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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2017 10:22:07 GMT
brings up a few good points
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2017 22:10:04 GMT
So I started reading this series called Ex Machina and it's really awesome. Basically, it takes place in a version of our reality in which there is only one super, "The Great Machine" aka Mitchell Hundred. He's active from 2000 to 2001, but in early 2001 decides to run for Mayor of NYC using the publicity of publicly revealing his identity. His victory is assured when, on September 11th, 2001, he stops the second plane from taking down the second tower. The book is split between two times, the present of 2002 with Mitchell as mayor of NYC, and flashbacks to his time as a superhero, which are mostly used to inform his character and his decisions as mayor. Each arc basically has him dealing with some sort of politically issue, and telling a story of his past that in some way ties into the issue in the present. It's a really great series and you can actually read it online here: readcomiconline.to/Comic/Ex-Machina/Issue-1?id=42766\In fact, you can use that website to read a lot of comics and it's pretty cool
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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2017 3:41:52 GMT
Good to know. this makes Snyder's Batman significantly more badass
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2017 0:45:08 GMT
Just finished Ex Machina. Fantastic fucking comic. It feels like it was cut short a bit too early, but it's still great. Highly recommend it.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2017 0:50:49 GMT
began watching iron fist on netflix today. it's okay. not exactly great, but it isnt shit.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2017 5:46:26 GMT
Heads up, I typed this big review thing. I'm calling it practice for if I get that job reviewing comics. It's long and probably not interesting, but whatever, here it is.
Just read The Dark Knight Strikes Again.
I went in with the lowest of expectations and those expectations were both too high and too low on different fronts.
The art and writing were way, way worse than even my worst expectations.
The plot and characters were.... like, barely above my worst expectations.
For context: This is the sequel to The Dark Knight Returns, what some people consider to be the great Batman story ever. It tells the story of a dark future in which superheroes are outlawed, but when Gotham is at its darkest moment, a now 60 year old Bruce Wayne returns as the dark knight. It was.... okay. Written well enough, the art was okay... Personally, I didn't like a lot of things, and it's effect on popular culture has been a net negative.
The sequel tells a story where Lex Luthor holds Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel hostage while ruling the country from behind a holographic president. Batman has had enough of this, and sets in motion a plan to free the country from Lex's grasp. I guess I'm gearing up to do a full review here, so I'll break it down into different parts. Mainly, plot, characters, art, and script. And then a summary or something.
Plot:
So the overall plot has Batman, Carrie Kelly aka Catgirl(for... some reason), and Green Arrow although he's not around much, saving various superheroes who Lex has imprisoned. Namely, The Flash, The Atom, Elongated Man, and Plastic Man. Meanwhile, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel all fight Batman's team as Lex is holding the bottle city of Kandor, the Amazons, and Mary Batson hostage. Eventually, Batman stages a revolution, but Lex tries to crush it by staging a fight in which Superman loses to Braniac. However, Lara, the daughter of Supes and Wonder woman destroys Braniac. Captain Marvel died in the battle(which destroyed most of metropolis in a poorly placed comparison to 9/11), but Wonder Woman, Lara, and Superman are now on Batman's side.... Except forget about Wonder Woman, she only shows up for moral support for some reason.
Kandor is still hostage(I guess Lex forgot about the Amazons?) So Lara pretends to surrender as a ploy to allow The Atom to save Kandor. Meanwhile, The Question pointlessly shows up and Martian Manhunter dies. He's killed by someone calling themself The Joker who can't be killed. Batman has Green Lantern come from... wherever to destroy Lex's space cannons... and then Green Lantern fucks off to... wherever he was. The son of Hawkman and Hawkwoman kills Lex Luthor. Superman meanwhile murdered a bunch of people because.... reasons?
Oh yeah, The Joker. Yeah. He's Dick Grayson. I don't know why. It's never explained. He can shapeshift and is immortal. He almost kills Carrie Kelly. Batman shows up and reveals that the bat cave was built on a volcano. He drops Dick into the volcano. That's it. It ends.
So uh.... yeah... It's about as bad as it sounds. Honestly, it held up in the first issue... Then.. okay, about that revolution? It's because there are pornstars dressing up as superheros. And... Batman uses them to fuel his revolution.... yeah. Then in the final fight against Lex in Braniac, that's.... okay, aside from Green Lantern deus ex machina. And... then a random encounter with Dick Grayson as The Joker....... okay.
A lot of it is hard to follow, nonsensical, and just way too overcrowed with people no one cares about. I mean, remember me mentioning The flash? Yeah, he does nothing. Captain Marvel dies, but then is alive again, but then has a final death scene. Wonder Woman just kind of disappears halfway through the plot. Superman loses it and starts killing people for no reason. Remembering me mentioning The Question and Martian Manhunter? Yeah, they show up, and then they're gone, and then in the final few pages, The Question and Green Arrow yell at each other for a bit.
Bottom Line, it's confusing and made no sense, but hey, the beginning and the confrontation with Lex at least I could understand, which was honestly more than I was hoping for.
Characters:
I think each character at some point at least once goes on for a bit about how smart Batman is. Batman is at the center of everything and can never fail and he's just so smart and awesome you guys. It... feels like badly written fan-fiction. Honestly, as far as most of the characters go? It's hard to keep track. Wonder Woman is basically there are Superman's love interest(at one point implying when they first met he raped her so, you know, that's a thing), and is just totally passive. Green Arrow and the Question are also passive and just debate politics mostly.
Honestly, the main dynamic seems to be between Bruce, Clark, Lara, and Carrie. Between a pair of fathers and daughters. Bruce is getting older, so he's passing more and more responsibility to Carrie, and she's not sure if she can handle it. Honestly? This works. One of the few things that does. Carrie is a compelling character and I don't have much complaints as far as she goes. Clark tries to instill his daughter with a sense of truth and justice and what-not, but she can't see why they don't just rule humanity for their own good. Eventually, Lara convinces Clark that her way is right(presumably why he has so much fun killing a bunch of people at the end?). This... might've worked. Clark is beaten down and broken, so he's willing to accept this new philosophy of his daughter's, and it works in reverse to the Bruce/Carrie dynamic. Bruce passes on his thoughts and beliefs to Carrie, Clark tries to do the same with Lara, but instead she ends up teaching him something. It looks like it should have worked, but Lara and Clark aren't given enough time.
Aside from that, no one else gets enough time for clearly developed personalities or motivations aside from following the bigger players on either side of the conflict, and having arch, broadly drawn personalities.
The villains get it worst though. Lex has no motivations other than "Evil Genius" as several narration boxes say when announcing him. Braniac has.... nothing. He's just there, and he's evil. We get nothing from Braniac. He may as well just be an extension of Lex.
Art:
This is the most hideous comic I've ever seen. It's painful to look at at times. It's both overcrowded, and strangely empty. The action is alternately too confusing and hectic, or entirely static. At one moment an over-reliance on splash pages(which at least made the thing faster to read), then next an over-reliance on multiple small panels on a single page(strangely near the end which makes me feel like Frank Miller wasted too much time earlier in the comic).
Now, I wasn't a fan of The Dark Knight Returns art. As I remember, it was penciled by Frank Miller, and inked by someone else. The same colorist for both books. It looked...... okay. The characters were big and stocky with weird anatomy. There were occasionally too few backgrounds. Facial expressions were weird, but not in an over expressive way like Rafael Albuquerque sometimes falls into, just, poorly drawn. The colors were muted and washed out, too. But overall, not the worst looking comic I've ever read. As I said, that goes to this comic.
Frank Miller is the only artist, and he drew everything in marker. not kidding. He didn't use pencils and inks, he just used fucking marker. The anatomy makes no sense, at all. At one point, Batman's hands are bigger than his torso. Female characters are constantly twisting like slinkies so their asses take up the most room in the panel, and it's not sexy(mostly because... it's just a big blob of marker) because they don't even look human. Facial expressions are fucked. Sometimes it's hilarious, mostly it's just weird and bad.
There are no backgrounds. Well, that's not true, sometimes we get a computer generated image of some randoms color gradients. Seriously. That's it. Mostly, it's just blank white. There are random balloons of people commenting on events. I think they're parodies of real life people? It makes everything over crowded. Or, we get three splash pages of Superman and Wonder Woman on an empty blank white background. You can never tell what's happening in a fight scene.
Some of the computer generated images have weird pixelation and it's just left in. Not for story purposes, just, he used a computer to make a streak of superman's cape and it came out as a mess of pixels and fuck it, he just let it in. This happens all the time and it's hideous.
Oh yeah, and about the colors last time being muted and washed out? This time, they're just a fucking assault on your eyes. Seriously, this comic is fucking hideous.
I quit, I guess I'll leave what I've got so far, but it's almsot 2 in the morning, so I'm not typing the rest of this. byw
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2017 17:48:58 GMT
Last thing I was going to say About DKSA is that the writing is awful Miller repeats the same sentence over and over again multiple times for... no reason. Characters go on and on about how smart Batman is. He awkwardly tries to fit in the future slang from DKR. It's just bad.
Worst thing: the "satire". The story is constantly interrupted by random news pundits that are satire of the real world and it has no place and just interrupts the pacing. Also, blatant sexism. A lot. Like, even if you are one to scoff at "feminists" or whatever, this is just an uncomfortable amount of sexism and objectification of women.
It's bad. Is the bottom line
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2017 17:50:49 GMT
The Dark Knight III: The Master Race, on the other hand, is quite good. But then again, it's being written and drawn by entirely different people. Frank Miller writes and draws the back-up stories, which are terrible. The main story though is quite good. not great, but surprisingly good, and it made me realize that if handled by competent writers and artists, the Dark Knight Universe can actually be compelling.
Unfortunately, Frank Miller will be writing Dark Knight IV. Hopefully Andy Kubert sticks around as the artist?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2017 17:52:33 GMT
lol this thread is basically just becoming my journal for my comic book reading.
Anyway, I'm going to try and finish N52 Nightwing + Grayson since elements from Grayson are still a pretty big part of the main Nightwing books and I'd like to understand those parts a bit more.
Then probably catching up on Titans and Deathstroke to prepare for the "Lazarus Contract" crossover with Teen Titans.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2017 2:10:32 GMT
Grayson was good. I think I'm closing the book on the N52 for a bit.
Titans is really good. If DC hadn't just bumped up the prices of the monthly books, I'd start paying for it to support it. But sadly, monthly books are now $4 instead of $3.
Deathstroke is boring and a slog to read through. Once The Lazarus Contract crossover is over I'm going to stop reading it.
Planning on catching up on Superman and Action Comics next. Then maybe Supergirl? Looks like Batgirl will be a part of the next Supergirl story arc, so yeah, probably Supergirl.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2017 3:06:06 GMT
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Post by Zeruis on Mar 26, 2017 0:08:39 GMT
I'm all caught up on Afterlife with Archie.
Best zombie apocalypse story I've ever read. Even if you're remotely familiar with Archie characters, I would still hope that you give this a chance. It's amazing.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2017 0:50:45 GMT
All caught up on Superman and Action Comics. Fantastic books, both of them. Really love the focus on the family dynamics, and the more whacky villains make for a lot of interesting stories. Plus, I love Lex as a rival/anti-hero as opposed to a straight-up evil mastermind. It fits his character more, I think.
I also quick read Superwoman since it tied in with the Superman Reborn crossover, and that was good, too. Good characters and plot, but maybe a little too wordy and confusing at times? But the wordy narration is a lot of what gives Lana such a unique character/voice, so, I just hope the writer finds a balance.
Also read Justice League of America. It's good. Not the best of the ones I've read, but y'know... it's good.
Reading The Flash now, and it's fantastic! Love the characters and the art, and the villain in the first arc was great. I'm currently reading the Rogues Reloaded arc and it's awesome.
I think I'm going to get caught up on Wonder Woman next. Maybe Aquaman after that? I don't know, I want to slow down a bit, but all of these books have been so good.
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