#as well as previous experience of how dc and marvel treat characters like him when it comes to storylines

[kingcygnus]

me holding dc from the throat at the back of an alley: you better treat my boy right this time around, you better do him justice this time around, you better treat him like the world's greatest robin you say he is, no more shit writing, no more reducing him to one or two characteristic, this is your last chance

[theliterateape]

I Like to Watch | Zack Snyder’s Justice League

by Don Hall

Mythology is fun.

As a kid I loved reading Edith Hamilton’s book on the Greek gods and the myths. Hercules, Perseus, Apollo, and Hera—this fell completely in line with my love for superhero comics. The strangely petty human traits of envy, greed, and lust combined with the power to level cities make for some great storytelling.

Zeus was basically Harvey Weinstein in the retroactive revision we’re mired in today. If Harvey could’ve changed into a golden animal and boned unsuspecting ladies looking for careers in Hollywood I’m pretty certain he would. The gods and demi-gods of the Greeks dealt with daddy issues, mommy issues, bad relationships, and fighting. Lots of fighting. Sometimes for the good of humanity but more often for the glory of winning.

Zach Snyder is in the business of tackling myths and reframing them with a style all his own. His career has become its own myth.

From Dawn of the Dead (not so much a reboot of Romero's zombie mythology but a philosophical reimagining of the genre that arguably jumpstarted The Hollywood fascination with it), 300 (a borderline homoerotic take on the myth of the Greek underdog), and Watchmen (a ridiculously ambitious attempt to put one of the most iconic takedowns on the potential fascism of the superhero legend machine ever written) to his nearly single-handed hack at answering the Marvel juggernaut with Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, Snyder is in the artistic business of subverting and re-envisioning the mythologies we embrace without even seeing them as such.

Snyder's style is operatic. It is on a grand scale even in the most mundane moments. The guy loves slow motion like Scorcese loves mobsters and Italian food. When you're tackling big themes with larger than life stories, the epic nature of his vision makes sense and has alienated a good number of audience members. With such excess, there are bound to be missteps but I'd argue that his massive take on these characters he molds from common understanding and popular nomenclature elevates them to god-like stature.

Fans of Moore's Watchmen have much to complain about Snyder's adaptation. The titular graphic novel is almost impossible to put in any other form than the one Moore intended and yet, Snyder jumped in feet-first and created a living, breathing representation of most, if not all, of the source material's intent. Whether you dig on it or not, it's hard to avoid acknowledging that the first five minutes of Watchmen is a mini-masterpiece of style, storytelling, and epic tragedy wrapped up in a music video.

Despite a host of critical backlash for his one fully original take, Sucker Punch is an amazing thing to see. More a commentary on video game enthusiasm with its lust for hot animated chicks and over-the-top violence that a celebration of cleavage and guns, the film is crazily entertaining. For those who hated the ending, he told you in the title what his plan was all along.

The first movie I saw in the theaters that tried to take a superhero mythology and treat it seriously (for the most part) was Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie. Never as big a fan of the DC characters as I have been of Marvel, it was still extraordinary to see a character I had only really known in pages to be so fully realized. Then came Burton's Batman movies. The superhero film was still an anomaly but steam was gaining. Things changed with Bryan Singer's X-Men in 2000, then Raimi's Spiderman, and those of us who grew up with our pulpy versions of Athena, Hermes, and Hades were rewarded with Nolan's Batman Begins. A far cry from the tongue-in-cheek camp of the 1966 TV Batman, Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne was a serious character and his tale over three films is a tragic commentary filled with the kind of death and betrayal and triumph befitting the grand narrative he deserved.

I loved Singer's Superman Returns in 2006 because it was such a love letter to the 1978 film (down to the opening credits) but by then, the MCU was taking over the world.

Snyder's first of what turns out to be an epic storyline involving perhaps seven or eight movies was Man of Steel. It was fun and, while I had my issues with the broodiness of Kal El, the odd take on Jonathan Kent, and a redheaded Lois Lane, I had no issue with Superman snapping Zod's neck. Darker and more tragic than any other version of the Kryptonian, it was still super entertaining.

Then came Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. By 2016, Marvel had codified their formula of serious characters wrestling with serious issues of power and responsibility peppered with lots of good humor and bright colors. Snyder's desaturated pallete and angst-filled demi-gods was not the obvious road to financial competition.

I'll confess, I hated it. BvS felt half-rendered. Lex Luthor was kind of superficial and played as a kind of Joker. The whole Bruce Wayne wants to kill Superman thing felt undeveloped and the "Martha" moment was just stupid.

When Joss Whedon's version of Snyder's Justice League came out in 2017, I was primed for it to be a turd and I wasn't surprised. So much of it didn't work on any level. I dismissed it as DC trying and failing miserably and was comforted by the coming of Thanos.

Following Thanos and the time heist was COVID. Suddenly, we were internationally sidelined and the movie theater industry caved in. Streaming services started popping up like knock-off smartphones and Hollywood was reeling, doing anything and everything to find a way back. Since Whedon's disastrous helming of Snyder's third act, fans online had been demanding to #ReleasetheSnyderCut but no one was ever really taking them seriously until all movie production was shut down for a year.

The stage was set to remedy a mistake (or at least make some bucks on a do-over of a huge box office failure). Snyder had left the production in part because of the suicide of his daughter and in part due to the constant artistic fights over executives looking for the quippy fun of the MCU but he still had all the original footage. Add to that the broiling accusations that Joss Whedon was "abusive" during the reshoots, the path seemed destined. For an additional $70 million and complete control, Snyder delivered a four hour mega-movie streamed on HBOMax.

Of course, I was going to watch the thing as soon as I could.

The Whedon version opens with an homage to the now dead Superman (including the much maligned digitally erased mustache on Henry Cavill). The SynderCut opens with the death of Superman and the agony of his death scream as it travels across the planet. It's a simple change but exemplifies the very different visions of how this thing is gonna play out.

Snyder doesn't want us to be OK with the power of these beings unleashed. He wants us to feel the damage and pain of death. He wants the results of violence to be as real as he can. When Marvel's Steve Rogers kicks a thug across the room and the thug hits a wall, he crumples and it is effectively over. When Batman does the same thing, we see the broken bones (often in slow motion) and the blood smear on the wall as the thug slides to the ground.

The longer SnyderCut is bloated in some places (like the extended Celtic choir singing Aquaman off to sea or the extended narrations by Wonder Woman which sound slightly like someone trying to explain the plot to Siri). On the other hand, the scene with Barry Allen saving Iris West is both endearing and extraordinary, giving insight to the power of the Flash as well as some essential character-building in contrast to Whedon's comic foil version.

One thing I noticed in this variant is that Zach wants the audience to experience the sequence of every moment as the characters do. An example comes when Diana Prince goes to the crypt to see the very plot she belabors over later. The sequence is simple. She gets a torch and goes down. Most directors which jump cut to the torch. Snyder gives us five beats as she grabs the timber, wraps cloth around the end, soaks it with kerosene, pulls out a box of matches, and lights the torch. Then she goes down the dark passageway.

The gigantic, lush diversity of Snyder’s vision of the DC superhero universe—from the long shots of the sea life in the world of Atlantis to the ancient structures and equipment of Themyscira— is almost painterly. Snyder isn't taking our time; he's taking his time. We are rewarded our patience with a far better backstory for the villain, a beautifully rendered historic battle thwarting Darkseid's initial invasion (including a fucking Green Lantern), and answers to a score of questions set up in both previous films.

Whedon's Bruce Wayne was more Ben Affleck; Snyder's is full-on Frank Miller Batman, the smartest, most brutal fucker in the room. Cyborg, instead of Whedon's sidelined non-character, is now a Frankenstein's monster, grappling with the trade-off between acceptance and enormous power. Wonder Woman is now more in line with the Patty Jenkins version and instead of being told about the loss of Superman, we are forced to live with the anguish of both his mother and Lois Lane in quiet moments of incredible grief.

To be fair to Whedon (something few are willing to do as he is now being castigated not for racism or sexism but for being mean to people) having him come in to throw in some levity and Marvel-esque color to Snyder's Wagnerian pomposity is like hiring Huey Lewis to lighten up Pink Floyd's The Wall or getting Douglas Adams to rewrite Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

I loved Snyder's self-indulgent, mythologic DC universe.

So much so that I then re-watched Man of Steel and then watched the director's version of BvS (which Snyder added approximately 32 minutes). The second film is far better at three hours and Eisenberg's Lex Luthor now makes sense. Then I watched Zach Snyder's Justice League a second time.

After nineteen hours of Snyder's re-imagining of these DC heroes and villains, I saw details that, upon first viewing, are ignored or dismissed, but after seeing them in order and complete, are suddenly consistent and relevant. Like Nolan or Fincher, Snyder defies anyone to eliminate even one piece of his narrative no matter how long. With all the pieces, this is an epic story and the pieces left at the extended epilogue play into a grander narrative we will never see.

Or maybe we will. Who knows these days?

[jenniferladybug]

Essay Wars - it’s a doozy

Last night my friend got in a texting debate about the story structure and character developments of Star Wars (a majority of it Kylo Ren). Well, what started off as my vigorous texting writing turned into full-blown essay responses. 

Alright, let’s get into how this actually happened.

First, I was so excited about The Rise of Skywalker Final Trailer and I began to sing praises for Kylo Ren/Bendemption. My friend did not like that...so I whipped out the big guns. 

I began to send scattered texts about certain things, mostly pertaining to:

Kylo Ren was turned to the dark side before he was even born via Bloodline, where Leia describes a dark presence over her womb.

Someone must be impersonating Darth Vader when Kylo goes to the Vader mask for advice.

Leia and Han were emotionally neglectful/did not know how to raise their son in the right way, mixed with brainwashing lead to Kylo Ren.

The Jedi are not good for the galaxy (yes, yes I know, but see my explanation down below...if you last that long)

Kylo wants to let the past die and start fresh with a new ‘order’, leave behind the Sith, Jedi, First order etc.

I also rambled on about a few other things in separate texts, but that is the gist of it.

So, in response to my scattered texts I received this from my friend Sammy, and oh boy was I ready:

So, let’s start with the story of Ben. The dark side since before he was even born thing is interesting and the fact that he’s been influenced his entire life by it is something they should have made much more clear in the films. That’s actually one of the problems I have with this new expanded universe- it just seems like damage control for the movies. The Previous EU EXPANDED everything, giving backstory to the characters we know and understand, in addition to secondary characters. Hell, they even gave us new characters as well but they never negated or changed the meaning of the films which is the bread and butter of the franchise, so if this super important info is coming from the book I think that’s just silly. You really shouldn’t have to read the novel iteration to understand what the movie did a bad job of interpreting. But I digress, that is some crucial info…

The Vader mask scene and the theory that it’s someone else like Snoke who has been pretending to be Vader is interesting, and I buy that, but like…Kylo didn’t know Vader was redeemed? Did Luke, Leia, Han, Chewy, Lando, Akbar, Wedge, or like literally anybody else form the Rebellion forget to tell him that? Big yikes.

IMO, feeling “misunderstood and neglected by his parents” isn’t a valid excuse for him to kill his own dad and being ok with his mom getting bombed to hell. Idk, you can ask why it’s ok for us to forgive Vader through his redemption arc but I think comparing his experiences to Kylo’s is like comparing apples to oranges. Vader was a BAD guy, but he ended up doing the ultimate GOOD thing in the end, and then the prequels fleshed out how he became bad intangible way, which to be fair, Kylo doesn’t have. But still, this is why most fans don’t take him seriously.

About the Jedi not being good- I challenge your credentials. “For a thousand generations the Jedi knights have been the guardians of peace and justice for the Old Republic”, then they were hunted down and everything turned to shit. And both in this canon and the previous one, it’s wildly considered that the few thousand years preceded the events of the movies things were super peaceful all things considered when the Jedi were in charge…and the Sith traditionally only operates in agents of 2. So how come everything was so peaceful for a thousand generations when there were a million Jedi and 2 Sith…ying yang in this case is bollocks.

And if Kylo really wants to “Start fresh”, why’d he start by becoming Supreme Leader of like the Star Wars version of ISIS? This is something we’ll need to find out in this next movie. I agree, his motive is to dismantle the Jedi and Sith way and create something else entirely, but the second Rey says “nah” he goes back to how he was. It’s not looking good.

The George Lucas rhyme thing lets not forget he’s talking about Episode 1 which was arguably one of the worst Star Wars movies made and he ended it with “hopefully it’ll work” and then grimaces…IDK bud lmao. And I doubt back in 1977 he knew there was going to be an episode 9 because he didn’t even know what he just made was Episode 4! It definitely was never a 9 episode arc from the get-go. Now, I know for certain after the prequels he had another trilogy in mind, and when he sold the rights to Disney he did hand them his drafts and notes, but even Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, admitted in his new book, they didn’t follow those drafts AT ALL. LIKE NOTHING. And he said that George felt betrayed. This idea of a new trilogy is something that was created in 2012, but I suspect they have been making this up as they went. After this last movie, Disney scrambled to get JJ Abrams back and figure out how they were going to get everything back on track. Daisy Ridley herself said JJ wrote a story for each of the 3 new movies, but Rian ended up created his own completely. I think that alone shows that production for these movies has been inconsistent, I don’t buy this was all part of some 9 series plan with a definitive beginning, middle, and end from the get-go.

Not sure what Rey’s lineage is, we’ll find out for sure in this next movie. I read one theory that Palpatine created her sorta through the force like many people think he did with Anakin.

So that was what I was up against.

Let’s take a brief moment to appreciate this:

Okay now that that is done...great. 

My turn! 

Now, I wrote my response (copied below) at top speed in about an hour, so maybe some of the things I say start sounding rushed or not as fleshed out as they should be. But I cracked my knuckles and gave it a go:

I am the first one to advocate for a film to have the ability to ‘stand-alone’ in any particular universe, whether it be Marvel, DC, Hunger Games, and Star Wars. By introducing a backstory for Leia’s pregnancy and hers and Han’s marriage in ‘Bloodline’, LucasFilm is doing just that: giving a backstory. In both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, there is proof that Snoke is the one pulling the strings when it comes to young solo. In the first film, Leia is quoted saying to Han, “There’s still light in him I know it! No. It was Snoke. He seduced our son to the dark side”, and in the second film Luke is quoted as saying, “Snoke had already turned his heart”. It is made apparent that ‘Kylo Ren’ is the production of Snoke, and Ren suffers abuse both mental and physical from his master. Though this changes when Kylo finally becomes free of the shackles Snoke once had on him when Ren slices him in half. The look of shock and release on Ren’s face when he realizes what he’s done says it all. Who are we to judge someone who is freshly out of the control of their captor? By just watching the films it is clear that Kylo Ren is not fully in control of his actions and he is being manipulated consistently as shown by the quotes above. When having that manipulation in conjunction with the neglect of a parental figure, then you get the full-blown reality that is Kylo Ren.

Feeling “misunderstood and neglected by his parents” is a valid excuse for turning to the Darkside in the world of a fictional fairy tale. Keep in mind we are not in a reality where this is okay, yet the world in which Star Wars exists allows such things to be redeemable and explainable. Take for example when Padme knew about Anakin killing younglings; she wanted him to still come home because she ‘loved’ him. If he had turned back to the light at that moment she would have most likely accepted him back. It is a danger of the force. They are not dealing with everyday normal emotions; the force, as well as the genre of the franchise, creates a heightened sense of urgency which is apparent throughout the forty-plus years Star Wars has been around (hell, as long as any fairy tale has been around). When you point out that Vader did the ultimate good thing in the end, do you mean to save his son and push Palpatine down a duct? If so, then this would be his redemption which occurred in the last of the original trilogies. If you are to treat Kylo with the same rules as Vader, then we must give him a chance to ‘do the right thing’, something which the filmmakers have been steadily building his character-arc for. Vader did numbers ‘wrong’ things, some of them much worse than Kylo has done. But yet the audience still chose to respect him, even before the prequels which fleshed out the story of Anakin Skywalker.

Now, you may be correct in that Ben Solo knew of Vader’s redemption, and I misspoke, to which I am sorry. He, in fact, learned of his heritage when he was training with Luke at his academy when he received a letter from his mother. The contents of the letter are unknown, though it is assumed she told him of his heritage when he was in his late teens. This was only because one of her rivals she was campaigning against in the senate threatened to leak the knowledge to the public that Leia was the daughter of the infamous Darth Vader. Ben had no idea before-hand though, so once again we assume that this had some type of impact. Imagine finding out your grandfather was Hitler. Would that be fun? But, since we addressed the fact that external material should not need to be consumed in order for a film to make sense, then we should disregard any idea as to how Ben Solo came to learn of his heritage. It is not mentioned in the films, but it is a widely held belief by many in the fandom that if Kylo Ren knew of his grandfathers’ redemption then he merely took this as a lapse in judgment in his late years (especially since it is hinted to in the films that Ren is speaking to someone via the Vader mask). Perhaps said mask has been telling Ren lies in lieu of the true story of the redemption. But that is speculation. What is not speculation is the line Ren utters in The Force Awakens, “Forgive me. I feel it again... The pull to the light... Supreme Leader senses it. Show me again... The power of the darkness... And I'll let nothing stand in our way... Show me... Grandfather... and I will finish... what you started.” What we can tell from the film is that Ren is in a constant struggle to stay within the dark, and through his words, it is expressed how this warrants forgiveness. The second half of the statement is even more worrying in the fact that Ren says ‘show me again’, referencing a previous time this ‘Vader’ has shown him what the darkness entails. Will we find out in episode nine if there was an imposter (Palpatine?) feeding more lies and brainwashing to Kylo Ren? That means not only was he getting terrible treatment from Snoke, but from his ‘grandfather’ as well. Perhaps this is why in the final trailer for episode nine we see Rey and Ren destroying said helmet. Until the film comes out, this will still be a mystery.

In coming to why I believe the Jedi are bad, I side with Luke Skywalker on this one. As he says in The Last Jedi, “ At the height of their powers, they allowed Darth Sidious to rise, create the Empire, and wipe them out. It was a Jedi Master who was responsible for the training and creation of Darth Vader.” To that, Rey points out that it was also a Jedi who saved him. Which is true! Yet, the rules surrounding the Jedi order are such that allowed for Anakin to search elsewhere for support. True, he was very conflicted, but the Jedi are so extreme that they do not welcome outside opinions or thinking. You are either all light or you’re bad. There is no intermediary. That is why the answer is grey Jedi. I know those exist, and what needs to happen is a yin and yang between the light and the dark. Working together fosters acceptance and love within the galaxy. Even the symbol in the pool of the Jedi Temple in which Luke tucked himself away had a figure in a yin and yang pattern. “Powerful light and powerful dark...a balance”. Yet, any dark whatsoever that the Jedi see they stamp out.

When Anakin says, “If you’re not with me, then you’re against me”, Obi-wan responds with, “Only sith think in absolutes!”. Well, can you see the issue there? Obi-wan is also thinking in absolute. Using the word only further segmented and cast aside Anakin, by labeling him a lost cause. Such a similar thing happened with Kylo Ren and the incident with Luke at the Jedi Academy. The momentary lapse which Luke expressed to Rey was the tipping point. In Ren’s eyes, even his Master saw him beyond saving. And since everyone around him insists on thinking in absolute, then he must be bad according to them, right?

Slowly, Ren is beginning to realize there is another way, something not presently defined within the Star Wars universe. It is not Sith, it is not Jedi, it is not the First Order: it is the ‘new order’ which he proposes to Rey. Yet, he is not ready for redemption yet. The entire point of the scene was for Rey to realize that Kylo Ren cannot be saved by anyone but himself. This is a very powerful message and I am quite looking forward to seeing how his self-realization occurs in Episode Nine. Now, keep in mind that he had banked everything on Rey saying yes, and in his mind, she is “Still. Holding. ON!”, which she is, and he is right that it is holding her back. How can you expect someone from a family of yelling, angry people to get it right the first time? In fact, Adam Driver had to ask Rian Johnson if Kylo Ren had ever kissed a girl before. Kylo is not experienced in this ‘love’ world. He did not receive much love language from his absentee parents, so the only relationship he’s known for most of his teen and adult life is that of Snoke and General Hux. At that moment in which he wakes up to realize she is gone is one of abandonment and rejection. He thought he had found his match, the answer to his loneliness, and she snapped his lightsaber in two. He is basically throwing a grownup temper-tantrum, which is blatantly apparent in the standoff with Luke. When Kylo threatens everything, even ‘destroying’ Rey, Luke claims that everything Kylo says is “a lie”. It is clear in the last few moments of the film when Kylo is defeated and on his knees holding his father’s die that the audience begins to realize his anger was all a facade. In that shot, he is merely a lost and lonely boy realising the path he has chosen is wrong. The final force-bond between Kylo and Rey exhibits every one of those notions. There is no anger in his face, not very ‘destroy-ee’ of him, and he looks up with her with an almost longing. But when she sternly shuts the door on him, once again he is left alone, the die slowly fading from his gloved hand.

If that doesn’t sound like poetry then I don’t know what is! George Lucas was quoted saying in the behind the scenes of the prequels, “You see the echo of where it all is gonna go. It’s like poetry, sort of. They rhyme.” Similar themes and sequences occur within the franchise, and they have kept that alive at Disney Lucas Films, especially in regards to the parallels drawn between Anakin/Padme and Kylo/Rey. They even designed their respective costumes in a similar fashion. Kylo has his mother and father’s anger and stubbornness. They had a rough idea of where it was all going to go. And in regards to JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson, JJ Abrams was an executive producer on Episode 8 and had a say in the general outline of the plot. JJ had set up the relationship between Kylo and Rey in The Force Awakens, and Rian continued along that path. He followed the skeleton needed to get the plot from 7-9. But think about it, Disney would not allow Rian to just veer off the path completely. Yes he had some creative license but within parameters. Sometimes I don’t think people understand the workings of a large corporation with creative decisions. On a project like Star Wars there is always input from the higher-ups. In addition, JJ Abrams auditioned potential Kylo Ren actors with the script from Pride and Prejudice (Mr. Darcy of course). This is made clear in the writing decisions and parallels which have been made for that particular character.

Lastly, would you really want George Lucas at the helm of this new trilogy? People thought the prequels were terrible and Lucas went back and digitally altered the originals against the will of fans. He is not technically the best when it comes to scriptwriting (Exhibit A: “I hate sand, it gets everywhere!”) Also, Mark Hamill was interviewed in the early ’00s and said, "You know, when I first did this, it was four trilogies. 12 movies! And out on the desert, any time between setups...lots of free time. And George was talking about this whole thing. I said, 'Why are you starting with IV, V and VI? It's crazy.' [Imitating Lucas grumble,] 'It's the most commercial section of the movie.'” Yes, the first film was a stand-alone, since they had no idea they would receive any further funding. But then the immense success allowed for Lucas to develop the franchise further.

What I think people tend to forget is that Star Wars is a fairy tale, and it is not supposed to be about ‘a mass murder’ who is going to jail. It is supposed to be about redemption at its very heart. George Lucus had expressed that he intended Star Wars as a series for “twelve-year-olds”. This explains things like Jar Jar Binks and other bizarre choices he has made as a creator. Though this explains a lot of why most of the people who hate the franchise now are angry adults online who live in an overly politically correct world judging a fictional character who is in the middle of a character arc. As JJ Abrams had said in the director's commentary of The Force Awakens, “We looked at it like […] a fairy tale. What are the elements that you’re going to see that makes it this genre, this specific genre? […] You’re probably going to have a castle, and a prince and a princess, if you’re looking at a fairy tale. We wanted to give these fundamental, not cosmetic, but prerequisite elements.”

Okay, I’ve talked too much. I am going to end it there for now. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Haha hope that was entertaining and that sparked some thinking and inspiration. I know I let my keyboard run away from me and please excuse the odd typo from time to time. Let me know your thoughts.

I mean just look at that beautiful man.

Love you all!

[comingupforblair]

I can’t speak for everyone in the fandom but I think one of the main reasons DCEU fans are so frustrated with a lot of the criticism directed towards the franchise as well as the behavior of detractors is that it comes across as people turning a blind eye to fan behavior we have otherwise gotten really good at noticing and calling out.

We’ve started calling out Star Wars fans and Ghostbusters fans for their toxic attitude and sense of entitlement towards the properties they love, recognizing that their professed love is not an excuse for their behavior and recognizing that you can deeply and genuinely love something and still have an incredibly toxic attitude towards it.

But they refuse to acknowledge that same kind of negativity when it is directed towards DCEU films.

Most people now have no issue seeing a Star Wars fanboy raging about Rian Johnson and calling him all manner of horrific personal insults because they didn’t like The Last Jedi and calling that behavior toxic nor would they ever say that the behavior of Ghostbusters fans is acceptable or the mindset that led them to such behavior something that should be just accepted.

They can recognize when someone has unreasonable expectations of a Star Wars film or has an unhealthy attitude about the Ghostbusters remake as well as calling out what they see as creators indulging such fans such as when they called out Jason Reitman for saying his Ghostbusters sequel would “return it to the fans”.

But it’s a whole other issue with DC adaptations.

No one bats an eye when DC fans say how they expect these films to just be exact replicas of previous animated films or treat the directors as little more than order takers who exist solely to give fans what they expect from these characters and better not be slow about it either. 

Someone who outright says that directors shouldn’t take any liberties with the source material and should save any original ideas they have for fanfic and who generally treats them with open contempt and as little more than order takers would be treated as an unreasonable borderline toxic fan with any other franchise. When that thinking is directed towards DC films, they’re merely people who care and want to like the films.

Most people would call out someone who expects Tom Holland to just do an exact replica of Tobey Maguire’s Spider-man films without any spin of his own or playing the character in a different way but don’t see an issue with expecting actors who play Superman to just keep replicating and hitting the same notes as Chris Reeve four decades on. 

Many fans would agree that someone going on about how the Last Jedi was the worst experience of their life and how the film ruined their love for Star Wars and unleashing vile personal attacks and harassment towards anyone who liked is not someone whose behavior should be accepted but they don’t see an issue with it with Batman v Superman.

It would be odd to encounter a Marvel fanboy who expects an MCU film to be little more than an update of a film or show made twenty-five or thirty or forty years ago but that attitude is depressingly common among DC fanboys and no one else seems to see an issue with it or be interested in calling it out.

People are quick to point out that not every comic book film can or should be made with a tone like Logan or The Dark Knight but don’t see an issue with every film being like Iron Man or Deadpool.

I could list examples all day but you get my point.

I’m not trying to convince anyone to like the films. In fact, my point is that, even f the films were as terrible as people say, it wouldn’t justify the behavior of fans or the way in which it’s been treated as acceptable or evidence of caring.

Fandom will never progress unless we draw a hard line and say this kind of behavior is wrong, regardless of context or where it’s directed or how much the people doing it have good intentions.

It’s wrong to expect creators to just do remakes of previous films or shows with no new ideas added, regardless of how good those previous adaptations were or how divisive the new ones are.

It’s wrong to expect writers and actors and directors to cast aside their own ambition and vision just to please fans who are aggressively against any change and regard anything less than absolute reverence for their preferred adaptations as an unforgivable insult.

It’s wrong to deny creators the freedom to make the films and shows they want to make, regardless of how much you may disagree with what they do with that freedom.

It’s wrong to expect an entire genre to be made with only one kind of creative tone or in one manner.

It’s wrong to personally attack and insult creators when they do things you don’t like and it’s wrong to demand that actors and directors be fired or replaced just because you don’t like their work.

It’s wrong to insult and harass fans who like things you don’t or vice versa.

It’s wrong to expect characters to stay frozen in time and for younger generations to just be content with getting the same stories over and over again.

It’s wrong to act like you own or control these properties and that they exist to suit your expectations of how they’re supposed to be even if the original creators disagree, regardless of how much time and energy you’ve invested.

It’s wrong when people who claim to love characters or stories act in exact opposition to the traits these characters and their stories are supposed to epitomize.

[lokaneiscanon]

Mighty Thor in Thor: Love and Thunder rant

Seeing Natalie Portman returning to reprise her role as Jane Foster, nevertheless wielding Mjolnir, finally getting the treatment this character deserves, was surreal to say the least. I had just started reading Lords of Midgard, the 8th issue of Mighty Thor (2015 - 2018), and had fallen in love already. But I didn't suspect at all that Taika Waititi would pull this card in Thor: Love and Thunder, considering Jane was barely mentioned in Ragnarok. The news about my favorite actress portraying one of my favorite characters coming out of the blue - you can imagine the excitement. Alas, I quickly remembered what the fandom thought of that comic (at least on tumblr) and imagined it now growing tenfold, cuz not everyone in the MCU fandom reads comics but pretty much everyone wants to watch another Thor movie. And yes, many fans weren't ready for this step, still recovering from Sam Wilson getting the shield in Endgame. Which is completely fine. We're not obligated to like everything Marvel throws in our faces, we're allowed to criticize and express our opinion on the internet or wherever. What is not okay is mindlessly hating, and even worse - using false facts to support said opinion.

I have seen some people using the argument that it is one of Marvel's worst selling comics. Which has already been proven wrong by multiple sites, including Comichron, just Google it, as I did myself. I read multiple posts, ones saying how good Jane is doing as Thor in sales, others disproving this, so I checked for myself the numbers at the site mentioned above month by month to be sure. The comic truly had its downfalls as the story progressed but in my opinion it's normal for the 1st issue to have more sales than the 21st. If we compare it to Unworthy Thor, which started running a bit later and followed the now unworthy Odinson, the data shows the latter had more sales. But then again, while Might Thor was at its 17th issue, Unworthy Thor was at its 2nd. Also, they later crossed paths, shared comic issues, it's fair to say they go hand in hand and Jason Aaron, the author, probably doesn't want us to compare them, as they complete and compliment each other's stories. Still I decided to check the comic that made Thor unworthy in the first place - Thor: God of Thunder (2012 - 2014), which seemed to me more "comparable" to Might Thor (2015 - 2018). *I keep putting the years it was being released so as to not be confused with previous Mighty Thor issues, whole Odinson was still Thor, please bear with me* So yes, the numbers were pretty close, but from what I saw, Mighty Thor had the upper hand if we compare first issue to first issue and so on. (In defense of Odinson, we have to take into account that this data is only from the US and does not include digital sales. Also, he's been around since the 50s. We could argue Jane was a breath of fresh air that some Marvel fans were indeed ready for. As a non-American, and also a person without a hint of knowledge in economics I cannot take into account inflation and whatever else has prevented or enabled Americans to get their hands on the comics or has affected prizes through the years. Bear that in mind.) Moreover, from what I saw on Comichron, both comics had much competition - God of thunder was released along with Avengers vs the X-men, the Uncanny X-men, pretty popular at the time, and the Goddess of Thunder faced Civil War 2 and DC Universe Rebirth (yes, DC is in the game too), also dominating with tremendous sales for the longest time. Yet I stick with my original statement - both Thors are valid and shouldn't be put against one another regardless of profit. Because at the end of the day what will matter the most is the story. And boy, what a story it is.

Now, I haven't read the Thor: God of Thunder, but as I was doing research I found one very well written summary and explanation of Thor's arc and his becoming unworthy and I will post a link below, because I honestly feel I wouldn't be doing this comic a favor by describing it without having read it. Which I plan to do in the future, tbh. It's a fantastic prelude to the Mighty Thor (2015 - 2018) that I've come to love. First, I'd like to ask you all to stop hating on the comic without having read it first. It doesn't make any sense and being petty for the sake of being petty won't benefit neither you, nor anyone, really. Now, about the comic itself - the art is magnificent. It's just gorgeous. Mighty Thor isn't , thank all the gods, sexualized, she is pretty buffed and generally looks like a warrior. As it is with the other characters, I dare say. The background truly captures the essence of every world Jane finds herself on. Action scenes are just the right amount and balanced with dialogue well. On a side note, it's pretty funny to read/listen to in your head the Shakespearean English cursive in which Jane talks as Thor. The plot line branches beyond this comic, starting from Thor: God of Thunder and leading to the War of Realms. And it is elaborately built in every issue. You don't know what to expect, yet it makes sense when it happens. Which leads me to the characterizations. My God, what a treat Loki is in this. Clearly, my opinion is kinda biased, since he's my favorite character, but you never know which side he's on. What his motivations are. And it just feels so... Loki. His writing is brilliant. Almost makes me forget what the MCU did to him. Also, he gets some daddy time with Laufey (not as kinky as I make it sound). Frigga/Freyja is just as awesome as in the MCU, even more, at least in the comics she calls Odin out on his shit, who btw is I guess an asshole in every version and universe. Malekith, the main villain, is unbearably despicable, I want to tear every page he is on. He really was mishandled in the Dark World, if you want some true action with the dark elves, you are welcome to enjoy. I saved the best for the end - Jane Foster/ Might Thor. Now, if you think Dr. Foster spends her time boasting about her worthiness and how Odinson is just called Thor, but she is Mighty Thor, you are horribly wrong. She just... does her job. Because the hammer chose her. Because there's no one else to do so. That's it. If you think there's some feminism involved, yes, there sure is, but it certainly isn't the reason Jane became Thor in the first place. It was not the creators going SJW because it's trendy, as such a mindset is honestly offensive to any descent creator with any self respect, but a well thought out story arc, which, I repeat, you have to read the comic to understand. Jane is not at all whiny about the hate she gets in-universe, not only from foes like Odin and who-not, but from Shield and generally people whose asses she's saving. Her having cancer is not something they pulled to provoke sympathy and make her look like a victim - on the contrary, she is a damn hero and a victor. I don't want to give out spoilers, but her being Thor is actually a giant sacrifice that no one really appreciates (both in-universe and in the fandom). She is not Thor to prove she can be, or just to prove "women can be heroes" - she doesn't have to. She is simply needed by the realms and so she does her job, even though she is called a thief, persecuted and generally hated. All that matters is that the hammer finds her worthy - the beauty and simplicity of that fact you will find out, for the last time, if you read the comic.

I'm not making you read the comic or watch Thor: Love and Thunder. I myself don't know what to make of this film yet because there's barely any information about it. I only know it will be based on the comic so that's a reason for my hopes to be up already. On the other hand, since I didn't like Loki's characterization in Ragnarok, I'm not sure what to expect from Taika. There are valid reasons to not like the idea of Jane returning to the MCU as Thor, which you are entitled to. However, reasons such as "why does everything have to be political these days" are not. Because if I had to make a list of everything politically related in the MCU, it would take forever. Steve Rogers kills nazis is the most blatant example. Make of it what you want. But I think we're far enough into the 21st century to realize art and real life are not that separable. It's undeniable that art affects people and that is to say, people everywhere. And they all have different opinions and aren't gonna like everything media is offering to them. And I wish I could simply tell you not to watch the movie but I'm a Marvel fan too and I understand that I can't just take away Thor from you because I want Mighty Thor as well. But none of us can stop Marvel from producing it. So, to quote an image I saw recently, I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people. Let the rest of the fandom enjoy what they want to enjoy. Yes, ik I can play around with the tags and avoid posts that unnerve me but, for example, I'm looking up Mighty Thor fanart, which obviously isn't anti-Mighty Thor, yet I get attacked in the comics for anticipating a movie that doesn't even have a full cast yet. Ik I'm not asking for too much when I wish to get the same internet experience (not only tumblr, but also insta, YouTube, Twitter, any site) as the Thor Odison fans, for example. I'm aware I cannot stop all the toxic fans and the trolls but I hope this post has inspired those of you who simply can't envision Jane as Thor, or don't like Natalie Portman in the role, or whatever eles personal preference that doesn't involve political issues and isn't harmful to the community, not to attack every post on your dash with hate. The movie is called LOVE and Thunder, for God's sake. (on a side note, is a franchise that is too afraid to show LGBT characters for more than 1 minute so as to not lose profit from China, THAT politically correct)

Anyway, that was a veeeery long rant, sorry to whoever reads this but, like, please, I put effort into this, hoping this time around I won't be the only positive reviewer of a movie, like I was with Solo: a Star Wars story (yes, I'm still bitter about this), which was boycotted for no apparent reason but was a decent film in reality, and I'm only bringing it up because it has a similar experience to Love and Thunder for getting hate before even being released. I'm not defending a billion dollar company that flopped in box office once, I'm defending the viewer's right to media they are interested in. If you don't like the character, remember - that's your opinion, not a fact that the character sucks. Kudos.

Not very easy to navigate, I advice you to do the research month by month individually for comics you'd like to compare. Also, if you happen to find more reliable data, pls say so in the comments.

Here you have the summary and explanation of the greatness of Thor: God of Thunder, Jesus, I'll go bankrupt if I buy this one too.

Yes, I want to end the sales dispute once and for all, I'm tired of seeing it on my dash. This guy probably explains it better than I did.

@awesomejenlawrence you said you'd like to read this and I delivered

[virtualman17-blog]

Top 10 Reasons Not to Support the Developer of Yandere Simulator (Yandere Dev/EvaXephon/Alex Mahan)

Yandere Simulator: A game with a good idea but with a very corrupt developer. Yandere Dev/Alex has become a epicenter of controversy ever since people discovered all of his dark secrets, causing him to lose supporters left and right and this list is dedicated to alerting people about his twisted personality and why people should NOT Support him.

And also because my previous list on this subject got taken down on thetoptens.com by a snob-nosed, dick-sucking, twat, I'm going to remake it with even more evidence again that little shit-licker’s master!

1. Yandere Simulator is a Revenge Act Against High School Girls Who Rejected Him

This is not only the biggest reason as to why Yandere Dev sucks but it also coexists with several other things on this list. Back in Alex's high school days he was constantly trying to get with several high school girls but ultimately got rejected - for obvious reasons. And so when Alex made Yandere Simulator - a game about slaughtering girls as a whole, he can feel like he's getting revenge on them by killing them in brutal, painful and horrendous ways. Disgusting! And because the male Senpai in the game is a self-insert of Alex and he made him so "perfect and flawless" and has a lot of busty, mindless girls swooning over him, Alex gets of recreate what he thinks his life in school "should've been". Alex if you are reading this: leave the internet for good!

2. He is a Pedophile

Is there any limitation as to how low this a-hole can sink?! Anyways there is a TON of evidence that point towards his pedophilia like in his cesspool of a game in where even though it takes place at a high school you get to look up girl's skirts, take pictures and sell them and Alex is planning to make it possible to get female students in his game get kidnapped and sold off to sex slavery! Theres also a pedophile teacher who's name is literally "indecent" in Japanese who is after your crush and on top of that nearly all of the girls in the game have unnaturally large breasts, some of them have boobs bigger than their heads. And when people called Alex out on this he said that all of the students are 18 years old, but really there are other grades in high school - four to be exact - and the age gap in practically all high schools is ages 15-18 on average. He only likes girls with large breasts as he once said "Does she have big breasts? Then why should I care?". He should be more worried about what women can do with their fists and feet if they get anywhere him if he keeps this up. He's also been having disturbing affairs with underaged girls as young as 14 years old and he knows that they're too young for him despite the fact that he says "he didn't know", he asked her for nudes and Alex even tried to defend pedophilia by calling it "a sexual orientation". He also hires a lot of former hentai artists like kjach to draw extremely perverted drawing of his characters and one of them has Iyano (you ready for this) getting raped by a dog. (face palm) And of coarse we can't forget about his "lovely" fan fictions. One of them being called "I Am Your Slave" which is about a submissive, dumb, woman who is a slave and is happy to be so - Alex's type of girl, and the other is "Life of a Sex Slave" which is about a woman who grew up as a sex slave and only knows how to live as one. I swear Alex here is making the Twilight and Fifty Shades of Gray books look like masterpieces and I thought that was impossible! There’s just no hope for this guy, he is just gone.

3. He Can't Handle Criticism

As we all probably know, when someone becomes an artist and no matter how well we do we can't exactly please everybody. And what normally separates a good artist from a bad one aside from their work is their ability to accept criticism and Yandere Dev/Alex is NOT one of them. He has attacked several people including my own sister for leaving anything other than praise or most especially: sad but true facts about his poorly made game that frankly deserve all the criticism he gets. If he finds anything on the internet directed towards him that isn't mindless praising he goes down the Donald Scum route and attacks the commenter, and he will ban anyone form his streams about his hilariously bad gameplay skills that don't praise him like a god. He often makes really lame replys like "You dirty SJW!"(real mature and clever) like what he said to my sister one time. But other times he sinks lower than that, a good example is when Yandere Dev banned a mod called the "Size Mod" from his game which allowed you to change Yandere-chan's height and a lot of fans downloaded it but some emailed Yandere Dev instead of the original creator, and Alex called the mod "stupid" and Stickman - a Youtuber who downloaded it told him that was very disrespectful and he told Alex to fu*k off to which then Alex replied by saying "No, you can fu*k off, go stick your dick in a beehive" I don't think he even came up with that insult himself and besides at least Stickman has a real dick! He attacks Kiwifarms.net a lot for telling the truth and there was this artist who used to be a fan of Yandere Simulator who goes by the username of "swoomzie" on PrettyUglyLittleLiar.net who used to draw fan art for Alex's game until she heard about how he loves to steal artwork for his game (Look at "He Constantly Steals From Other Source Materials" for examples) and when she confronted Alex about this and asked him to sign a contract with her to make sure she gets credited for her artwork, he got offended, called her rude and didn't what to work with her anymore. And when people criticized Ayano for being an emotionless plank of wood - same with her Senpai, Alex admitted that he didn't want to give her a personality because he was afraid that he would be criticized for giving her a specific personality. So basically he just admitted that he can't handle criticism and he seriously thinks that giving a character no personality is better than some personality? Why do you think everyone likes Yuno from Future Diary - the most famous Yandere of all time or - who a few people like - male yandere: Damiya from Beast Player Erin? It's because they have a ton of personality, same with virtually every character in Marvel, DC, Persona, Metal Gear Solid, Prince of Persia, Ratchet and Clank, the Tales games and the superhero megaseries that I'm working on myself. And finally another great example is when the original creator of Stop Yandere Dev on Tumblr who was an autistic (no insult) woman called out Alex and pointed out a lot of dark facts about him and Alex found out about this and called her an autistic b**ch. Yeah well f**k you Alex, you ugly, pasty Linguini look-alike! Anyone who uses autism as a slur for "stupid, retarded, freak" or whatever don't deserve to live, because thats talking down to a group of people with a slight mental abnormality. Most autistic people have a sensitivity to loud noises and bright lights and may experience reoccurring daydreaming, but they often have a higher IQ than the average person, are very creative and have a few different ways of learning and I should know because I'm autistic and I'm anything but stupid! I'm one of the highest graded students in the schools I went to and I'm doing a great job at designing my own series mostly because I don't rip off everything I like and I don't throw an Alex Mahan temper tantrum whenever something doesn't go my way or when I receive something thats less than praising. If you can't handle criticism, than you should stay away from doing anything on the internet but try telling that to someone who's whole life is the internet.

4. He is a Misogynist

Speaking on how he goes against what SJWs stand for he does not know how to treat or even cares about women in the slightest. For starters a vast majority of the girls in his game are oversexualized with massive breasts and are about as dumb as the guy looking down on them (Alex Mahan) and he loves to hire former hentai artists like kjech to draw the most disgusting, pedophiliac pictures of his characters and they are disgusting and unnatural to say the least. And he goes even further with his sexism to where he will pretty much call any girl he doesn't like a b**ch. He writes rape fan fictions like "I Am Your Slave" and "Life of a Sex Slave" and they're about downright stupid, submissive girls who Alex, Trump, the GOP and every deplorable degenerate loves! Plus the man in I Am Your Slave is an insert of Yandere Dev. His deplorable fan fictions make Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey look like Hunger Games and Shakespeare and I though that was impossible! Also he once said that he hasn't interacted with a woman in real life aside of his mom in over a year, gee I wonder why. Maybe it's because he does not know how to treat them properly and that he groups them based on breast size and good looks (Just like the evil orange he likes: Donald Scum) rather than personality, interests, intelligence, skills, social skills?! And that he considers flat-chested women to be deformed and not deserving of his worthless attention? He often slut-shames any woman who talks down to him and anyone who's "not good enough for him", after all he did say one time: "Does she have big breasts? Then why should I care?", DEGENERATE! Now I like hot and beautiful women too and I do admit that I like look at hot girls on the internet and would love to marry a beautiful lady one day, but I draw the line in the sand when it comes to his porn or hentai and I stay away from it. Plus I'm a strong supporter of women's rights and if a marry someone I want her to have some pride in herself and have a good personality as a whole like how all girls should be. If I found someone with the most perfect body but is anything like the women Alex writes in disgusting fan fictions than no thank you! And need I remind you that the female human species is just as important as us men, without one or the other there is no us, so why not treat them with dignity and respect just like how men have been getting it for several centuries? But of coarse the abomination know as Yan Dev who probably couldn't care less about women's rights if it meant saving his own skin just wants to see them as male accessories rather than real people. Screw you Alex, you sexist Trump-spawn!

5. He Constantly Steals Form Other Source Materials

Despite the fact that he mostly has volunteers working on his game that he doesn't pay, he still manages to rip off content after content from other game designers, video games, anime/cartoon shows etc. He likes to pleasure himself by watching, searching on the internet or playing something instead of working on his game and as soon as he sees something he likes, he'll take it, claim ownership and not credit or even mention the original artist. And even when we expose of him for it (like I've said on "He's a Liar") he'll say "It's just a place holder" TRANSLATION: "It's mine now suckers!" He just thinks that if he makes some slight adjustments like changing the color in one or two places, that automatically makes it his, if you get inspiration from somewhere, change about 50% of it so that way: 1. it can't be a rip off and 2. you show respect to the original artist/s. Like what I do for my own franchises! Examples of what he stole: - He stole Doug Clayton's grass texture 3 times! - He's stolen a lot of lines from Undertale. - Like I've said before on "His Characters are Horribly Designed" most of the characters are stolen Unity Store assets. - There's a character named "Fureddo Jonzu" (Fred Jones from Scooby Doo) - let me cry for you. - A lot of the hairstyles are stolen MMD assets. - A lot of the environments in the game are stolen like the gymnasium, the classrooms, the town outside the school, Iyano's bedroom and a few others. - The character "Nemesis-chan" was completely copy-pasted form someone else's work. - He stole a lot of assassination mechanics from Hitman. - He's planning to steal a lot of content from Persona 5 - a game from a critically-praised series with some of the best, most creative and most well-written characters of any game series! Honestly I'm highly surprised that no one has sued his sorry ass yet, if someone did though Alex probably won't be able to live with his parents anymore, and I'm okay with that.

6. Some of His Fans are a Basket of Deplorables

Of course I'm not saying that all of Yan Dev's fans are bad, in fact - most of them are innocent people who just find his game fun and that's that and even if they are aware of all the stuff that we say about him or even know that it's true they still show some dignity to us and just want to have some fun times with Yandere Simulator. But a minority of his fans are just disgusting deplorables that just have to say the most vile, bigotry, bullcrap in existence just because we have a negative view of Yan Dev and his games. And a lot of those particular fans are so loyal and submissive they will follow Alex all the way to hell and to which I hope they do because like I said: they're attack dogs ready to pounce at the first negative comment about Yan Dev they see. The best example on this is what one low-life commented on Oni's Tumblr page "Stop Yandere Dev" and that particular abomination said: "Should I get a penis for "Oni" on her birthday? She seems to really want one. Just a reminder- Tans "men" aren't real men. Why don't you go make someone a sandwich or some babies? That's all women are good for, other than tapping material. You should've never talked s**t about Devpai” Me to Yan Dev deplorable #36667-KKK: F**king degenerate! Two can play at that game - Say what you want to think about trans-men but they have real penises something you obviously lack, and you must feel safe in your mother's basement behind your computer as you are so ugly and gross no woman would never make you a sandwich or a demon spawn in your name and you wouldn't be able to say all that deplorable talk to Oni's face, for the fact that you are afraid of women because they are so much stronger than you and Oni herself could effortlessly bash your head in so hard it will come flying out your tight a**hole. And speaking of penises, how does Devpai's nonexistent dick taste? Keep sucking on it until you choke or get one of the many diseases Devpai is carrying as it will rid the world of one less problem we have to concern ourselves about! I really would love to leave that one comment to any Alex fanboy, I would love to.

7. His Game and Characters are Horribly Designed

Aside from the fact that Alex's game is like a hentai without the sex with brainless women that have breasts and butt-cheeks bigger than their empty heads and guys with di*ks so big that they will have to pee in the bath tub, that is if they can fit them through the bathroom door. His characters are by far the most poorly made shells-of-men and women i've ever seen! For starters most of his character's names are just really lame puns that more or less reflect what little personality they have, an example is Osoro which means "awful" in Japanese and heres a few more: - Osana Najimi (Childhood Friend) - She's not even fully implemented in the game yet. - Geiju Teuka (Artist) - Mai Waifu (Means: my female anime crush) - Midori Gurin (Green Green) - Sakyu Basu & Inkyu Basu ((Sound like "Succubus & Inkubus" )Obviously) - Mida Rana (Indecent) The game also takes place at high school but the students all wear sailor uniforms, only middle-schoolers wear them while high-schoolers normally wear neckties with blazers. Plus virtually all of his characters are stolen Unity Store Assets - which he says he's going to replace in the future but he won't, just watch! And on top of that, they all have even less personality then the Twilight characters in which their only character trait has something to do with their pun names. Also Yandere-chan (Iyano Aishi) - the character you play is described as an emotionless, dull, empty killer-in-love that "inherited" her Yandere trait from her mother which is NOT how a Yandere should be! Yanderes are solely motivated by emotion especially love and fear and will kill based off of their emotions if they see any potential rival in their crazy obsession over the man/woman they want to be with if it kills them. Alex loves Japan yet he knows nothing about them and their culture, and he knows about as much on making characters as Donald Trump knows about being a President, in other words: HE KNOWS NOTHING!!!

8. He Hates Social Justice Warriors

Social Justice Warriors or SJWs are good people and I'm one myself, their only goal is to stop all sexism, racism, homophobia, and just all forms of bigotry and prejudice in general so that everyone, no matter how they're born don't get treated as second class, as objects or even as criminals just because they're not white, straight, Christian men. The only people they don't support are actual criminals. And fun fact: people who usually hate SJWs are often racist, sexist, homophobic, hateful, Nazi-loving, KKK, fascist, deplorables like about half of Donald Trump's supporters as well as Trump himself and Alex Mahan (Yandere Dev) - who also supports Trump. Some SJWs may go a bit too far and take their ideals to the extreme to where it's white men above everyone else being reversed, but those "SJWs" are extremists and unfortunately they give the rest of the SJW's a bad name like "extreme liberals". But I know that it goes both ways, there are both extreme liberals and conservatives and they both have terrible ideals on how one or two groups of people "deserve" more respect than the others and normal SJWs are not like that, we are EQUAL RIGHTS not ethnic or gender dominance - because that wouldn't be "equal" now wouldn't it? And when you see all those stupid, unfactual anti-SJW memes and rants on the internet calling SJWs "bullies", "bigots", "racists", "criminals", "stupid", "hateful", "whiny", "cancerous" or whatever, those dumb memes and rants were made by REAL bullies, bigots, racists, and criminals that ARE stupid, hateful, whiny, and cancerous low-lifes! On top of that, Yandere Dev has been seen making friends with people on 4-Chan - one of the worst anti-SJW cesspools on the internet. And the people on 4-Chan talk like Nazis and KKK scum and Yandere Dev likes to pander to them about making Yandere Simulator the most anti-SJW game in existence and he's on a roll with that as it is already filled with, incest, misogyny, pedophilia and indecent exposure. Oh how I dream of the day when I can ban all anti-equal rights garbage from the internet, as well as Alex himself.

9. He's Notoriously Known as "EvaXephon" on Other Sites

When Yandere Dev is not working on his game for two minutes a day, he is doing terrible streams on other sites under "EvaXephon" by streaming video game playthroughs for up to 21 hours straight with horrendous gaming skills. I've seen some of his streams and he has played quite a few games that I've played myself and I'm SO much better than he is, in fact - for every time I've died in a level Alex has died like ten or even twenty times and if you suck at video games don't show it on the internet, unless it's for a comedy of errors. Anyways one such site he's been streaming on is Twitch and he often likes to leave links to his crumby streams and a lot of people hate him for it. On a side note: Yandere Simulator got banned on Twitch and while Alex says "It's those dirty SJWs" I'm sure we all know why it got banned in the first place, am I right?

10. He's a Liar

This may be one of the more "mild" cases of Yandere Dev's guiltiness but he does this often, like on a daily basis "often" and a lot of his fans believe him but you don't have to have a camera in his room to see what he's doing. Because he records himself doing other things! A perfect example is on how he always says that he works "very hard, nonstop" on his game but really he just works on it for 5 minutes a day and then spends the rest of the day streaming his crappy gaming skills for several hours straight, one time he did it for 21 hours in one day. And I know how he feels, after all I need "some time off" every time I finish one math question at school, my school was so brutal! I'm joking of course but other examples of when Alex lies is when we question him on how he doesn't pay any of his volunteers who work on his game for him but he says that he does. Yeah, and Donald Trump cares about Mexican and Muslim lives! (Not!!!) But probably the best example is when we point out how he steals something from other (real) artists or source materials and he either says that he stole nothing and it's his or he says "it's just a placeholder" but in reality he's saying "It's saying there forever whether you like it of not". - This will come back later...

[renaroo]

Wednesday Roundup

We have a new addition to the party this week! Ghostbusters 101 -- and I’m very excited to see where all our continuing stories lead us. So let’s look into ‘em without further ado...

DC’s Batman Beyond, DC’s Detective Comics, IDW’s Ghostbusters 101, Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, DC’s Wonder Woman

DC’s Batman Beyond (2016-present) #6 Dan Jurgens, Bernard Chang, Marcelo Maiolo

Well, I will give this comic one thing: it truly understands what attracts fans like me to Batman Beyond as a franchise to begin with: everyone giving Bruce crap for his stupid, stupid ideas and the consequences he doesn’t think out all of the way in canon. And Matt and Max are easily the best parts of each issue for that reason. That and Max’s undercut. The best things.

Alright, so I was completely accurate in my assumption last issue that the fact that every batboy in the franchise got a shoutout because it’s going to turn out that Damian has now been brought into the fold of the Beyond universe. And it’s probably going to have something to do either with the AI of the new Batsuit or with the plot from the DCAU where Ra’s takes over a younger descendent’s body in order to regain his own youth -- formerly it was Talia, now it is logically Damian. 

mkay.

It still makes me angry that we don’t get shoutouts to Kate, Cass, Steph, Harper -- literally any woman in the franchise while the boys get every solitary universe but whatever.

Not really whatever, but I am willing to grant that the comic is still young and there’s an opportunity that as ‘Tec works to make the extended Batfamily’s stars rise, that they will receive some due credit in the Beyond timeline as well. Batgirls: Futures End anyone? Just food for thought.

Anyway. This was an enjoyable issue, but a rather quick read compared to everything else this week. Most, if not all, of the meat was put into that last page reveal because of course it was. But here’s hoping the pace picks up next issue now that everything’s out of the way. 

DC’s Detective Comics (2016-present) #957 James Tynion IV, Christopher Sebela, Carmen Carnero, Karl Story

A one-shot issue? A complete story that focuses on character development and world building with previous setup being paid off and future setup being presented? Are we sure this is the Detective Comics run I’ve criticized for its pacing and drawn out stories for the past year? Are we sure this isn’t a bizarro world issue I got a hand on somehow?

Okay, all joking aside, I have been harsh on this run in the past but I think this issue proves pretty much everything I have critiqued before because Tynion, with help from Sebela, focuses on his strengths -- character, voice, simple storytelling devices, and presenting a critical opinion of the genre while also very much showing a love for it.

This is honestly why I have been baffled by people who have said they hated Tynion’s characterization of Steph in this run. I didn’t like how he wrote her in Batman and Robin Eternal, but almost everything in this issue embodies the parts of Steph I have loved about her character over the years. Striding the line between insider and outsider, loving and protecting Gotham while questioning and being critical of the harm Batman’s crusade has don, not wanting glory but still wanting to be be better and to help. She’s confident, she’s resourceful and clever, and yet there is a loneliness and sacrifice to how she’s chosen her path. And even if she doesn’t mention it directly, because we’ve followed Steph as she got to this point we know there’s still a question about how she’s affording her equipment, where she’s living, who she’s in contact with, whether or not she’s going to school.

This issue gave me so many feelings and it really does reward me for having confidence in the creative team seeming to have a plan and direction for Steph as a character. Something, I should note, I don’t always feel the most confidence with when it comes to this run thus far.

More comics like this, Tynion. I’m begging you.

IDW’s Ghostbusters 101 (2017-present) #3 Erik Burnham, Dan Shoening, Luis Antonio Delgado

On the basis of my three-issue policy, I am happy to say that I am as excited as I can be on the direction of IDW’s Ghostbusters 101. The quality of the Ghostbusters franchise as it’s been handled by IDW for over a decade now has always been among the top tier of comics and probably one of the more under appreciated productions of the medium. I mean, I read them but how many of you read them?

Erik Burnham has become the defining crafter of what I consider “my” Ghostbusters as it comes to the original cast, and I have been very excited to see how he and Dan Shoening translated the recent 2016 cast into the multiverse and into their distinct styles of writing. And I’m more than happy to say that it translates beautifully.

The team ups we’ve all been waiting for since the very first announcements of the rebooted movie has finally come...

And by that I mean that, finally, in the third issue, after two issues of buildup, we finally have some interactions between the Original Crew, the Real Crew, the EXTREME Crew, and now the Answer the Call Crew. 

... See, one of the barriers for entry into these comics is you kind of have to accept that almost all the comics are written with the Big Picture in mind. Erik Burnham has always been a slow burn of a writer, and that was very much evidenced not only with my favorite of his Ghostbusters runs -- the  Ghostbusters (2013-2014) run --  but especially in the IDW crossover of Ghostbusters/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He takes his time, and the buildup will have payoff, but it might be a bit slow to wait issue-by-issue for for some fans who want the immediate excitement of the characters interacting. 

I mean, I’m a fan and I waited until I could read all three of the first issues together, if that tells you anything.

It is a joy, and worth picking up for fans. Just be aware of your tastes before judging too hard. 

Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2015-present) #19 Brandon Montclare, Natacha Bustos, Tamra Bonvillain

If you care about the future of the medium and about comics attracting younger fans, or just having goo wholesome comics for all ages, I have no idea why you aren’t already reading Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur because it is just one of the prettiest, most inventive, and most genuine all-ages books that I’ve read in a long time. 

Lunella and Devil have become such an iconic pair, and the beauty of this comic is how the effort and storytelling are treated with the authenticity and effort of “adult” aimed readers, including having Lunella’s point of view be prominent but obviously still marked by immaturity and lack of experience, while still very much at its heart being the story of a child in a world of superheroes, growing and learning and becoming herself even when she doesn’t necessarily know what that means. 

The at is gorgeous, specifically the coloring of this issue is just jaw dropping, and getting Lunella into space and having her so attached to Devil to bring him along in a ridiculous but wonderful dinosaur-sized space suit is just amazing. 

I love everything here in this comic and really hope those of you with kids in your lives or just the love of good superhero comics with unique tones and stories are picking this up already. 

DC’s Wonder Woman (2016-present) #23 Greg Rucka, Liam Sharp, HI-FI

We’re coming to the end of Rucka’s amazing run and I’m just very grateful at the moment. I’m grateful to this run and I’m grateful that the Present Day stuff finally actually caught up in quality with the Past storylines because man it was super shaky for a while there. And it really took the whole picture unifying for it to really work for me and that’s probably going to mean that on re-read, at least for me, the parts I have been critical about when it comes to this run will read better.

...

Okay the racism won’t read better. Seriously, what was the point?

But Diana won with love. Veronica will still have a reason to be antagonistic with Wondy even though she saved her daughter. Diana and Hippolyta met each other again for at least momentarily. There were so many good things -- especially good conversations. Liam Sharp’s art was pretty top notch.

Just overall this was a good Beginning of the End, so to speak, and I’m really looking forward to where we go from here. 

So the books this week were very different in tone and story overall, but it has to be said, with the maybe exception of Batman Beyond which still had a pretty prominent female characters feature, this week is really the week of Superheroines. And I love that. I love that we’re at a time and place in comics where women and girls are allowed to be so many varieties of characters and still heroic, still masters of their own stories, and still geared toward so many different tastes and audiences. 

It really shows, at least for me, what’s going right with the industry at the moment, and I hope it progresses that way.

But it’s time for the pick of the week, and as much as I really enjoyed all the comics this week, I’m going to give this week’s pick to Detective Comics. It was a great stand alone, it was very focused and character driven, and it’s just so wonderful seeing Stephanie’s independence and more individualized view of justice getting to be front and center of a ‘Tec comic. The times where she was treated with this amount of respect as Spoiler were few and far between in the previous continuity and it’s good as a fan to see that the current creative team can love and appreciate the 2000s comics and draw from them while still adjusting and moving past their flaws. 

But that’s just my opinion on today’s pull! Do you guys agree or disagree with me on any of them? Think I missed picking up something great? I’d love to hear from you! See you next week <3

[aion-rsa]

Alan Moore’s Most Controversial Comic Book Stories

Alan Moore helped to revolutionize the comic book industry in the 1980s with his bold, darker approaches to both horror comics and superhero comics. However, Moore is a bit of a rare case in that his bold, new approach to comics was accepted fairly easily by the audience. That is a very rare state of affairs for comic book readers, who tend to dismiss first before they begrudgingly accept (and then retroactively adore).

RELATED: The 15 Best Hidden Treasures in Watchmen

Because of how quickly he was accepted, Moore was given freer reign from the fans as to what kinds of stories he could do, so it was a lot harder for him to shock the fans with his work. Mostly, his biggest controversies have been for what happened outside of the comics (his disputes with DC Comics and with Marvel, his renunciation of the film adaptations of his work, his general denouncements of the American comic book industry as a whole, etc). Still, that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t had some controversial comic book stories. Here are his 15 most controversial.

LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN: BLACK DOSSIER GETS TWO LIBRARY WORKERS FIRED

“Black Dossier” was the first follow-up to Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s popular “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” series. Originally intended as a “sourcebook” (mostly to make sure that Kevin O’Neill wasn’t wanting for work while Moore waited to do the third volume in the core series), it turned into a fascinating “file” book complete with maps, prose stories, comic stories and more. There were also some sex scenes in the book.

This did not sit well with library assistant Sharon Cook, who worked at the Jessamine County Public Library in Kentucky. She wanted the book transferred from the graphic novel section to adult fiction (because she felt that the library’s graphic novel section was too close to Young Adults). When her request was denied, she then just put the book on hold herself for a year from 2008-09, to make sure no impressionable minds could read it.

However, eventually a computer hold was placed on the book designed that whenever Cook’s hold expired, this computer one would take precedence (typically, Cook would just re-place it on hold whenever hers expired). Cook used her access to see that it was an 11-year-old who placed the hold, so Cook enlisted the help of a part-time employee to erase it. When they were found out, both Cook and the other employee were fired.

GRAPHIC ASSAULT IN NEONOMICON

“Neonomicon” was a four-issue miniseries by Alan Moore and artist Jacen Burrows that was published by Avatar Press in 2010-11. It was a sequel to a previous Moore/Burrow work from 2003. Both works are based on H.P. Lovecraft’s “Cthulhu” mythos. In “Neonomicon,” Moore had a specific goal in mind. He noted that Lovecraft would often mention “certain nameless rituals” in his work that were clearly intended to involve sex, but Lovecraft (whether because he was writing in the 1920s and 1930s or because he was simply squeamish about sex) made a point of avoiding the details.

So here, Moore wanted to force the reader to deal with what Lovecraft tried to obscure, to confront them with the horrors of rape. So when FBI Agent Brears and her partner investigate a cult in the story, her partner is murdered and Brears is then brutally raped for multiple issues by both the cultists and then by a grotesque fish man. There were naturally a number of critics who felt that it was untoward to have a comic whose purpose was to show a lot of rape, even if the intent was to show the horrors of it.

MARVELMAN GETS A CEASE AND DESIST

“Marvelman” was really Alan Moore’s breakout comic book work, as the lead feature in Quality Communications’ “Warrior” was actually Moore’s first regular comic book series. The concept of the book was to do a modern continuation of the classic Mick Anglo “Marvelman” series from the 1950s, which, in turn, were a continuation of the Fawcett Comics’ “Captain Marvel” series after Fawcett lost the rights following a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against them by National Comics/DC Comics. Moore (first with artist Garry Leach and then with Alan Davis) did a brilliant post-modern adaptation of the character.

However, when publisher Dez Skinn introduced a “Marvelman Special,” Marvel Comics sprung into action with one of its frequent 1980s attempts to sue companies that they felt were infringing on their trademarks, so with the series already in limbo with Moore and Davis no longer willing to work with each other, Skinn sold the character rights to Eclipse Comics, who then had to re-name the character “Miracleman.”

Amazingly, both DC Comics and Marvel Comics had the chance to buy the rights to Marvelman at the time but both said no! This was within Alan Moore’s first year on “Saga of the Swamp Thing,” so while he was a critically acclaimed creator, he was not yet the Alan Moore, whose name alone could sell a comic book series.

SWAMP THING HAS SEX

“Saga of the Swamp Thing” #34 (by Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben) is the perfect example of what we were referencing earlier when we mentioned that Moore’s early 1980s audience followed him to bizarre places with open minds. The issue dealt with Swamp Thing and Abby exploring their relationship, specifically Abby’s willingness to take things to another, sexual level. The problem, of course, is how do you have sex with an animated pile of swamp vegetation? As it turns out, you do so by Swamp Thing producing a tuber that Abby would eat and then the two would share in a psychedelic wonderland of desire.

Bissette and Totleben did a stunning job depicting the experience, using a series of double-page spreads (cleverly going vertically instead of the typical horizontal double-page spread) to show what the two lovers were going through.

A problem came, though, when DC gave away the rights to do whatever the producers of the second “Swamp Thing” film, “Return of the Swamp Thing,” wanted to do with Moore’s work, and the end result was one of the most bizarre movie sex scenes ever (with Heather Locklear as Abby).

An embarrassing adaptation of a great work.

MR. HYDE RAPES THE INVISIBLE MAN

Hawley Griffin was the Invisible Man in Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.” He was first seen in Volume 1 terrorizing a girls’ boarding school before being enlisted to join the team of Victorian superheroes. In the second volume, however, Griffin turned on his colleagues during the Martian invasion, choosing to ally himself with the invaders (as he felt it was a given that they would succeed, so he might as well serve them and live than fight them and die). When Mina Murray discovered his deceit, he brutally assaulted her. Since he was invisible, the readers just see Murray as she is assaulted and degraded, left in a pile of her own vomit.

When Mister Hyde learned what Griffin had done, he revealed the fact that his enhanced senses allowed him to see Griffin. He then proceeded to rape Griffin nearly to death as revenge for what Griffin did to Murray. When Griffin finally died from his injuries, his blood became visible, so the reader got to see Hyde’s clothes slowly turn red with Griffin’s blood. Some critics took issue with the use of rape here as almost a heroic tactic.

GALLEY-WAG CAUSES CONCERN

In “League of Extraordinary Genetlemen: Black Dossier,” Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill introduced the Galley-Wag, a noble being from the Black Matter Cosmos. Galley-Wag was Moore and O’Neill’s attempt to redeem the character of the Golliwog, from Florence Upton’s series of children’s books from the turn of the 20th Century. Upton based the character of Golliwog on the black minstrel tradition. There’s little doubt that what Upton was basing the character on was a racist depiction of African-Americans. However, people would argue that while the origin of the character’s designs were racist, how Upton wrote the character was not racist, as the Golliwog was treated like a hero.

Alan Moore himself discussed the use of the character, “Here we had a character which in its day was positive, bold, innovative, and the creation of a typically overlooked woman creator who had quite possibly wished to situate an admirable and loveable black figure in the imaginations of the white Victorian children who comprised her readership.” Moore’s intent here was noble, but many critics felt that there really isn’t a way to successfully adapt a character who is such a racist caricature on the most basic levels. Others obviously disagree, and think Moore and O’Neill succeeded in redeeming the character.

TWILIGHT OF SUPERHEROES TOO DARK TO BE MADE

This entry is a tricky one, since the series was never actually made, so you could argue that it doesn’t belong on a list of controversial Alan Moore comics. However, it was such an important piece of comic book history that we think that it merits a unique place on this countdown. In 1987, at the height of “Watchmen” fever, Moore made a proposal to DC Comics for a companywide crossover event called “The Twilight of the Superheroes.”

The concept involved John Constantine and Rip Hunter visiting the present from their future, to warn the heroes of the DC Universe of how dark things get. The main thrust of the series would be in a limited series where future John Constantine reveals the story of the future to his present-day self through a letter. The future of the DC Universe would be bleak, with “houses” made up of the various superhero families, sort of like a super-powered “Game of Thrones.” In the end, it would turn out that Hunter and Constantine were here not to stop their future, but to assure it came true, as in the end, the non-superhumans rebel and unseat their superhuman overlords. The proposal is brilliant, but it involved so many dark turns for so many prominent heroes, there was no way that DC would ever allow it to happen.

THE DARK STORY OF KID MARVELMAN

The first major villain in Alan Moore and Garry Leach’s “Marvelman” feature in “Warrior” was Marvelman’s former sidekick, Kid Marvelman. While Marvelman spent years trapped in his human form, forgetting the magic words that transformed him into Marvelman, Kid Marvelman just refused to turn back into his human form, young Johnny Bates. He instead slowly built up a fortune as the sadistic head of a powerful corporation. Marvelman and Kid Marvelman eventually had a brutal battle in which Kid Marvelman accidentally said the magic words to turn him back into Johnny Bates.

The heavily traumatized Bates was sent to a group home. Tragically, some of the other boys there attempted to rape Bates, and while he had been trying desperately not to transform again, the attempted rape was too much and he changed into Kid Marvelman, murdering the would-be rapists and then turning his attention toward the rest of London, slaughtering thousands until Marvelman and some other heroes were able to force him to turn back into Johnny, whom Marvelman had to kill. John Totleben drew the horrific battle, making it an iconic issue but also one that many readers of the era found very disturbing due to the graphic and often grotesque depiction of violence (the most famous example is Kid Marvelman impaling people on the clock hands of Big Ben).

ALAN MOORE TAKES ON THE C.I.A.

In 1988, Alan Moore was in an interesting place in his career, as he had broken from DC Comics and was also not willing to work with Marvel Comics, so he entered the world of independent comics, first working with Eclipse, who were publishing “Miracleman” at the time. Comic fans all over the world were waiting to see what Moore’s next big project would be, and they were surely surprised to find that it was a graphic novel takedown of the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency.

Moore and artist Bill Sienkiewicz produced “Shadowplay: The Secret Team,” which was one part of the group graphic novel, “Brought to Light” (the other major work in the volume was Joyce Brabner and Tom Yeates’ “Flashpoint: The LA Penca Bombing.”). In “Shadowplay,” Moore and Sienkiewicz basically detail the alleged sordid history of the C.I.A. over the years. Like we mentioned before, though, since the book did not have the same widespread release that Moore’s other work of the era received, the controversy was a bit blunted. If this had been released by, say, DC Comics, though, it likely would have been a major controversy, as Moore and Sienkiewicz make some awfully bold claims.

LOST GIRLS

Originally serialized in the pages of Stephen Bissette’s edgy independent comic book series, “Taboo,” “Lost Girls” was ultimately finished by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie nearly two decades later as a massive graphic novel collection by Top Shelf Productions. The series was about the sexual adventures of three famous fictional female characters of the late 19th century/early 20th century, Alice from “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass,” Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz” and Wendy from “Peter Pan” who meet together at a hotel in Europe on the eve of World War I.

Since the book was specifically about sexuality and, in certain instances, the sexuality of young women, the book was a lightning rod for censorship. However, interestingly enough, Moore was shocked by just how blunted any negative response was to the book. Moore theorized that it was tied to the fact that he openly acknowledged that the book was pornography, which he felt cut the legs out of critiques of the work, for if he was calling it pornography himself, then what could his critics say? Invariably, they said, “No, it’s not! It’s art!” Thus, a work that seemed destined to be in one of the top spots on a list like this ended up not being really all that controversial.

THE MARVEL DOUCHE THAT LED TO AN ISSUE BEING PULPED

In 1999, Alan Moore cut a deal with Jim Lee’s Wildstorm Studios to launch a whole new line of comics called “America’s Best Comics,” before Lee sold Wildstorm Studios to DC Comics, much to Moore’s chagrin. His line of comics included “Tom Strong” with Chris Sprouse, “Top Ten” with Gene Ha and Zander Cannon, “Promethea” with J.H. Williams III and “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” with Kevin O’Neill.

“League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” was set in the late 19th Century, and just like his classic series, “Watchmen,” Moore included extra material at the back of the issues that would give insight into the world of the characters. Amusingly, in issue #5, they included an ad for an actual feminine product of the era, the Marvel brand douche. DC Comics, though, freaked out at the idea of this being seen as an insult of Marvel Comics, so they had the entire print run of the issue destroyed and then re-released with an edited version of the ad, with the product now being called Amaze Douche (the above ad is not precisely the one included in the original issue, but it’s for the same product – you can look at the original ad here). Amusingly, in a later issue of “Top Ten,” there is a tiny newspaper headline referencing the incident (as well as the whole “Marvelman”/”Miracleman” imbroglio), noting “Miracle Douche Recall.”

THE DOCTOR WHO STORY THAT BROKE MOORE FROM MARVEL

During the early 1980s, Alan Moore did a bunch of work for Marvel’s British branch, Marvel UK. His most famous work was an acclaimed run on “Captain Britain” with artist Alan Davis, who Moore was also working with on “Marvelman.” Moore also did a number of back-up stories on “Doctor Who.” In 1985, Marvel colored and reprinted two of Moore’s “Doctor Who” stories in the American version of the “Doctor Who” comic. Moore was outraged, as Marvel had not asked him if they could reprint the comics and there was also not yet a system in place where Moore would be paid for his work appearing in the American comics.

Moore answered the problem by refusing permission for Marvel to reprint any of his stories and threatened them over the use of characters he invented in England, as the different intellectual property laws between the United States and the United Kingdom made it an open question as to whether Moore had rights to the characters he invented in the British comics. This problem with Marvel led to three major repercussions. First, obviously Moore would not work for Marvel now. Second, Davis and Moore split, since Davis wanted their “Captain Britain” work to be reprinted in the United States. Third, Chris Claremont had just begun to use characters from Moore’s run in “Uncanny X-Men” and had to scrap those plans due to Marvel’s lawyers being overly cautious.

THE SWAMP THING ISSUE THAT LED TO LABELING

Nowadays, parental warnings are ubiquitous in the world of popular culture. In the 1980s, though, they were still a matter of great debate. Alan Moore’s “Swamp Thing” helped push the issue along with a particularly controversial issue. “Saga of the Swamp Thing” was, like pretty much all of DC Comics’ output at the time, approved by the Comics Code Authority. However, that changed with “Saga of the Swamp Thing” #29 (by Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben).

The issue included zombies, which were still a “no no” according to the Comics Code, but it also had Abby having sex with her husband, Matt Cable, who was possessed by her uncle Anton Arcane. It was likely way too disturbing for the Comics Code, so DC released the issue without Comics Code approval. Since they knew Moore was going to keep doing these types of stories, DC decided to stop submitting the book for Code approval and then with “Swamp Thing” #31 they began to label the book as “Sophisticated Suspense.”

Eventually, this was deemed to not be a good enough warning, so DC introduced “For Mature Readers Only,” which outraged many comic book creators who hated the idea of DC doing labels at all. The labels, though, won out in the end and are now pretty universal in the world of comics.

THE WATCHMEN COLLECTION THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

It’s hard to imagine now, but in 1987, Alan Moore and DC Comics were very happy with each other. This was based on the great commercial success that Moore and DC Comics were having with Moore and Dave Gibbons’ hit series, “Watchmen.” The series was not just a success as a comic book, but also they were licensing it like crazy – buttons, posters, the works. Moore and Gibbons shared in the profit, so they were very happy.

Then came the project that would sour things between Moore and DC for decades. “Watchmen” was released as a mass market trade paperback. Moore and Gibbons obviously were not unhappy about that, as that meant a whole new slew of royalties for the pair. However, what they were unhappy about was that the “Watchmen” trade (along with the “Dark Knight Returns” trade) changed how comic book trade paperbacks worked.

Historically, you would do a print run and that was it. If you were lucky, you would do a couple of printings. Eventually, though, the book would go out of print and Moore and Gibbons would regain the rights. Instead, “Watchmen” has never gone out of print. As Moore said in 2006, describing his response to DC when he split from them in 1989, “Fair enough…You have managed to successfully swindle me, and so I will never work for you again.”

THE KILLING JOKE

Alan Moore only wrote what ultimately became “The Killing Joke” as a favor to its artist, Brian Bolland, as Moore had already soured on DC Comics by the time it came out in 1988. The story is about the origins of the Joker, showing that he feels that he was driven to evil by having “one bad day.” Thus, he wants to see if he can do the same to someone with a strong moral fiber like Commissioner James Gordon.

Therefore, he breaks into Gordon’s home, shoots and paralyzes Gordon’s daughter, Barbara Gordon (who had just retired as Batgirl), and then kidnaps and tortures him. “One bad day” did not break Jim Gordon, though. The story ends with Batman and Joker laughing at the absurdity of their endless “cat and mouse” relationship.

The book has been criticized for the way that it allegedly treats Barbara Gordon’s injury as just a means to supply drama to her father and Batman. That is to say that Barbara is less a character in her own right as she is a prop for the plot. John Ostrander and Kim Yale would later famously turn Barbara into the hero Oracle, but that was not in the cards for Gordon at the time. The controversy behind this story continues to this very day, as Warner Bros. recently released an R-Rated animated adaptation of the story.

What do you feel is the most controversial Alan Moore comic book story? Be sure to tell us in the comments section!

The post Alan Moore’s Most Controversial Comic Book Stories appeared first on CBR.com.

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