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So reading the Dark Side and I though Suli was dead. Eh elseworlds who knows what's different.
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Sep 5, 2013 06:52
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Troy Queef posted:I actually enjoyed that one because it showed Rayner using the power ring to help out the Irish immigrant underclasses (of which it was stated he was one). Plus, it gave Carol Ferris a good story, an interesting take on the Ferris family (her father is shown as a social-climbing, nouveau riche railroad baron) and quite a bit of agency as a suffragette/union organizer and this is apart from the fact that she eventually became the Green Lantern after Kyle died in the ending fight with Alan Scott. Yeah, Rayner's cartoons are a highlight of the story. Really, it's one of the better Elseworlds, but the idea of Magical Leprechaun Green Lantern tickles me. An Elseworlds that hasn't been mentioned yet that is certainly one of the best was The Golden Age. James Robinson wrote it right before starting on his outstanding run of Starman, and it's certainly a great run-up. The bittersweet ending contrasting the damaged lives of the golden aged heroes contrasting the oncoming "Age as pure as shining Silver" sticks out, along with panels like Captain Comet standing up again, it's powerful stuff.
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Sep 5, 2013 06:52
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Anyone got any anti-recs? Elseworlds to avoid?
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Sep 5, 2013 07:05
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Mind Loving Owl posted:Anyone got any anti-recs? Elseworlds to avoid? Act of God is pretty horrible, but sort of worth reading in the sense that it's entertainingly bad. I hated Shogun of Steel. The idea of Samurai Superman should have worked, but I remember it being really lazy.
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Sep 5, 2013 07:26
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Ancient Superman of the future fighting cloned Hitler twins with a giant gun.
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Sep 5, 2013 07:27
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In Darkest Knight is another really lazy one. "Bruce Wayne gets a power ring instead of a bat through his window" is a great concept but it turns out that everyone from Hal's world just come to Gotham and become stand-ins for Batman characters anyway.
McSpanky fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Sep 5, 2013 |
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Sep 5, 2013 07:31
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Mind Loving Owl posted:Anyone got any anti-recs? Elseworlds to avoid? Shogun of Steel is literally what you imagine "We made the JLA into Samurai" to be and not an iota more creative then that first blush. Most of the bad Elseworlds have been mentioned already, with the rest averaging out to be decent. JLA: The Island of Dr. Moreau is just pointless, there was the Ring of Evil elseworld that's Green Lanterns as Nazis (The ring responds to the user's 'iron will', natch), and the Elseworlds where Steel is a slave in the civil war and makes his armor for his master to fight for the confederates oh god that one's awful. A lot of the 1994 Elseworld stories aren't worth the time it takes to read them, really.
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Sep 5, 2013 07:38
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McSpanky posted:In Darkest Knight is another really lazy one. "Bruce Wayne gets a power ring instead of a bat through his window" is a great concept but it turns out that everyone from Hal's world just comes to Gotham and becomes stand-ins for Batman characters anyway. I HATED that one. It started out so well and then suddenly Joe Chill and Sinestro literally merge into the same being, which is Sinestro wearing the Joker's clothes.
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Sep 5, 2013 07:38
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Finished The Dark Side . Excellent story, it's nice seeing an elseworld where things turn out way differently but not worse. Also that little allusion to the main Superman's upbringing is cute. One thing that kind of confused me though. So Superman didn't have his kryptonian powers on Apokolips because he wasn't getting yellow sunlight. But then why was he so amazing according to Darkseid?
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Sep 5, 2013 10:49
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Mind Loving Owl posted:Finished The Dark Side . Excellent story, it's nice seeing an elseworld where things turn out way differently but not worse. Also that little allusion to the main Superman's upbringing is cute. One thing that kind of confused me though. So Superman didn't have his kryptonian powers on Apokolips because he wasn't getting yellow sunlight. But then why was he so amazing according to Darkseid? The implication is that his armor is imperfectly approximating the radiation of a yellow sun, giving him the basic strength and invulnerability but it's not good enough to open up the full suite of superpowers. But still, Superman-level strength and invulnerability (or somewhere close to it, granted it's kind of ambiguous) makes him pretty friggin' badass.
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Sep 5, 2013 13:14
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Mind Loving Owl posted:Has anyone read those Stan Lee writing the DC universe books? I'm reading the Superman one at the moment, and there's some good ideas it's obvious Stan Lee hasn't updated his writing style in fifty years. I remember really liking Stan Lee's take on Wonder Woman. A South American woman who was part Native American as a pro-woman super hero? I'm surprised DC didn't try to run with that, it's a hugely untapped market. EDIT: Mind Loving Owl posted:Anyone got any anti-recs? Elseworlds to avoid? There was a Batman one that had Bruce Wayne as an amateur Egyptologist. He became Batman because of a mysterious Egyptian artifact with a bat-like symbol on it. Apparently his parents were killed for it and he finally decided to try and unravel the mystery (20 years later) by going to Egypt and trying to find the secret room hidden under the Sphinx. There's a lot of "ancient aliens" insinuations but no real resolution. picosecond fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Sep 5, 2013 |
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Sep 5, 2013 14:01
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Quote != edit
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Sep 5, 2013 14:06
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McSpanky posted:The implication is that his armor is imperfectly approximating the radiation of a yellow sun, giving him the basic strength and invulnerability but it's not good enough to open up the full suite of superpowers. But still, Superman-level strength and invulnerability (or somewhere close to it, granted it's kind of ambiguous) makes him pretty friggin' badass. I kind of assumed Apokolips had a yellow sun but the pollution blocked most of it. Which would explain how baby Kal just out of the rocket could crush steal in his hand. picosecond posted:I remember really liking Stan Lee's take on Wonder Woman. A South American woman who was part Native American as a pro-woman super hero? I'm surprised DC didn't try to run with that, it's a hugely untapped market. Stan Lee is not a bad writer really, just one that hasn't changed with the times. He's still pretty good at coming up with ideas. Like his version of Superman, who honestly has a lot of contempt for humanity and is only really helping us so we can invent space travel and he can be on his way. That's a pretty interesting character.
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Sep 5, 2013 14:31
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Hollis posted:Yeah Byrnes Generations wasn't terrible. Honestly for all out crazy town I have to say I really did enjoy Earth X but it really went on to long. I had some crazy awesome ideas though. Captain America especially is a great design. All of the Alex Ross design stuff is pretty fantastic, the story is a little lacking but over all it's pretty great. Also, a lot of the ideas from this series are in current 606 continuity , which is kind of strange. Despite some goofy Alex Ross concepts like Soviet Premier Colossus (because he's Russian so why not) and the half on fire Namor (he was a literalist before Johns made it DC mandate), there's a lot of really neat ideas in Earth X, including the oddly organic 2001 reference that starts off the book. It doesn't hurt that the penciller is the amazing J.P. Leon.
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Sep 5, 2013 15:06
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The first Elseworlds I got as a kid was Batman: Castle of the Bat. The story is loosely based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein with a troubled Bruce Wayne reviving his father from the dead. Alfred is a hunchback. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_Castle_of_the_Bat It had painted artwork and I remember thinking the story was pretty cool, but it's pretty much a retelling of Frankenstein with Batman characters.
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Sep 5, 2013 16:36
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Superman got one of those as well. Though dead baby Kal-El was creepy.
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Sep 5, 2013 16:44
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Mind Loving Owl posted:Finished The Dark Side . Excellent story, it's nice seeing an elseworld where things turn out way differently but not worse. Also that little allusion to the main Superman's upbringing is cute. One thing that kind of confused me though. So Superman didn't have his kryptonian powers on Apokolips because he wasn't getting yellow sunlight. But then why was he so amazing according to Darkseid? It's been a long time since I've read that one, but I remember really liking the scene where Superman's on Earth and is going on an insane rampage and Bibbo is the one able to talk him down because he recognizes it as PTSD brought on by being in a war.
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Sep 5, 2013 19:07
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JLA: Age of Wonder is a pretty good two-parter if you can find it. The basic premise is that Clark Kent very publicly reveals himself at the 1876 Centennial Exposition and gets mixed up in the scientific/industrial world of Edison and Tesla, with Kryptonian technology from his ship responsible for a handful of heroes' origins (Starman and the Flash among others). The second half skips forward to World War I and involves the global politics of the day and just how much the presence of superhumans complicates those matters. All in all, it's a pretty good look at how having amazing powers and good intentions just isn't enough sometimes. It also wins points from me for having one of my favorite Superman costumes: In the end, of course Luthor is evil and tries to manipulate the war to his own ends involving a Tesla-invented death ray. Superman pulls a classic Fleischer move and punches his way down the beam of the ray toward its generator, which is pretty great.
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Sep 5, 2013 21:58
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Also a great Starman design.
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Sep 5, 2013 22:00
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Mr. Maltose posted:Also a great Starman design. I kind of love that image. Somehow this one flew completely under my radar!
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Sep 6, 2013 03:17
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So should this be the thread where we officially discuss the Injustice comic? Because it's getting an annual in November. For reals, the comic's been awesome for the past few months. It only took 33 issues for Superman to completely lose his poo poo.
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Sep 6, 2013 05:11
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It's better than anything else DC is putting out currently, by an enormous margin. I like that Superman had every chance to back out of being a crazy rear end in a top hat but still went for it.
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Sep 6, 2013 05:12
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Gavok posted:So should this be the thread where we officially discuss the Injustice comic? Because it's getting an annual in November. Sounds like it went to a lot of effort for a video game tie in. Also that and every other elseworld where Superman gets some has taught me Superman should stop trying to have kids. It's worse than the Flashes and they have kids with mayfly like lifespans.
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Sep 6, 2013 05:33
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Lurdiak posted:It's better than anything else DC is putting out currently, by an enormous margin. I like that Superman had every chance to back out of being a crazy rear end in a top hat but still went for it. I think the thing is that Superman's actions have always been well explained. The game and first few issues made it seem like Superman went off the deep end right after killing the Joker, but he didn't. It just steered him into a well-meaning direction of trying to stop every war himself. That led to one thing, which led to another and before you know it, he's beating Green Arrow to death in front of Jonathan and Martha Kent. I understand why Superman would briefly lose himself for a moment and punch a hole through the Joker, just like I understand why he'd finally snap in #33. It was a perfect storm of poo poo that would set him off. He thought Batman's crew was coming for his parents, Captain Atom almost killed him, Wonder Woman was put in critical condition, he found out that the US government wants him dead despite everything he's done, Green Arrow accidentally wounded his father and all of this was orchestrated by a guy he used to trust more than anyone.
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Sep 6, 2013 05:59
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Also, the last pages in #34 are a complete loving gut punch. "We're sorry we hosed up raising your son." "I'm sorry you had to try." Brutal.
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Sep 6, 2013 06:41
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Yeah don't forget the one off issues just dealing with people in the world. Injustice took some time to get going but I'm really glad I kept with it. Also it's loving nice to have a weekly release. The only thing that I don't like is that its kind of inconsistent with art and story. Some stuffs really great , but some is pretty terrible. That story with the kid encountering Superman as a child , and the Flash issue are really loving good. Also, I like that people are sticking with Supes, I mean seriously that makes so much sense that Diana would stick with him. That last scene of him and his parents was brutal. Also, I like that people actually freak the gently caress out when someone dies generally and don't just pass it off as "Welp". The fact that Supes does have members on his team, goes to show what peoples opinions of him are and is kind of a better "Civil" war, cause the people that are on his team would totally be on Supes team. Except for the Flash, that ones a little bit of a hard sell. I'm eager to see the upcoming issue and I don't gotta wait a month. Hollismason fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Sep 6, 2013 |
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Sep 6, 2013 08:37
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I remember Justice Riders being ann okay Elseworlds, can someone confirm this? I especially liked the takes on Ted Kord and Booster.
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Sep 6, 2013 09:19
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Justice Riders was pretty great, really. Basically JLI but with Wonder West in the Old West, how could it not be? Also Guy Gardener made a great Pinkerton Detective.
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Sep 6, 2013 15:36
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I always kinda dug how Batman Inc. was like the Brotherhood of the Bat/League of Batmen concept done properly. It even involved a Batman/Talia child.
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Sep 6, 2013 15:59
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Just read The Nail, very solid story, Jimmy Olsen being the bad guy really blew me away, the best/worst thing is it makes a lot of sense, constant transformations would gently caress someone up. Plus the ending is just so sad. Reading Another Nail now, only read up to the culmination of the big boom fiesta on Apokolips. One of the good things about elseworlds I think is that heroes can have definitive victories in them. No surprise Darkseid gets the best death ever. And Scott Free is a perfect choice for a Green Lantern
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Sep 6, 2013 16:41
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I really enjoyed Batman: Leatherwing as a kid. The whole premise is that Bruce is Leatherwing, a British pirate/privateer in the West Indies during the 17th century. All of the Batman elements were there: the Laughing Man is a brutal Spanish Don/rival captain, Dona Felina is another rival captain that Bruce falls in love with, he has an Italian butler named Alfredo etc. It was what it was and, I mean, when you're 10, it's Batman as a goddamn pirate. Thrillkiller - Batgirl and Robin operating in the 1960s, without Batman - wasn't bad, and Superman: Last Son of Earth had a nice twist on the usual Superman mythos (Clark gets sent from a dying Earth to a stable albeit fascistic Krypton, and is raised by the House of El).
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Sep 6, 2013 20:01
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Thrillkiller was great, and the sequel with Batman is also worth the time.
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Sep 6, 2013 20:06
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Did the Batman/Judge Dredd crossovers count as Elseworlds or were they part of main DC continuity?
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Sep 7, 2013 06:18
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Good question. It's weird because JLA/Avengers was legitimate DC continuity that had some references to it later on, which is one of the few times that's happened with an intercompany crossover. (I guess there was also the WildCATS/Aliens crossover, too.)
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Sep 7, 2013 06:21
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They technically count as Elseworlds because while they're canon in Dredd's continuity, no crossover with Batman effects Batman.
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Sep 7, 2013 06:21
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Think Marvel stories set in the future count as elseworlds? Like The End stuff and Spider-Man: Reign. And speaking of Spider-Man: Reign.quote:Is he strong, listen chum! Also J. Jonah Jameson like worshipped masks or something.
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Sep 7, 2013 06:36
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picosecond posted:Did the Batman/Judge Dredd crossovers count as Elseworlds or were they part of main DC continuity? I generally don't count crossovers as Elseworld, mainly because there is at least one example of a crossover having the Elseworlds tag (Batman/Captain America, set during WWII. I've only flipped through it, but it seems pretty good). Loved the Batman/Judge Dredd crossovers though (I need to pick up the new fancy collection that has the story missing from the earlier collection plus the Lobo/Judge Dredd crossover).
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Sep 7, 2013 06:38
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Batman/Captain America is great, if only for the sheer outrage of the Joker finding out the Red Skull was a Nazi. Golden Age as gently caress.
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Sep 7, 2013 06:39
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Endless Mike posted:Good question. It's weird because JLA/Avengers was legitimate DC continuity that had some references to it later on, which is one of the few times that's happened with an intercompany crossover. (I guess there was also the WildCATS/Aliens crossover, too.) The Darkness/Batman also was super important to The Darkness as that's the story which sets off his whole conflict with his Organized Crime family and drove the story for quite a bit of the first series.
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Sep 7, 2013 16:31
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So reading Last Son Of Earth. It's like a museum piece for Bryne's vision of Krypton. Got to give it credit for remembering Krypton would not be very hospitable to a human body. Plus character development for Bryne's Lara, always nice.
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Sep 7, 2013 16:55
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