#and i'm still only in the ''backstory'' era. once i get to the main story lesbians its all over for you hoes

[krytus]

you wish you were me

[mamawasatesttube]

hiiiii i am looking to start reading superman comics… do u have a recommendation on where to start? any good storylines? there’s just SO MUCH

gosh i completely understand, there is SO much superman!!!! i have pretty much only read postcrisis-era superman stuff, so i'll be talking about that era only, but i HAVE also heard good things about n52 superman (and of course there are some great precrisis supes comics, i just haven't read them myself yet!)

for starters, some short and more self-contained superman stories: superman: birthright, which is basically his backstory reframed for the 21st century. superman: up in the sky is also one of my favorite superman titles ever - it really gets that core kindness and refusal to give up that make him who he is. superman for all seasons is more backstory and about clark and his family! and then superman smashes the klan is a comic adaptation of a 1946 superman radio show, about superman going up against the kkk. it is DEAR to me.

those are some of my personal favorite stories to establish superman as a character! here's a list of some other good introductory superman stories.

as for what i've been reading lately: so postcrisis superman comics run across four main titles for the most part. that's superman vol. 2 (1987), the adventures of superman, superman: the man of steel, and action comics, in that order. yes it's kind of confusing to get into, but once you get the hang of it, it goes fast!

i got into reading these by reading steel (1994) for john henry irons, but in issue #22 the superfam story arc "the trial of superman" began, so i just kinda jumped in there. i really enjoyed that arc! would recommend. clark is relentlessly good, the superfam loves him, kon is being annoying, what more can you ask for.

i also really loved the clois wedding and honeymoon arc, in these issues: superman (1987) #118, superman: the wedding album, adventures of superman #541 (kon is in this one!), action comics #728, and superman: the man of steel #63. clark gets kidnapped by a man who wants revenge on lois, and lois goes on the warpath about it. 10/10 would recommend.

in general i SOOO feel you, there are so many superman comics and even though i've read about three years' worth of them now (from the trial of superman through the y2k event jksdf) i still feel like i've barely scratched the surface!!! but superman is my best friend and i'm having a great time and that's what really matters <3 i hope this helps and i hope you have fun reading too!!!

[team-magma-official]

Have you tweaked the character from canon? If so, what did you tweak?

//I am perfectly aware of the rabbit hole I am opening by asking this. I'm opening it on purpose.

[canon questionnaire]

ohoho, an enabler. i take every opportunity i can to talk worldbuilding and canon divergence in-character so this is great actually. may your harvest be bountiful or something. thank you!

this is probably going to be incredibly long-winded and ramble-y, so bear with me. i love talking about this guy.

to start, i completely threw out the "expand the land" bit. that's goofy. not as bad as archie's thing, but still. and that's the main thing--rse-era maxie does NOT give you much to work with in terms of character.

however, the stuff that is there is... interesting i guess? and i started with that for the basis of the personality he has in both my fic and this blog. first off, he's the antagonist you have the most contact with once he's introduced. you have to battle him the first three times you meet him, before ever having to battle archie. second, he has some great lines during the climax--pointing out to the player his own hypocrisy when he criticizes archie has stuck with me since i was literally ten years old. he's convinced he can't actually do anything about groudon and kyogre fighting, but he also doesn't just give up.

and he and archie both do try to help in what way they can. they don't accomplish anything, but they do try.

and THEN there's the way he was portrayed in oras, which i also pulled from despite the fic and blog being based on emerald. in oras, he acknowledges his role as the antagonist in the player's story, and leans fully into it. he's pretty clearly having a good time throughout the story and seems genuinely fond of the player, acknowledging their talent and explaining his plan to them when you meet him at chimney. he even has a speech in seafloor cavern about how it's silly but he wanted the player to be there to witness his moment of triumph--and it's worth noting that archie does NOT have an equivalent moment. oras maxie is much friendlier and more open than people give him credit for in my opinion.

so let's get into the stuff i extrapolated from all that.

in the fic, he works as an archivist in mauville, which is how he has access to information on how to wake up groudon without causing her to rampage. he's very intelligent--my friend, the mod of @official-team-magma, jokes that he's high intelligence, low wisdom. he's affable and energetic but kind of hotheaded and impulsive. i struggled with untreated adhd for most of my life, so he does too because i need the representation. he's friendly with may to the point of trying to recruit her to team magma and being open with the fact that he and his team aren't a danger to her (she's from johto and used to team rocket). he's not comfortable being perceived as threatening, especially not to a young and anxious immigrant woman who's just trying to do what she thinks is right. he's still friends with shelly and speaks highly of her despite them being on opposite sides of a conflict now. he's a safe driver.

i said once on main that if maxie asher had a d&d class, he'd be a paladin. part of the backstory for hoenn in this fic/blog is that it was almost colonized by kanto back in the early 1800s, like johto and sinnoh were. the kantans landed in the eastern islands, and when they started aggressively pushing west, the native hoennic people (including the draconids, who do exist in this continuity) pushed back. a war broke out, and only ended once someone gained groudon's favor and partnered with her.

in the present, there's no war going on, at least not in the traditional sense. but maxie's definitely trying to gain groudon's partnership to grant himself legitimacy for what he wants to accomplish--the idea being that if he has her on his side, people will listen to him.

as for what he's doing with that favor, i guess we'll see!

[thevindicativevordan]

Comics this week?

Superman: Lost #5 - Oh Priest, you sure know how to piss people off don't you? The craziest Clois fans, the Wonder Woman fans who were already unhappy with him, he doesn't care at all about pissing them off. Good for him, with how happy the main Superman books are right now, I'm open to trying an Elseworld story that puts Clark and Lois through hell and portrays them as fallible. Was wondering how he would keep Clark on "Kansas" now that a GL has shown up, and surprise, she's a psycho. I'm seriously wondering if Priest would actually have her rape Clark, to justify why he's so messed up beyond just the years he spent away.

Superboy: Man of Tomorrow #4 - Love the twist, the Cosmoteers aren't new friends for Conner. They're new foes, a dark twist on his YJ comrades. Trav himself is an excellent foil because he is a dark reflection on Conner's two drives here. On one hand Conner feels nostalgia for his past, and Trav represents the worst of the 90s "heroes" which is the era Conner is from. Trav also represents the darkest path Conner could take to "make his own way" and build a name for himself. Finally Trav envies Conner his powers, he looks at Conner and sees what he could be, the same way Conner has struggled to deal with Jon and Kara taking his place as Superman's heirs. Porter did good work here, and the art evokes Dragon Ball to a Z.

Unstoppable Doom Patrol #4 - Happy to get a brief overview on the continuity for the Patrol, as someone who has only read Morrison and Way's runs there's a lot I'm missing. Beast Girl has a pretty straightforward X-Men backstory, but I like it because it makes for a good contrast with how weird the rest of the Doom Patrol are. Rita's struggle to accept being happy, and the question of if she would better serve the team if she were unhappy is interesting, hope Culver gets to explore that. The new Chief seems to be keeping Jane locked up, maybe Jane is dealing with the same question as Rita from the opposite angle. Is it worth it for Jane to sacrifice her own happiness by letting the Chief take charge since Chief is a good leader? Of course when it comes to the Doom Patrol, Chiefs are never what they seem.

Knight Terrors: Zatanna #1 - Solid, Zatanna and Robotman have a fun buddy cop dynamic, but it was disappointing that Zee was reduced to daddy issues once again. They badly need to do another big story with her that doesn't involve her father.

Spirit World #3 - Never expected to see Shiva in that outfit again, God the art is amazing.

WildC.A.T.S. #9 - Grifter's a fucking dick man.

Danger Street #7 - Still good! Still no clue where this is going!

Scarlet Witch #6 - One day I really need to read Young Avengers so I can care about Wiccan and Hulkling, but good issue nonetheless.

Loki #2 - Man Loki is such a shit. Even when they're trying to fix their own mess they can't help leaving bodies in their wake.

Immortal X-Men #13 - Shit is hitting the fans folks. Given the comment Stasis made in last week's one shot about Righteous being popular enough to get elected to the X-Men, I'm wondering if Gillen is actually going to have her get elected to a position of power in Krakoa (if it sticks around).

[sirenalpha]

I've been bouncing around different DC comics storylines like a lunatic instead of reading one thing straight through so I've read comics from the 80s through to just a couple years ago, obviously not everything that's been published it's basically just Batman and Superman or related stuff but definitely a decent number of issues

I think something changed in the early-mid 00s with how comics are written for the worse

I'm not saying there's not flaws with 80s-90s comics, it's still difficult to find an entry point for any new comer, storylines are spread across multiple different comics making them hard to follow, 80s/90s handling of sex and race etc

but while the art is usually much better mostly in terms of paneling/page layout not necessarily how the characters look it can be both great and bad in either era

the writing post 00s is like on fucking steroids, you can't breathe in any of these stories, something must be constantly happening usually multiple things at once that may or may not have to do with each other and things whether plot beats or characters picked up or dropped in an instant as necessitated by/convenient for the plot on top of having no good entry point and running across different comics

that's not to say there are no overarching plots in the modern comics, in fact it's basically all serialized plots, nothing episodic and resolved in a single issue, but they are buried under five miles of distracting bullshit and no one is allowed to emotionally deal with the consequences because you must immediately move to the next thing

in comparison, the 80s-90s comics there's either one main plot with multiple components running in sync no bullshit on top (like return of superman which I'm part way thru so juggling lots of characters across different comics but you're sorting out one plot, it's one story no cut aways) or it's more slice of life vignettes, they just happen to be about the life of superheroes

like during Jason's post crisis run in the late 80s, Dick returns as Nightwing to meet Jason and confront Bruce, Dick and Bruce argue with each other no physical fighting or anything else going on the panels are basically empty except for them, and everyone gets their chance to speak and to react and recover after the talk is over, it all happens in one issue and it's a complete thought that gets full completed, ended with a period, no bullshit on top of it, the whole run is basically like that, each issue covering one thing in its entirety

you want to know the single solitary comic I've read published post 2000 that works anything close to that?

Wayne Family Adventures

that's what pisses me off about "real comics fans" or however they'd like to be called who think WFA is bullshit

yes WFA is fluffier than the mainstream Batman comics coming out, and yes the characterization is obviously different it's working on its own continuity

but the writing isn't fucking insane, it's the only one where it's not insane!! it has a supremely easy and convenient starting point no backstory needed, each issue/two parter is a complete and satisfying story, and it has far, far more coherent storytelling

if you don't like WFA for the art style or tone that's personal preference and fine but acting like you can't tell why someone new to comics or not can appreciate and like WFA...maybe you're just not that much of a comics fan because WFA is how DC comics used to be

as far as I can tell, comics did the same thing as tv shows where they shifted from episodic stories where each episode has a contained story with an eye for syndication and reruns so that each episode could be watched in any order without added context (kinda like how comics issues work) to serialized stories, seasonal plots becoming stronger until a show is following one continuous story where you have to watch them in order and are potentially made for a binge session rather than appointment viewing once a week

except for television that's prestige tv for a second golden age of television and in comics it's whatever the fuck is going on now

one of these is much enjoyable than the other is all I'm saying and it's not modern comics

the 80s and 90s stuff is charming compared to the more contemporary stuff (not the sexism and racism just the vignette story telling style)

[tumbleringismycopingmechanism]

So nobody asked for it, but here are my thoughts on Downton Abbey - A new era. (Spoilers!)

First of, the opening is genius. The movie is called "a new era" and they start it with a wedding which is very symbolic for starting new chapters and even more so for Tom.

I literally didn't care for the subplot of the main actress of the movie that's filmed at Downton. Same for the unnecessary does-Cora-have-cancer plot. It's nice that Edith gets back to writing, although I don't really care about that either.

I think it's nice that Mary's subplot parallels the backstory of Violett with the potential love story that she actively decided against the same way Violett did.

I also like that the ending mirrors the start of the series. The mourning procession with everyone actually being sad (rightfully so, I cried my heart out at Violett's death, even if you knew it was coming) is contrasting the death of cousin Patrick that noone mourned all that much because he wasn't really close to the family. Also, in the first episode Thomas wants to run away with the duke who of course is an asshole and breaks his heart and now Thomas actually gets offered the chance to lead a live like that with someone.

That being said, I am also super annoyed with Thomas' ending. For one, they didn't even kiss yet and he still decides to go with Guy. He worked his ass off in the series and was always ambitious to get into a higher position and now that he's the butler he just throws it all away for a man he barely knows. (I'm also somewhat pissed that once again, he of course falls in love with another men because he's gay. It's like "they're both gay, of course they'll be attracted to each other". He never acts interested in his partners until he finds out they're gay and then he's suddenly in love. The only one that he was attracted to without knowing about his sexuality was Jimmy, who was of course straight.)

I also think the writers forgot why Carson was retired because he keeps being rehired despite being literally incapable of doing his job with his Parkinson.

One last thing: the music was amazing. Really wanted to dance along with the Jazz songs