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If I can add a few to the JL section:

1. Alex Ross Justice League

Justice is easily the best Justice League book I have ever read. It makes use of all, and I mean all, of the Justice League including their sidekicks in effective ways. The storytelling is economic with no scene or story beat going on too long, and everyone gets an awesome moment. And best of all it is new reader friendly because it isn’t based on any continuity.

Liberty and Justice is also really good. It’s just that it only really involves the core seven, is a one shot, and the antagonist isn’t very notable. Still a big recommend.

2. DCAU comics

Based on the Justice League TV show, these are nice collections meant to flesh out and show more of these characters. They’re not big event comics and they don’t have a whole lot in terms of continuity. They’re just generally good, entertaining reads. They are like the old days of done-in-one stories and if you like that or liked the show, I suggest giving them a try.

By the way, I just want to say that for whatever reason, comic book adaptations of comic book tv shows are universally very good or at worst decent. In a few cases, like with the Superman Adventures, they are better than what’s going on in the main continuity comics at the time. My guess is it’s a case of having your cake and eating it too. These are usually A-tier characters being adapted so good writing talent flock to the books, but because they don’t really matter, the writers can do whatever they want without strict editorial interference.

3. Brad Meltzer’s 2006 Reboot

I know Meltzer is kinda known as the Identity Crisis guy, but I still think his reboot of the Justice League was very solid. It uses a good mix of characters, A to D-list, and has some really nice stories in it. Also, pre-nu52 continuity DC is my absolute favorite continuity, so I will admit to being biased. Still I suggest if nothing else you give the first arc a look to see if you like it.

X-Men, Justice League, Avengers. Recommend... what NOT to get (including mediocre)

Hoo this is gonna be long. 

Well for X-Men I already made two guides that detail whats worth reading so check those out here and here. 

The only thing not is them is the current Krakoa X-Men stuff which i will say are all worth reading. Krakoa is a weird and divisive time for X-Men, but its interesting and its the best X-Men has been is years. 

Theres House of X/Powers of X, X-Men, Marauders, Excalibur, X-Force, Hellions, Giant Size X-Men, New Mutants, X of Swords, X-Factor, Wolverine, Cable and Fallen Angels. 

You don’t need read everything to understand whats going on. Just pick the book that interested you the most. 

Justice League:

This one will be a lot shorter. I haven’t read every JL book, but these are the ones I have read and i would say are definitely worth reading. 

Justice League International is classic. 

JLA from Grant Morrison’s run to Mark Waid’s to Joe Kelly’s. 

New52 Justice League is okay is you like the New52, but really i would only recommend Darksied War. 

Justice league by Scott Snyder is some insane cosmic stuff that can be a little hard to follow, but its good. The only problem is that it doesn't have a real ending. You’d have to read Death Metal to get the conclusion and I don’t know if you wanna subject yourself to that mess. 

Avengers:

Avengers will also be short because I don’t care that much about them compared to the JL.

Avengers by Roger Stern is good and has She-Hulk so uh yeah its good. 

Avengers by Kurt Busiek is probably one of the best. And again She-Hulk appears every now and then so yeah it good. 

Geoff John’s Avengers run is random as its the only time he ever wrote at Marvel, but its pretty decent. It has that famous panel of Hank and Janet using there powers to have sex so yeah theres that. 

Bendi’s New Avengers. He wrote every Avengers book from 2004 to 2012 and the only one that worth a damn really is the first one New Avengers. You do have to sit through Disassembled tho so hmmm. 

Avengers by Jonathan Hickman. Its pretty good, but it kinda goes off the rails near the end. 

Mighty Avengers is a fun book. And it has She-Hulk. 

And uh thats it. There really isn’t any other Avengers book thats worth the read. Cardinally not Arron’s Avengers unless you wanna read the dumbest book currently being published and the ruination of She-Hulk. I’ve heard the books written by Al Ewing were good so maybe I’ll check those out eventually. 

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Reading through The Mighty Avengers and I really like the first arc. But what I hate is how Bendis treated Hank Pym throughout the whole thing.

The whole arc is another Ultron story, and from beginning to end, it’s like Bendis used any opportunity available to put Hank down. From the beginning, before we even see Hank, there are put downs.

Then we finally see the guy as he’s about to get with Tigra before this happens

Way to make him look respectable and capable of moving on positively right? Especially since Ultron has for no real reason decided to look like Janet.

If you had never heard of Hank and this, or something like this, was your first exposure to him, then I can understand why he can never shake his reputation. He comes off as a creepy ex instead of a man trying to move past his mistakes.

You also gotta love Carol saying he should kill himself. 

I don’t want a Hank who is scrubbed or absolved of all his sins. I actually think he works better as a man trying to atone and overcome his past. But this isn’t about him overcoming, it’s about shitting on him nonstop. He doesn’t grow from this or show off any overly heroic qualities. Even the one thing most authors will afford him, his intelligence, is mocked here.

Even at the very end, there is a parting shot at him.

Again, this makes Hank and Janet look like teenagers in a will-they, won’t-they romcom instead of adults who were able to reconcile and move on.

I also don’t like the fact that he is so dismissive of Tigra. I know we would find out that skrull bullshit made the relationship invalid, but I liked it and thought it was good for Hank. Unlike a lot of his “friends” Tigra was actually really supportive of him, and his time with her and the Avengers Academy is what first got me into his character.

Hank Pym deserves better you guys.

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For my part:

Loved the Young Justice cartoon as a kid and took a chance on reading the comic,

Found out it was written by a different team from the 90s but loved it anyway because it’s tone, character dynamics, and sense of fun reminded me of my favorite manga One Piece.

Tried to look up what else the characters had been a part of and saw they were a part of Teen Titans by Geoff Johns. Loved that run too.

At that point I was a true DC fan and tried to buy or read anything with a DC label on it. 

More or less found out what type of stories, runs, and creators I liked and stuck with them for years before exploring the wider DC and Marvel universe and falling in love with dozens of hidden gems and interconnected stories.

Honestly though, it comes down to what you like. At this point, DC is literally saying everything is canon, so I can recommend you stuff to jump right into and have fun if there are any kinds of stories you like.

Believe me, I don’t care how niche or absurd your favorite genre is, there is probably a DC/Marvel comic for you.

oh i hate dc comics actually

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Superman Haters: “He’s such a Boy Scout.  He never gets angry.”

Me who has read a Superman comic:

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One of the reasons I love Steve Englehart’s Justice League run is because he makes Superman and Batman such bros. And it’s especially poignant because a large part of this run involves membership problems and internal squabbles within the League. But Batman and Superman are always on the same page and ready to support each other. I just love it.

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I’m going on a deep dive through 90s comics to see how much of their bad reputation is deserved. I decided to start with Gen13, a comic that I really, really wanted to like, but so far the story has been really bad.

And I was really confused. So confused, I bought a Gen13 zine to learn what the creators were doing when they made the comic, because they wouldn’t launch a whole line without trying to make the very best stuff they could, and Jim Lee worked with Chris Claremont on X-Men, so he should know his stuff right?

I read that entire zine and looked through as many interviews as possible, but Jim Lee and J. Scott Campbell barely ever talk about Gen13. They never talk about where they wanted the characters to go or what the unique hook of the book was. Maybe someone has a source I don’t, but from what I’ve researched, they just really wanted to do X-Men at Image and didn’t have much of a plan beyond that.

And that got me to thinking about an interview with Jim Shooter I read. He talks about how directionless a lot of Marvel books were after he left. Mainly, they only used gimmicks and tricks to get a customer base and didn’t do much in the way of actual storytelling and effort so even with huge selling #1 titles, the sales would drop soon after.

It really made me think about Gen13 and Image as a whole. I actually really want to like the 90s. The second comic I ever really read and loved was the 90s comic Young Justice so I take some umbrage with the sentiment that everything from that era is crap. But so far, this read through is off to a bad start.

Anyway, part of the interview is under the cut.

JS: When I left Marvel, it really got ridiculous. I never liked the idea of editors writing anyway. But after I left Marvel, if you check, every book is written by an editor whose working another editor. The Avengers guy gives Daredevil to some other editor. That editor gives the Avengers to the other guy and they're writing each other's books. They're not going to cross each other because they're both happy to be getting the royalties deal.

That's about the time that sales dropped off. It was all very incestuous, very crummy, very bad. And it just created this downward spiral, driving away all the Image guys. P.S. After I left, they almost systematically got rid of the writers. Roger Stern, Michelinie, Chris Claremont for Christ's sake.

MDT: They all went over to DC.

JS: DeMatteis, Louise Simonson. It's like they got rid of the writers one at a time, so the artists were writing the book. P.S. That didn't get any press. Nobody cares when the writers get squashed.

I ran into Terry Stewart in Frankfurt a couple of years later. He was a little smug because they had done Spider-Man #1 and it had sold a million copies and then the next year they had done X-Force and X-Men #1. And he said to me, "You're the comics guru, I feel like I won the lottery two year in a row. What do I do now?" I said, "Well, Terry, now you're going to have to create something. You've pulled all the easy triggers, now you have to really create something. And you don't have the horses."

He took me to heart. They took me to heart. The 2099 line of books. A bunch of derivative crap. Let's do the same thing, but call it the future. Spider-Man in the future.

It was pathetic. They didn't have the horsepower. There wasn't a Spawn in the bunch. Was that the best they can do?

It didn't even have a good idea at its foundation like the New Universe and they had all the money in the world to spend on it. They had top talent. They had Stan writing a book.

At the time when they needed some creative horsepower, they didn't have any. I'm not saying there weren't any talented people, they just didn't have anyone driving the books. No one steering the boat. What talent was there was largely squandered as a result.

They blew their chance. Any 100 fans would tell them what they were doing wrong and they still wouldn't get it.

source

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Are You the Main Male of a Bad Harem Story?

Most guys have to put in effort and work to attract the opposite sex. Naturally, you don’t want any part of that and wish a girl, or girls, could just pop into your life and be interested in you. Well I have just the advice to give you all the qualities of a shitty magnetic harem lead and avoid all that pesky effort.

No/Shallow Male Friendships (Platonic qualities)

Having important guy friends might give you other things to focus on instead of girl chasing. An important platonic friendship also runs the risk of fleshing out your personality in terms of someone who acts as a foil for you to compare and contrast yourself. If this seems like this limits you, remember that is point. You should have very little personality, and a close platonic friendship requires you to display attractive qualities other that just being a leading male, so they must be destroyed. I would also say to not spend time with your bother, but as a harem protag, you have no visible and active family in your life except maybe a sister you have a...different relationship too than most.

Hormonal Overload (Shallow Characterization)

Now it’s normal for most teenage boys to be overwhelmed by hormones bringing on new feelings, and some boys have it worse than others. But you aren’t normal. You don’t just think about sex, you are obsessed with it. Your every waking moment is fixated on how to serve or be served by the almighty vag.

Normal boys tend to have a deeper range of concerns and ideas in their adolescent walk to maturity. Why am I so angry? Why am I so sad? Am I fitting in? What do I want to do after high school? Why can’t I connect with my family like I use too? All these issues, which if fleshed out could give depth to a character, need not concern the likes of you. You only need to expand your brain power as far as what can you do to help that monster in your pants. Remember, only surface level characteristics for you

No extra curriculars (Passive vs. Proactive)

Under NO circumstances are you to try and join any after school clubs. I’m not just talking about sports, I mean math club, debate, writing workshops, robotics. Anything that can possible give you applicable life skills should be avoided at all costs.

If you are a part of any club, it is one either so niche or so broad that you effectively do nothing. Having concrete, reasonable goals may set up an idea in your mind or others that you will strive to achieve them and better yourself to do it. You are a harem protagonist my friend. You are already fully accomplished as a fifteen-year-old in every way except having a girlfriend. 

But don’t worry about that. I’m confident if you follow my advice, a cute girl will drag you into her club for no reason at all and despite not knowing what you like or what qualities you will bring to the group. Surely you won’t waste years hoping away on the sidelines while others take a more active role in their life.

Preparing for College (Accomplishments)

As you get to the end of the series your high school days, you might feel pressure to do something that gives you a sense of accomplishment. But remember that only niche hobbies are available for you, and take pride in the fact that nobody collects figurines or reads manga as fast as you. Of course, the world abounds with tales of people who took their seeming useless talents or interest, and applied them in ways that provided a much needed utility or entertainment to the world at large.

In fact, a protagonist who is looked down on for a trivial hobby they love, who learns to use it in a way that brings joy and assistance to the student body around him, all while building a group of like minded friends, some of which may have a crush on him, might seem like a fun and interesting tale. But don’t believe the hype. All that stuff requires effort, struggle, goal setting, and usually an ability to interact well with others. Do you really think putting in work and learning to apply your talents would be better than coasting along? Do you honestly think people would subject themselves to seeing you struggle and fall and struggle again until you’ve gained valuable experience and accomplishments? I didn’t think so.

High School Graduation (Bad Ending)

Now if you find yourself with multiple girls, you may notice that things are moving slow with all of them. And by slow, I mean glacier-like stagnation. Not to worry. In all likelihood, the women are waiting for you to make a firm choice and actively woo one or all of them through your charm and confidence. I’m sure they’ll be disillusioned of that eventually, and it’ll get to the point where even God himself is tired of waiting, and decides to wrap things up in a nice package.

Girls in your group will slowly start to distance themselves and find other relationships to be in. Sometime around graduation, your one true love will realize how pussy shy you are and actively confess to you. Now she may or may not have done this before, but now inexplicably all the distractions and take backs that prevented this confession from going anywhere before are all gone and done with. With your love in your arms, you can finally be free to have the big kiss and live happily ever after...for about 2 or 3 months before you both realize you don’t really know anything about one another, and without wacky hijinks things get boring real quickly.

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Hmmm...

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2020 cancel culture in a nutshell.

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I’ve been looking for out of the way comics to read when I came across Ben 10 comics and it got me thinking about Man of Action games. And in particular how much they suck.

They suck so bad. They’re boring and uncreative and not even that long. And it’s made all the worst because the IP’s used have to be some of the most creative.

Like come on. One story is about a kid who can transform into at least 10 different aliens. Another is about a boy who hunts and cures monsters while growing machines out of his body. These should legendary games, but man they are boring.

For one thing, you never, and I mean never had access to all the heroes abilities. And I don’t just mean the aliens or weapons they gain later on. I mean just the ones they have starting out are mostly off limits and can only be unlocked briefly.

These weapons look cool right? Yeah you can use them like a few times at most.

Damn this is great right? You already know this is an endgame event.

It’s so freaking lazy and uncreative.

And you know what’s worse? There was a Ben 10 computer game that was for free and way, way better. It’s been a few years, but I remember that you had access to way more aliens, and each one gave you a different advantage and weakness for the game. It was unique and smart and made use of all the potential that these $40 and $50 games couldn’t touch.

I don’t even know why I talked about this since I don’t even know if they’re making new Ben 10 stuff, but in the future, I hope games with such huge potential don’t drop the ball so hard.

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Jack Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen

So I just got through reading the first omnibus in Jack Kirby’s Fourth World saga. I’m gonna try to make my way through every last one in order to see what the big deal is and analyze why they have such imaginative power while other Jack Kirby creations like the Eternals went down the memory hole.

And honestly this isn’t an auspicious way to start. I had wondered for a while why Jimmy Olsen isn’t really recommended in the New Gods Saga and now I know why. It’s barely a New Gods book. The only connections to the New Gods are:

Mokkari and Simyan as the recurring antagonists

Morgan Edge working for Darkseid (which isn’t resolved in this book)

Lightray appearing for a scene

Clark spending an issue in New Genesis

A few references to the Forever People

Not exactly the best intro to the War of the New Gods. In fact I would describe this book more as New Gods clean up. It spends more time dealing with threats that are the spillover of war rather than confronting the war directly.

The real through line of these tales is “The Project.” A genetics facility that would later be known as Project Cadmus.

Mokkari and Simyan create threats based on Cadmus tech. Superman and Jimmy deal with the monsters of a Cadmus scientist. We meet the D.N.Alien Dubbilex who investigates a secret passage to Cadmus. Heck the entire story starts with Jimmy investigating a wildness group that uses technology left over from Cadmus. If you’re someone who likes Project Cadmus then this is a highly recommended collection for you.

I think the biggest revelation was that Superman was a partner and firm advocate for the Project. Literally every piece of superhero media I’ve watched portrayed Project Cadmus as morally dubious at best, so it’s kind of surreal that Kirby intended them to be good guys. Especially since a lot of stuff they do in this book is still morally dubious. They create human clones (seemingly without permission) and employ mad scientists. Some of their soldiers are children or teens and they seem really intent on keeping all this literal life changing tech undercover. It’s kind of wild that Kirby framed all of this in the narrative as morally good without questioning it at all. Then again, wasn’t eugenics a well thought of science back in the day? I figured it died out in the 50s or so, but maybe a lot of people still agreed with it in the early 70s.

Anyway, the real reason why I think Project Cadmus is the focal point is that it allowed Kirby to work where he shines brightest. Big ideas.

Someone once described Jack Kirby as a hundred ideas per square inch, and it’s hard to disagree when reading through this. Small planets, D.N.Aliens, the Habitat, Zoomway, and the solar phone are just some of the inventions that fill the pages of this collection and I purposely left out the stuff connected with New Gods like the Boom Tube. But more than just making cool technology, Jack gave Superman cool threats.

It can be hard coming up with challenges for any incarnation of the Man of Steel, and I have to imagine the Bronze Age one was one of the hardest. But reading through these I’m amazed with how rarely I felt the threat was below Superman. And I think that comes down to the fact that rarely was Kirby trying to write a cosmic wrestling match. His solution to problems had a more cerebral element to them, and required Superman to get creative or even occasionally play for a more peaceful resolution. I think my favorite was when he saved Cadmus from a collection of atomic energy eaters in like 10 seconds.

In fact, Kirby wrote an absolutely fantastic Superman. Strong, clever, mature, creative, kind, and badass. I said it can be hard to write for Superman, and I think a lot of comic writers think that decreasing him makes him work better, but Kirby knew that all you really have to do is make the threats bigger. And this cosmic war of gods, with Earth as just a casualty in the way, is about as big as you can get. And as a result, the Superman that emerges here is all the stronger for facing these threats as they come one by one while also trying to help start a whole new branch of science that these monsters threaten or distort. While this isn’t much of a New Gods book, I consider it a bit of a hidden classic for Bronze Age Superman stories.

But what about the titular character of Jimmy Olsen? Well honestly, he really ends up playing a side character in his own book. And I’m fine with that, because I think Jimmy only really works as a spotlight character once every couple dozen of issues, but if you are reading these stories for him, you’ll probably be disappointed. It’s not that he has nothing to do, but when your book has New Gods and Superman and genetic warfare and interdimensional schemes of every shape and size, you’re just gonna have to play second or even third billing. To be fair, no other main player in the Superman mythos can really tag along either. Lois is nowhere to be seen, I think Perry White only shows up once, and while Morgan Edge is a small antagonists, he really only acts as an orchestrator instead of a major player. They are all gone to make room for the Newsboy Legion.

And man do the Newsboy Legion just barge into the story. Sometimes literally.

Kirby seemed to really want to make them a thing again like when he wrote them in the 40s. It kind of reminds me of how J.M. DeMatteis tried to put Vermin in a lot of his stories. And just like with Vermin, they really end up over staying their welcome.

They were fine in the first two or three issues, but around the time the Outsiders (no not those Outsiders, a different one) exit the story, the NL should have left too. They could return for a story or two, but no more. Instead Kirby makes sure they appear in every single story in this omnibus, including ones where they aren’t really needed. Oh no! Jimmy has been ambushed and Clark has been sent off to Apokolips with no way to return. Quick, let’s go see what hijinks the Newsboy Legion are getting up to. Like, I don’t hate them, and giving Superman super wacky kids who support him in his adventures isn’t a setup I’m adverse to, since that’s basically what Jimmy was for the Silver/Bronze Age. But man, the 70s slang and rapscallion attitude you see in the panel above is only a little of what shows up, and it gets really grating after a while.

On top of that were some other weird cast choices. I actually really like the Golden Guardian’s setup as a genetically made man with memories implanted with those of a dead man. I really looked forward to him relearning his past life while making a new one in Metropolis as much needed backup for Superman. But he honestly ends up as just a kind of Captain America clone

He also ends up just dropping out of the story later on. Not even leaving, it’s just that one scene he is with Superman exploring the city and the next Superman is off exploring a secret tunnel with Dubbilex and not-Lois character Terry Dean.

And speaking of Terry Dean I find it just hilarious that she is in this panel. Superman and the others are exploring secret entrances and contemplating literal apocalyptic war, and she’s just kind of...there. For those who don’t know or care, according to my research she is a character who showed up once before Kirby came on the Jimmy title, twice after he left it, and then one more time eighteen years later as a deep cut in Superman vol 2. #46.

If I seem to be nitpicking, it’s just that it’s so weird Kirby would go for this character instead of bringing in Lois. And he includes another weird character named Goody Rickels for like two or three issues for a story arc I’m gonna have to reread just to understand what the point of it was.

Still, ignoring these flaws, the Jack Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen Omnibus is a recommend if for nothing else than the fact that it is a good set of Superman stories with incredibly inventive and creative plots that hint at a larger world on the horizon. And I honestly can’t wait to tackle that new world of New Gods.

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How I Classify Different Tiers of Superheroes

A-List

Normies in general have an idea of who you are and what your basic mythology is. With rare exceptions, you’ll always have your own book being published with legions of fans happy to buy it.

Ex. DC’s the Trinity, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Iron Man in theory, Daredevil after Frank Miller, The Flash, Captain Marvel (a.k.a. Carol Danvers) in theory

B-List

You’re fairly popular and the comic book fandom in general know who you are. Your series isn’t a hot-seller but you have enough fans interested that it makes a profit and enough recognizability that merch can be sold off you.

Ex. Iron Man in practice, Daredevil before Frank Miller, Thor, Captain America, Green Lanterns

C-List

You are a joy whenever you appear in other people’s books, because of your unique personality, but when on your own you don’t quite have the power to support more than a few runs before you’re series is cancelled.

Ex. Doctor Strange, She-Hulk, Power Girl, Namor, Captain Marvel (a.k.a. Shazam),  Captain Marvel (a.k.a. Carol Danvers) in practice, Martian Manhunter

D-List

People kinda recognize you when you show up, but even most comic book nerds need a frame of reference for who you are unless you have some big event you are known for.

Ex. Warlock, Hellcat, most of Justice League International, Man-Thing, Inhumans

Below

Only comic book historians will have an inkling of who you are. The best you can hope for is that some writer decides to use you as a twist villain in their story because no one will see you coming.

Ex. Too many examples to name, and I don’t care enough to go find any.

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One of the craziest things you’ll do as an adult is go back and look at the old shows you enjoyed as a kid. An awful lot of it is gonna be worst than you remember and quite a few will be as good (or bad) as you remember.

And then you will come across a show like As Told By Ginger which is much better now since almost everything about it flew over your head as a kid. Because man, I’m rewatching it and some of this stuff is more mature than what’s written for adults.

Like, the popular girl isn’t all that bad and even becomes kinda Ginger’s best friend as she matures and gains self-awareness?

The main trio get into fights often, and they can have long reaching consequences?

The mom is given a bit of an arc that ends with her finding a second love?

Even the theme song has a message about not envying what other people have because it isn’t as great as you think once you’ve got it.

Just...man I wish I had re-watched this as an tween/early teen myself and learned something from it. But hey, that’s just life. At least I can still appreciate this classic theme.

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Supreme #45 by Alan Moore

You know, on the surface this is pure Silver Age whimsy. But when you really think about it, having your various body parts scattered to the four winds as you rematerialize would be a terrible death of pure agony. And there was a lot of stuff like this in the Silver Age, which was silly and goofy on first read, but when you imagined yourself going through it, it was a lot more scary.

I remember Pendleton Ward, the creator of Adventure Time once said his favorite feeling was “Candy Land on the surface, Mad Max underneath.” Which incidentally is a feeling you’ll find all the time in old comics. In fact if I could sum up most of the Silver Age, and SA Superman in particular, it would be “Silly Premise, Horrific Implications.”

I think one of the things that made Alan Moore’s Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow so iconic is that he basically said, “Fuck leaving this stuff under the surface! Let’s show people just how fucked up this would all look from the inside!”

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Strongly agree. I think Superman is a good example of this. One of the reasons people think Superman is boring, I think, is because dozens of writers try to fit him into the Batman model of down to earth, realistic stories when he really doesn’t fit. Because they think being realistic is inherently more interesting and mature.

I read a Superman story from the bronze age where he had to ‘fight’ a sun that had entered the solar system and was throwing things off. It turns out the sun is basically a home to disembodied telepathic intelligences who require him to retrieve them a new energy source that is being used by an alien. But rather than fight or even kill the alien, superman tricks it into helping the solar-beings create an entirely new planet. It was big and humane and intelligent and mature, all while being completely unbelievable. And stories like that were common for the Man of Steel, because people loved them. But now they just have him take on street level petty villains that are more suited to Spider-Man than Superman. All because fantasy/sci-fi is seen as childish.

Although I feel like so much of this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Telling people that fantasy and sci-fi are dumb have created generations of writers who never want to try to write great stories. And when great stories are written, they are dismissed as being exceptions to the genre, instead of what it is capable of. And of course what you said about most of the general audience not wanting to deal with anything too cerebral.

On one hand, criticizing superhero and sci-fi blockbusters for failing to challenge and surprise and expand the minds of their audience is a cheap shot; the majority of audiences do not want that, and every genre has its own lazy/cynical variations.

On the other hand, sci-fi/fantasy/etc. have the potential to expand the viewer’s mind in a way that even the cream of the crop of realism just doesn’t: by definition those works have to limit themselves to things that are possible, even if they do have profound and unforgettable insights about those things.  So the overweening cynicism of most sf/f blockbusters stings a little harder.

Great litfic is like an exquisitely-constructed sculpture in which you admire every little detail. Great fantasy is a vast untamed wilderness. Shitty litfic is an imitation of the sculpture; it’s plasticine, not marble, but still impressive at first glance. Shitty fantasy is like that wilderness but with an impassable fence twenty meters out from your entry point.

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Sci-Fi Superman

Anyone else starting to wonder why there haven’t really been any big sci-fi writers on Superman for a long while?

Whatever you think of Peter Tomasi or Brian Michael Bendis, they aren’t really big sci-fi guys (though I’ve hear Bendis tried using some big ideas in his run). It’s just so weird because with the exceptions of Fantastic Four and Green Lanterns, I can’t think of a better hero to tell cosmic adventures. The guy has a built in x-ray, microscope, telescope, and bunsen burner. He can see parts of the spectrum human eyes can’t and think faster than just about anyone other than the Flash.

And in the Silver/Bronze age a lot of contemporary big name sci-fi authors worked on him: Otto Binder, Edmond Hamilton, Jack Kirby and Alfred Bester come to mind. Possibly his most famous editor ever, Mort Weisinger, was very active in early SF fandom. But nowadays, it seems like we very rarely get any on his title except for maybe a one-shot. 

In fact the one guy who wrote a lot of cosmic sci-fi, John Byrne, has explicitly said he wrote Superman much weaker than he had ever been to ‘ground’ him. I don’t think the Last Son of Krypton, who has an iconic phrase based around flying, needs to be very grounded. It’s pretty frustrating because I’m sure someone like Jonathan Hickman or Al Ewing would go wild on it.

Please future Superman writers, go big and crazy with him. He’s been on the ground for too long and he’s ready to see the stars.

[geekmedium]

The Will to Fight

So in celebration of One Piece getting ready to release it’s 1000th chapter, I’m spending the next few Sundays until it’s release posting various analysis about scenes that mean a lot to me as a fan. And I figured I’d start with a scene that has been debated by fans for decades now.

Why did Luffy refuse to fight Bellamy?

Many people have given various reasons for this, ranging from “Luffy learned it from Shanks” to “Luffy felt pity for Bellamy” and many more. And all these reasons are perfectly valid, but I think the fandom looks a little too small when talking about this. Instead of looking at just the character’s actions, let’s look at the themes of the story that guide those actions.

In the world of One Piece, willpower is actual power. Not just in the Gurren Lagann way with Haki, but the ability to take action with no hesitation creates an effect in the One Piece world that is tangible and often Earth shaking. You can’t expect to do anything huge if you take half measures. The world of pirates doesn’t allow for second guessing or backpedaling. And this is an important theme, because it is reflected not just in our protagonist’s mentality of living life without regret or hesitation, but in minor characters and marines too.

When Luffy makes a move he is absolutely sure about it. One of the reasons he is so inspiring to people both in and out of universe is because he can be so confident about every decision he makes and action he takes. And while sometimes that can be a flaw (see his fight with Zoro), usually it leads to the accomplishment of the impossible. In short, it’s the kind of will needed to be the King of the Pirates.

But just because he’s rash and impulsive doesn’t mean he’s always ready to throw down. And keep in mind Bellamy isn’t the only time he’s refused to fight back at people attacking him. There was the time when Galley La thought he tried to assassinate Iceburg and attacked him

or when the Amazon Lily warriors were going to kill him, and he only focused on dodging and escape

Rebecca attacking him to try and gain an edge in the gladiatorial fight got a nonchalant response

and of course his refusal to fight Sanji

And many other moments a little too small to mention, like when he ran from the Orange Town villagers attacking him. But all of these have the excuse of being against citizens, allies and nakama. So again, why Bellamy?

Well I think it comes down to the fact that with all of those instances, Luffy would have regretted fighting. Each time he raises his fist, he does it with no fear he is making a mistake, or insecurity that he may be wrong. And as I said, that absolute willpower makes him the man who will change the very world. And so it’s imperative he never do something to someone that he second guesses.

But still, you say, those were all good people and Bellamy’s just an asshole. Very true, he was, but that’s all he was. He wasn’t a brutal dictator, or an evil god, or a Shichibukai manipulating a country to civil war. He was a cocky shit who bit off more than he could chew. And Luffy knew that. He knew it the moment Bellamy showed himself to be a man of no real dreams or ambitions. Because by those same laws of the One Piece world, he would never be anybody. And beating on those weaker than you for no reason would have made Luffy, even if only for a moment, the exact same kind of asshole he has fought against since day 1. He would regret it, and that regret could lead to horrible future decisions.

Let me explain. When he fought against Katakuri, while many people debate the fight, I always felt that in the end, Katakuri’s resolve to fight slowly melted as he recognized Luffy and started hesitating about defending his horrible family. While Luffy knew he was doing right, because he’s never felt for a second that he was wrong. Even when he is doing objectively horrible stuff like releasing prisoners from Impel Down, he never has to question himself and wonder if he’s the bad guy because he’s never taken a single action that would make him think otherwise.

But let’s look at another example. The fight of Luffy vs. Usopp. In the beginning, Luffy is hesitant to fight his nakama and it shows.

But eventually, he gets his resolve again, and completely dominates in the fight. Why? Because he recognizes that though Usopp is much weaker than him, he’s fighting for his beliefs and to not fight with the same resolve would be insulting. And Usopp’s wording above is interesting, because it has a familiar echo to what Zoro said after the Bellamy fight.

To fight such worthless opponents would bring pity. It’s not a worthy battle Luffy would be proud of. It would just be a worthless slaughter he would look back on with regret and leave himself vulnerable with hesitation. And why would this matter? Because what if every time he fought an enemy, he was reminded of this useless fight and hesitated? What if the merciless beatdown he gave Hannyabal was too similar to the one he gave Bellamy? Is he wrong to do this, just like he was wrong to hurt Bellamy? I think on some level, Luffy knew that to fight would invite that kind of regret and hesitation, and realized it wasn’t worth it.

Does that mean Luffy wasn’t pissed to get his ass kicked by some weak, nihilistic pirate? Of course he was, but like Shanks before him, whatever he was feeling at the time, he would get over it. Bellamy wasn’t worth his time or his thoughts and so Luffy would have been happy to dismiss him. 

But when Bellamy brought the fight to him again, the circumstances were different. Bellamy wasn’t just an asshole dream mocker. He was a dream crusher. He stole Cricket’s gold and hurt his friends and that sealed the deal. But even then, there was no hatred or even petty revenge in that punch. It was pure righteous anger, and once it was over Luffy never gave it another thought. Which is why later on he was able to befriend Bellamy and gain a potential ally for the future. 

Because Luffy doesn’t just fight with no hesitation. He forgives without hesitation too, so long as he’s seen you’ve changed. To hold onto anger and past grievances is as likely to bind you as past trauma and bitterness. And Luffy will never be bound by anything that petty, small and ultimately meaningless. His dream is to be the most free man in the ocean, and he won’t let anyone, much less Bellamy, get in the way of that. Because as Blackbeard said