, effectively his surrogate wife and son. I don't know if this is as strong an explanation as the Code aspects, but there's something to it. e: For what it's worth I just read Kavalier and Klay for the first time last year and loved it. I didn't think anything about it was problematic, it touches on a number of social topics but does so with care and substance. e2: I should say the exploration of those social topics in the early to mid 20th century isn't always happy, but not in a problematic way. feetnotes has a new favorite as of 18:58 on Sep 12, 2023 |
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Sep 12, 2023 18:53
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feetnotes posted:e: For what it's worth I just read Kavalier and Klay for the first time last year and loved it. I didn't think anything about it was problematic, it touches on a number of social topics but does so with care and substance. I just don't like, know enough about Judaism/etc. to judge it myself. I enjoy his writing and his stories and I know he is observant but I'd feel a fool if someday I meet an observant person in person and like, try to relate based on some rando fiction I don't know the authenticity of lol
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Sep 12, 2023 18:58
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I think the most boring kind of storylines involve alternate dimension versions of the heroes. It's what I think really made me yawn out of the Marvel movies. I'm going to switch to DC where -- gently caress
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Sep 12, 2023 19:00
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The funniest thing about the superdickery era is that people got wise of their shenanigans and they had to add a "not clickbait!" equivalent to the covers
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Sep 12, 2023 20:12
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credburn posted:I think the most boring kind of storylines involve alternate dimension versions of the heroes. It's what I think really made me yawn out of the Marvel movies. I'm going to switch to DC where -- gently caress It makes it very hard to care imho
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Sep 12, 2023 20:59
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Sometimes it can be fun, like the CW version of the Evil Universe - one of the multiple universes doesn't have a number, because it's the garbage universe that all other universes agreed to avoid because it's the Nazi Universe.
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Sep 12, 2023 21:05
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Desert Bus posted:I just don't like, know enough about Judaism/etc. to judge it myself. I enjoy his writing and his stories and I know he is observant but I'd feel a fool if someday I meet an observant person in person and like, try to relate based on some rando fiction I don't know the authenticity of lol That's pretty much a good guide to life generally. No individual Jewish writer is going to represent The Jews anyway.
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Sep 12, 2023 23:07
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Absurd Alhazred posted:That's pretty much a good guide to life generally. No individual Jewish writer is going to represent The Jews anyway. He wrote for Star Trek: Picard which is pretty suspect no matter his religious beliefs.
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Sep 13, 2023 00:06
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Desert Bus posted:He wrote for Star Trek: Picard which is pretty suspect no matter his religious beliefs. Good for him. 
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Sep 13, 2023 03:36
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feetnotes posted:A lot of that weird Silver Age stuff was because of the Comics Code starting in 1954. DC was extremely eager to play ball to avoid being labeled degenerate, anti-American communists, so they had to make sure their stories didn't break any rules. So they couldn't be too violent or scary like the EC horror comics, they had to be careful about having too menacing of bad guys, showing law enforcement agencies in any kind of negative light, etc. Wasn't the moral panic around comic books and the creation of the Code actually masterminded by DC/Marvel and something they did to kill the horror comics because they were failing to compete with them? I could have sworn I heard that somewhere on here once.
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Sep 13, 2023 04:56
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:Wasn't the moral panic around comic books and the creation of the Code actually masterminded by DC/Marvel and something they did to kill the horror comics because they were failing to compete with them? I could have sworn I heard that somewhere on here once. I know there were hearings where Bill Gaines tried to stick up for EC horror comics, but he was coked out of his mind and was a sweaty failure.
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Sep 13, 2023 05:01
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credburn posted:I think the most boring kind of storylines involve alternate dimension versions of the heroes. It's what I think really made me yawn out of the Marvel movies. I'm going to switch to DC where -- gently caress Again it's late-stage capitalism, which sounds like some  stuff but really it's being expressed neutrally. It's the same reason you don't see a lot of new snack products launched but you do see a ton of "Ritz: Sardine flavor!" showing up. For the people working the trenches it's safer and more cost-effective to just remix and relaunch something people already know than put the resources into establishing something new. A lot of popular superheroes kind-of hack this because even though John Q Random has no loving idea who Black Panther or Blue Beetle are, they do have decades of publishing history to lean on. The entire MCU got to exploit this hack to make characters like Thor and Captain America feel like underdog properties whilst having massive budgets and being guaranteed to at least make their budget back. But the more of those rosters get used the more you start to see remixes-- "What if Hawkeye were also Dr. Strange who was also War Machine?" "What if Batman were a Green Lantern and had to fight Wonder Woman with Aquaman's powers?" -- and the more tiresome it is. Like it can work creatively, but as with everything there needs to be a real hook found. Spider-Gwen may have gotten attention because her design was an A+ home run from the word "go" but she stuck around because those Spider-Verse animators crunched and slaved to find an angle that would connect with audiences. And when it comes to DC remixes, I'm sorry but they're usually lazy as gently caress. "Superman, but he's a shithead. Wooooooooooo did I just blow your mind?" RoboChrist 9000 posted:Wasn't the moral panic around comic books and the creation of the Code actually masterminded by DC/Marvel and something they did to kill the horror comics because they were failing to compete with them? I could have sworn I heard that somewhere on here once. DC and Marvel as you would know them weren't really "things" when those hearings happened. The hearings were around 1954, while Barry Allen (considered the launch of the Silver Age) was 1956. At the time Marvel Comics was publishing basically whatever-- horror, westerns, romance-- and wouldn't launch the Fantastic Four until 1961. Like yeah the publishers that would become what we think of as DC Comics and Marvel Comics may have had some interest in loving with the hearings, but comics studios back in those days were basically sweatshops working round the clock to get poo poo onto shelves, and they just ran with the trends of the audience. The first Green Lantern series in the 1940s ended in 1949 when the title character was upstaged by an adventuring dog. They didn't give a gently caress what the books were, just as long as they were selling. The industry hosed up by catering to teenagers/young adults who wanted edgier content without threat-modelling the optics-- probably because they were mostly younger guys working 24/7 in sweatshop conditions and not really thinking about it. All that really changed after 1954 was that superhero books were some of the only genres that were easy to do full stories in while still adhering to the bullshit "Comics Code Authority" which had freaky content restrictions and was de facto mandatory if you wanted a book to be sold at very public locations. DC Comics had the roster to work with, and Marvel Comics ended up hitting a lightning streak of 5-7 years where Stan, Jack, and that whole bullpen had one of the most insanely profitable creative runs in modern history. mind the walrus has a new favorite as of 05:13 on Sep 13, 2023 |
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Sep 13, 2023 05:04
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Desert Bus posted:
I read it this year, seemed good to me.
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Sep 13, 2023 05:28
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:Wasn't the moral panic around comic books and the creation of the Code actually masterminded by DC/Marvel and something they did to kill the horror comics because they were failing to compete with them? I could have sworn I heard that somewhere on here once. It was just that they were sharing space with Crime Does Not Pay, Crime Suspense-Stories, Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror and all of the "scandalous" books. Those books sold well, and EC is rightly lionized for being a cut above in the field of making comics in the 1950s, but I don't think they were really eating into any of the big companies' profits, especially not National/Dell/Archie/etc. I do think in many ways (the Kefauver hearings, the crafting of the Code) they did deliberately throw EC/Gaines and Lev Gleason under the bus, but it was more a "you're drawing negative attention to our business and messing things up" retaliation than a "we can't compete with your success!" Like, 2 Live Crew was a successful musical group and I'm sure some portions of the industry turned their back on them once they got started getting into varying forms of legal trouble, but that wasn't because they were in danger of outselling/outshining Madonna and Janet Jackson and Garth Brooks in 1989, they more likely just didn't want record stores getting raided and congressional hearings into explicit lyrics. Also of note, even after the Comics Code went into effect, there was another decade where things like Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, Archie, Davy Crockett, Little Lulu, etc. outsold any superhero books being released, except sometimes Superman and Batman who got big boosts for being on TV. Superhero hegemony wasn't *really* a thing until the 1970s at the earliest, when the market began to drift towards specialty comic shops. Specialty comic shops that also heralded the slow death of the Comics Code. Edge & Christian has a new favorite as of 06:27 on Sep 13, 2023 |
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Sep 13, 2023 06:24
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Byzantine posted:It was also right around when Trump got elected, and also the author denounced Richard Spencer getting punched, so there was some element of "too real" to it. Nick Spencer (no relation AFAIK) has done some decent writing, but his chief schtick is that brainwashing through torture works and he isn't always saying that it's bad.
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Sep 13, 2023 13:28
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Desert Bus posted:He wrote for Star Trek: Picard which is pretty suspect no matter his religious beliefs. Yeah I’m bitter I’d rather have more books from the guy.
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Sep 13, 2023 13:50
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I randomly remembered that old Jessica Alba show, Dark Angel from the early 2000s. I remember loving it as a young teen for obvious reasons, although I don't remember much plotwise anymore, other than it was about a bunch of genetically engineered super people. Except for one episode, where she meets another one of those super people and he's just some doughy goober. She catches on that he's super because he gets perfect scores at the arcade, and he explains that he's got really good (yet not superhuman which iirc they made a point of) reflexes but more importantly, he memorises where all the enemies are and figures out the perfect strategy to beat the game. He was a speedrunner before that was even a thing. That was his superpower, the thing people do on twitch now. Nothing else, just being really good at videogames. Speedrunning lol
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Sep 13, 2023 14:14
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Taeke posted:I randomly remembered that old Jessica Alba show, Dark Angel from the early 2000s. I remember loving it as a young teen for obvious reasons, although I don't remember much plotwise anymore, other than it was about a bunch of genetically engineered super people. Did he play a stand-up arcade cabinet that made Atari noises? I think tv only stopped using Atari sounds as shorthand for video games like five years ago. Buffy had an Xbox that made Atari sounds.
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Sep 13, 2023 14:34
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Taeke posted:I randomly remembered that old Jessica Alba show, Dark Angel from the early 2000s. I remember loving it as a young teen for obvious reasons, although I don't remember much plotwise anymore, other than it was about a bunch of genetically engineered super people. Still patiently waiting for a Dark Angel revival.
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Sep 13, 2023 14:42
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Aces High posted:I mean, Batman Odyssey is loving nuts too (including Batman carrying a gun and using it) but All-Star is just Frank Miller: Poe's Law Edition
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Sep 13, 2023 14:45
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Vandar posted:Still patiently waiting for a Dark Angel revival. aka a live-action Cybersix revival
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Sep 13, 2023 15:00
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Vandar posted:Still patiently waiting for a Dark Angel revival. Cameron got to do his Battle Angel movie so he's lost interest in his store brand version.
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Sep 13, 2023 15:28
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Halloween Jack posted:I think the worst ever Batman was Paul Pope's "The Berlin Batman," in which a Jewish Batman saves books from the Nazis. The books in question? The complete works of Ludwig von Mises. holy lmao
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Sep 13, 2023 15:36
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endocriminologist posted:holy lmao lmao indeed.
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Sep 13, 2023 16:34
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Cameron got to do his Battle Angel movie so he's lost interest in his store brand version. Store brand? It was practically lifted whole from Gibson’s Bridge Trilogy.
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Sep 13, 2023 17:12
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Remulak posted:Showrunning lovely, forgettable TV pays unbelievably better than writing truly great novels that live on forever, even when they’re Pulitzer-prize-winning best-sellers.  On that note, City of Thieves is better than anything David Benioff wrote for Game of Thrones.
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