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Blockhouse posted:Which went nowhere after he left the book and it got bad He's talking about the New 52 B&R with Tomasi and Gleason and its spinoff by Gleason, not Morrison's B&R. Tomasi and Gleason stayed on B&R until it ended and R:SOB was only 12 issues in the first place. Neither one of those ever got bad. VV I didnt actually realize the last arc of R:SOB was a different writer so I thought you were talking about Morrison's B&R which did continue after Morrison left. I enjoyed it right up to the end, I thought Suren was a good addition to Damian's hosed up play date. I hope Maya shows up somewhere in Rebirth, she was a fun character. purple death ray fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Sep 7, 2016 |
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Sep 7, 2016 03:27
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Travis343 posted:He's talking about the New 52 B&R with Tomasi and Gleason and its spinoff by Gleason, not Morrison's B&R. Tomasi and Gleason stayed on B&R until it ended and R:SOB was only 12 issues in the first place. Neither one of those ever got bad. No Toxx was talking about Robin: SOB in that post I replied to I think the final arc of Robin after Gleason left was bad but maybe its because I didn't care about cloak guy or his kid
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Sep 7, 2016 03:29
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Is that Obama?
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Sep 7, 2016 03:38
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I think R: SOB definitely got weaker once Gleason left, but I really enjoyed Maya and Damian's developing romance so still really enjoyed the last arc. It's a really fun comic too, on top of threading that needle of making Damian a self-centered douchey prick while still being hugely likable, relatable, and sympathetic. As I aforementioned, it's why Damian is the best Robin.
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Sep 7, 2016 03:44
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The exchanges with Alfred in Batman #6 encapsulate everything I dislike about this run. Nothing anyone says or does feels appropriate to their character and the book is constantly undermining its own cheap sentimentality with abrupt shifts in tone. The one good thing is that King doesn't rely on any thought captions, but it's all ruined anyways by King's stylistic tick for overwrought dialogue repetition on every other page. Maybe he thinks this comes off as poetic but it's really dreadful to actually read.
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Sep 7, 2016 23:13
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Gonna have to disagree with you there. I really liked Batman this week. I get the impression "I Am Gotham" was the lead in and this is the "I told you that story so I could tell you this one" story. Which granted does make the slow burn of the first five issues even harder to swallow but I'm definitely digging this story now.
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Sep 8, 2016 01:43
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I'm catching up on the new52 Batman and Robins as per the threads suggestion. I'm at Death of the Family and Jesus Christ the face cut off Joker is a terrible take on the character. Needless gore constantly too. Yuck.
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Sep 11, 2016 11:02
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I thought those issues did a much better job of actually making him scary than the main storyline in Batman. The upside down face is quite a striking image.
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Sep 11, 2016 11:19
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The cut off face thing didn't really work for me either. That whole storyline hinges on me buying The Joker as a mastermind and that just seems silly. I'm not saying he has to be totally wacky, but he shouldn't have skills on the same tier as Batman. I hate when Joker beats Bruce in combat too. Of course, injecting everyone with Ha was well worth it.
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Sep 11, 2016 14:41
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The Batman & Robin issues were the best part of an overall bad storyline. I'm not sure that there's been a good Joker story in the last decade, honestly.
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Sep 11, 2016 15:18
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Travis343 posted:The Batman & Robin issues were the best part of an overall bad storyline. I'm not sure that there's been a good Joker story in the last decade, honestly. His sections in Arkham Knight 
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Sep 11, 2016 15:21
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I really liked that Dini issue of Detective where Joker and Tim get fast food.
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Sep 11, 2016 15:23
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Doctor Spaceman posted:His sections in Arkham Knight Fair and true. This is shallow but I hate the font they give Joker nowadays. Like why is he so special that he gets his own font? Cause he's so craaaazy you guys!! gently caress off
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Sep 11, 2016 15:25
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Travis343 posted:The Batman & Robin issues were the best part of an overall bad storyline. I'm not sure that there's been a good Joker story in the last decade, honestly. That story Max Landis wrote where Superman just gives him a dismissive wanking motion for 2 comics?
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Sep 11, 2016 16:46
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SonicRulez posted:That story Max Landis wrote where Superman just gives him a dismissive wanking motion for 2 comics? That's the best thing Max Landis has ever done.
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Sep 11, 2016 16:50
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Lurdiak posted:That's the best thing Max Landis has ever done. Other than the bit where Superman goes all RED GLOWING EYES like he does so often these days, I love it. If there is any character that deserves that treatment every once in a while, it's The Joker.
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Sep 11, 2016 18:10
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Lurdiak posted:That's the best thing Max Landis has ever done. Superman: American Alien is pretty good Also yeah the use of the Joker in the last few years makes me sad because I love that character so much, though I disagree that he can't be used as a mastermind. The dude's first appearance was him pulling fast ones on Batman like four times in one story.
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Sep 11, 2016 18:17
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He is an incredibly smart, creative and unpredictable adversary, but Snyder especially writes him as this hypergenius who's constantly one step ahead and isn't smart so much as he is supernaturally aware of what's going on and not creative so much as increasingly, artlessly violent. This character needs an enema, to borrow a phrase from a much better written Joker.
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Sep 11, 2016 18:26
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Travis343 posted:He is an incredibly smart, creative and unpredictable adversary, but Snyder especially writes him as this hypergenius who's constantly one step ahead and isn't smart so much as he is supernaturally aware of what's going on and not creative so much as increasingly, artlessly violent. This character needs an enema, to borrow a phrase from a much better written Joker. Maybe this three Jokers thing will end with modern Joker dying
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Sep 11, 2016 18:45
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Travis343 posted:He is an incredibly smart, creative and unpredictable adversary, but Snyder especially writes him as this hypergenius who's constantly one step ahead and isn't smart so much as he is supernaturally aware of what's going on and not creative so much as increasingly, artlessly violent. This character needs an enema, to borrow a phrase from a much better written Joker. I would strongly disagree with this assessment. Snyder wrote a good Joker (I'm constantly reminded of how he was able to pull off humanizing Joker in Endgame to the point where you actually felt sorry for the guy), and I say this as someone who generally intensely dislikes the Joker and assuredly hates DC's focus on the Joker. His hypergenius/"dark Batman" characterization has been ongoing long before N52, if anything it's been his modern identity since TKJ/Death in the Family, Snyder was just keeping his character consistent. And, to be fair, the "supernaturally aware" bit was basically invented by Morrison's "Hyper Sanity" theorem that is, essentially, how DC treats the Joker.
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Sep 11, 2016 19:18
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SonicRulez posted:Other than the bit where Superman goes all RED GLOWING EYES like he does so often these days, I love it. If there is any character that deserves that treatment every once in a while, it's The Joker. Even that was in service to taking JERK BATGOD down a peg, which isn't quite as big a problem as modern Joker but still needs to stop being a thing.
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Sep 11, 2016 19:59
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Lurdiak posted:Even that was in service to taking JERK BATGOD down a peg, which isn't quite as big a problem as modern Joker but still needs to stop being a thing. Reading Batman, Detective, and All-Star Batman this has largely stopped being a thing. I haven't been reading Justice League but so far only the writers on Nightwing seem to have missed the memo. Batman's pretty supportive and empathetic to people nowadays.
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Sep 11, 2016 21:02
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Lurdiak posted:Even that was in service to taking JERK BATGOD down a peg, which isn't quite as big a problem as modern Joker but still needs to stop being a thing. He did it to laser beam a chunk out of Joker too. That was the weird part to me. Him doing it to tell Bruce not to be a dick is fine. Him doing it just to shock Joker seemed a little out of character. Like I can't imagine Superman using his strength to break a guy's arm to dissuade him from doing crime again. Travis343 posted:Reading Batman, Detective, and All-Star Batman this has largely stopped being a thing. I haven't been reading Justice League but so far only the writers on Nightwing seem to have missed the memo. Batman's pretty supportive and empathetic to people nowadays. Even Nightwing Bats is only mean after Batgirl ran home to tell dad that Nightwing was hanging out with the wrong crowd.
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Sep 11, 2016 22:38
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Travis343 posted:He is an incredibly smart, creative and unpredictable adversary, but Snyder especially writes him as this hypergenius who's constantly one step ahead and isn't smart so much as he is supernaturally aware of what's going on and not creative so much as increasingly, artlessly violent. This character needs an enema, to borrow a phrase from a much better written Joker. Well it's not like Morrison wrote him as incompetent so Snyder was just following suit. But hell it's not Morrison's fault either, Joker's been slowly amped up to be the Best Villain Ever™ by a looooong string of writers.
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Sep 12, 2016 04:06
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SonicRulez posted:
DAAAAD DICK SAID A SWEAR WORD TwoPair posted:Well it's not like Morrison wrote him as incompetent so Snyder was just following suit. But hell it's not Morrison's fault either, Joker's been slowly amped up to be the Best Villain Ever™ by a looooong string of writers. I think I'm harsh on Snyder because he did two massive, awful Joker storylines each within about 18 months of each other. I was really not a huge fan of Joker in Morrison's stuff but all told he's a pretty small part of it. Even reading his garbage green font or whatever it was still a solid character beat the way he was so dismissive of the Black Glove and refused to play along with their crap. I kind of hate The Joker in general, though.
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Sep 12, 2016 04:16
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I'd rather read Death of the Family (a good storyline as long as you only read the Batman-specific issues) or Endgame (a good storyline) over The Clown at Midnight once. I've mentioned this before but DotF is an excellent story if only because Snyder is literally the only Batman writer ever to give Bruce Wayne a decent reason for why he doesn't kill the Joker, that no writer before or since has ever managed. "My code!" makes Batman look like an actively negligent rear end in a top hat considering the amount of damage that the Joker has done just within the past decade of stories, and "Because I wouldn't know when to stop" is dumb poo poo that plays off the single worst interpretation of Batman, the guy who's just one step away from BECOMING THE JOKER HIMSELF WOOOOOOO. Oh also I made a mistake, I meant to say Joker's stuff in Superheavy - the best part of a bad storyline - made him genuinely sympathetic. Also the Joker's a huge fixture of and one of R.I.P.'s lynchpins, which is also...you know, the best Batman story ever, and certainly of this millennium. And he's basically a complete loving hypergenius from the beginning of Batman and Son to the end of R.I.P. Basically what I'm saying is Morrison wrote the absolute best Batman story ever, and it heavily features the Joker, and he also wrote the worst issue of comics ever, and it's a Joker issue. Both exemplify the "hypergenius mastermind" Joker. So. Lay off Snyder! 
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Sep 12, 2016 04:35
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I like Snyders run better than Morrisons because he plays up the old school horror and monster movies vibes and they are the best vibes Well no sorry Cisco is best vibe but 
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Sep 12, 2016 06:23
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Wasn't that reason that Batman's afraid that even someone worse would show up to take his place? Because that's the absolutely the worst reason. Batman grudgingly accepts that Joker is going to enact his bimonthly genocide because the alternative might be even worse? Just lol
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Sep 12, 2016 06:27
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Except it's not because the entirety of Joker's canon is one of escalation (note how he was introduced in the pages of Detective Comics up through Laughing Fish to TKJ and Death in the Family up to modern Joker where he's a genocidal maniac), and metatextually speaking of course DC would replace the Joker with someone even worse. It works on both levels, in-continuity and out. And it's basically "better the devil you know" logic taken to its reasonable extreme.
NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Sep 12, 2016 |
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Sep 12, 2016 06:31
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Yes, "better the devil that you know" exactly. It's missing the point of a character who's purpose is to embody an adolescent sense of justice. Accepting that Joker is going to commit genocide is almost a parody of adult compromise.
BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Sep 12, 2016 |
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Sep 12, 2016 06:52
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When you're writing a character whose whole gimmick is that he doesn't kill people, and his Greatest Enemy is someone who kills a whole fuckload of people all the loving time for no loving reason, and then you have to then write a reason for why the former doesn't kill the latter (when the real reason is "Because the Joker's super popular and we'd never kill him off because are you loving kidding us, we're DC", but as a writer you're supposed to integrate that cold hard business reality with the fact that a billion annoying comics spergs who can't accept "Batman doesn't kill people, period, it's a story that operates off that central conceit" as a good enough reason, you end up having to write a sequence where Batman justifies it. Until Snyder we got one of two flavors: Batman going "My code says I don't kill people" (which is either tautological and essentially what I just wrote that doesn't keep audiences satisfied, or it's Bruce Wayne being a loving coward and hiding behind his code in the face of overwhelming evidence otherwise that states that killing Joker would be an unequivocal public good, that makes Batman look actively negligent bordering on downright idiotic) or Batman going "Because if I kill him, what says I shouldn't kill the Penguin next, and then all crime-doers of any variety?! Slippery slope, man!" Which is such a bad loving justification because it does the awful "the Batman is only one dark step away from turning into the Joker" interpretation of the character that only total hacks use and completely negates any and all of Batman's agency from Batman stories. In contrast, "Because someone worse would come" works, as aforementioned, in-character to Bruce Wayne (because he's seen Joker get worse and worse over the years, more and more violent and ruthless), it works metatextually considering Joker has been made worse and knowing the symphony of errors of poo poo like Villains Month, DC would just bring on Rapey McStabsBabies or something. It works with the main themes of Snyder's run, of corruption of characters into their worst selves, it works with the common interpretation of Gotham as thie sort of living nightmare world that heightens everyone to their most extreme versions of themselves. It just works. It also works especially well in context because it's Bruce Wayne literally going "Oh, yeah, I would totally violate my code to kill the Joker, and I could absolutely do it just once and never again. But, it wouldn't actually solve anything, it'd be totally pointless." It specifically and reasonably invalidates the two shittiest and only justifications previous writers used, by showing that Bruce has absolutely thought this through and come to the only conclusion that would work. It's an excellent sequence that's able to frame Bruce's reasoning why he doesn't kill the Joker as, instead of either stupid, negligent, or cowardly, smart and pragmatic. It strengthens the character over weakens it, something neither of the two previous justifications did. I mean, in an optimal world Batman wouldn't have to be confronted with "Why don't you just kill the Joker???" because either the Joker would be written not to be a genocidal maniac or just not written, at all, period, any more, but neither of those things will ever loving happen so I vastly prefer Snyder's solution, which at the very least was an effective scene.
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Sep 12, 2016 07:15
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Wasn't that reason that Batman's afraid that even someone worse would show up to take his place? I agree with this wholesale. Batman being a gigantic cynic and a coward runs directly against two of his biggest character traits to me. I'll admit that "I wouldn't know when to stop" is lame reasoning, but "I'm just too scared, Alfred" is even worse.
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Sep 12, 2016 07:28
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SonicRulez posted:I agree with this wholesale. Batman being a gigantic cynic...runs directly against two of his biggest character traits to me. I'm not gonna debate the coward stuff but I'd love to hear your justification to this because to me Batman's cynicism is absolutely one of his most defining elements. He never trusts anyone, about anything, ever, and assumes that everyone at the very least has the capacity to betray him. Like, to me, Dick Grayson is Bruce Wayne's greatest accomplishment solely because he isn't Batman. To me the whole point of Robin as a central element of the Batman mythos and specifically Richard "Dick" Grayson as the first Robin is a representation of the optimism and hope that Bruce centrally lost when his parents were killed, and as evidence that Batman works because it saves Dick from becoming Batman. NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 07:36 on Sep 12, 2016 |
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Sep 12, 2016 07:32
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Toxxupation posted:When you're writing a character whose whole gimmick is that he doesn't kill people Not really. That's just a fiction to make him more friendly. And I'm not talking just about the Golden Age or adaptations or other "non-canonical" stories (canon is a lie): Batman's crime-fighting is incredibly dangerous and always potentially lethal to his adversaries. That he doesn't kill is just an inaccurate fiction that makes it more palatable. Toxxupation posted:I'm not gonna debate the coward stuff but I'd love to hear your justification to this because to me Batman's cynicism is absolutely one of his most defining elements. He never trusts anyone, about anything, ever, and assumes that everyone at the very least has the capacity to betray him. That's not cynicism, that's paranoia. e: Like Batman obviously can be cynical, but it's that really that much of a defining element. He wouldn't warn you about the warnings of Nico Teen if he was always a cynic, now would he? BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Sep 12, 2016 |
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Sep 12, 2016 07:40
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Toxxupation posted:I'm not gonna debate the coward stuff but I'd love to hear your justification to this because to me Batman's cynicism is absolutely one of his most defining elements. He never trusts anyone, about anything, ever, and assumes that everyone at the very least has the capacity to betray him. It's really not hard, I've got a list. Bruce Wayne is a guy that 100% seriously believes that he can eradicate all crime in his city permanently by dressing up as a giant bat and punching people in the face. He sends most of his villains to an asylum that he funds because he sincerely hopes that they'll get help and reform. He's worked alongside Riddler, Two Face, and Catwoman (who granted is not insane, but has been a criminal) in the hopes that they will become good people. He's in the middle of reforming Clayface right now in Detective Comics, because he also sees his redemption as a possibility. I know Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader isn't exactly critically acclaimed, but the series of panels with Clayface telling his story are EXACTLY how I would define Batman. "I said I'm not worth it. He said everyone's worth it." That's Batman. He took in Grayson and Todd because he felt like dressing them up as pixies would help them with the immense childhood trauma they'd suffered. He never gave up on Damian despite being presented with a murderous bastard for a child. Even when he wanted nothing more than to toss him out, he always kept Damian by his side in the hopes that he'd overcome his Al Ghul heritage. I mean, seriously, optimism lies at the heart of Batman and I can't comprehend an interpretation of the character where this is not true. Even your second sentence is blatantly untrue. It's a point of parody by this point in the character's nearly 100 years of history. They take the piss out of Bats for it all the time. The character who "never trusts anyone" has the largest supporting cast of any superhero period. He's got a whole family. Sure they may write that he kept something from Tim or that he lied to Barbara, but there's absolutely no doubt that he trusts all of them with his life. From Dick Grayson to Duke Thomas. The Dark Knight Returns is one of the darkest Batman stories and even that tale doesn't go for very long before he picks up a Robin in Carrie Kelly with which he trusts his legacy. Ditto for Batman Beyond with Terry. Sure Bruce has stuff like "How I'd Kill All My Friends" and the aforementioned Death of the Family is one of many stories about him keeping secrets, but that's all back to pragmatism and arrogance (respectively) before I'd call either cynicism. Bruce lives in a world where basically everyone he's known in the past 20 years has been mind controlled at some point. He still lets Superman kick it in the cave from time to time. I mean honestly, interpretations are personal. I can't tell you that you've interpreted Batman wrong. This however feels like someone saying they've never seen a homosexuality allegory in the X-Men.
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Sep 12, 2016 07:42
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Not really. That's just a fiction to make him more friendly. And I'm not talking just about the Golden Age or adaptations or other "non-canonical" stories (canon is a lie): Batman's crime-fighting is incredibly dangerous and always potentially lethal to his adversaries. That he doesn't kill is just an inaccurate fiction that makes it more palatable. You know Batman isn't real, right? Like he's a fake make-em-up person and won't swing by your window on a zipline right? So saying a base defining element of a fictional character who's not real is an "inaccurate fiction" is perhaps the single dumbest series of words written about an, again, unreal character. Who is fake.
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Sep 12, 2016 07:49
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Toxxupation posted:You know Batman isn't real, right? Like he's a fake make-em-up person and won't swing by your window on a zipline right? So saying a base defining element of a fictional character who's not real is an "inaccurate fiction" is perhaps the single dumbest series of words written about an, again, unreal character. Who is fake. Fiction: "A supposition known to be at variance with fact, but conventionally accepted for some reason of practical convenience, conformity with traditional usage, decorum, or the like."
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Sep 12, 2016 07:58
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Batman's only cynical in regards to himself, and that's less cynicism than his own feelings of inadequacy. He believes everyone has a chance to redeem themselves and live a happy, normal life, except for himself. Deep down he knows he's never going to be able to save Gotham to an extent that his own broken brain is going to be satisfied with, because even if Gotham turned into a crimeless utopia overnight Batman would expand his scope to the state, the country, the entire world, other planets, etc. Batman not only wants to save everybody, he cannot rest until he has saved everybody. This is completely impossible, and I think he's intentionally set himself an impossible task as penance for living while his parents die. He holds no hope for himself in his heart the way he does everyone else. This is also why Dick is his greatest achievement, because Dick can do everything Batman can do but without that sense of penance and guilt. Dick wants to be happy, and he usually is. Bruce knows he's not gonna be happy, so he might as well make the rest of the world the safest he possibly can, until it eventually kills him. As far as the Joker I think you're leaning way too heavily on flimsy in-fiction justifications for the lazy way the character's been handled over the last few decades. His whole 'reinvention' schtick is worthless when all he does is get more and more gruesomely violent and add another zero onto his body count every time he comes to town. If the Joker and Batman are written well the question of "Why doesn't Batman just kill the Joker" wouldn't come up because Joker wouldn't be committing his bi-monthly genocide. Batman wouldn't have to grit his teeth and accept that he's going to be pushing grinning corpses out of the street for the rest of his life because "oh no something even worse might happen". Writers wouldn't have to justify DC's business decisions in the text of funnybook adventures.
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Sep 12, 2016 13:35
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TwoPair posted:Well it's not like Morrison wrote him as incompetent so Snyder was just following suit. But hell it's not Morrison's fault either, Joker's been slowly amped up to be the Best Villain Ever™ by a looooong string of writers. Well, they need to give the Best Superhero Ever™ (I'll blame this one on Morrison's JLA) a legitimate enemy.
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Sep 12, 2016 13:43
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There's an old Deathstroke comic from his 90s heroic phase where he's beaten by Joker.
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Sep 12, 2016 13:55
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