beccaelizabeth | Entries tagged with comics

Today I am Waiting for deliveries etc

so I started reading the JLI omnibus volume 3.

I have read 120 pages and I think they were all new to me, despite my best efforts to buy them all at the time.

I just finished a section where Captain Cold and Heatwave get stopped by Fire and Ice.
It starts out with them drunk in a bar talking about how their jobs (bookstore and parks) just aren't as exciting as the old days, and grumbling about how superheroes just aren't doing it right since Barry died.
So they go to rob a jewelery store. Politely. While asking the employees to make sure they give them good reviews for the politeness.
But then Fire and Ice are out shopping and stop them.
While they say how much this is and isnt like Barry.

It really seems like Cold and Heatwave don't know how to hang out without crime (and Barry) so they do Fun Crime while complaining about how even the heroes beat you up these days and the villains are all worse. Which is kind of my feeling about a lot of comics too.

It was funny and weirdly sweet.
... and it ends when Cold remembers the 'good old days' usually ended with prison.

Also there's a bit where Fire is hoping to get a reward because she's maxed out all her credit cards and Ice just wants a nice food and a book to read. Modern superhero problems! Well, it's the 90s, perennial superhero problems really.

The other bits, with Mister Nebula the cosmic exterior designer, were probably funnier if you read comics that aren't JLI, but did have a good ending where J'onn figured out what would make him happy aesthetically (Las Vegas).

Clever uses of superpowers that are silly and gross, much better than just hitting things until they fall down.

I was seeing on tumblr lots of Wonder Woman pictures, and there were hardly any I wanted to reblog, because she keeps having a sword. When I was reading the lack of sword was a lot of the point. Lasso of truth, not sword.

... I am grumpy about comics whenever I look in on what comics are doing. So I will continue to hang out in Omnibus territory.

then i only get grumpy because my memories usually edited out the sexism and racism etc...

Thinking about the utter destruction of the multiverse
as you do
it occured to me that someone who could write that and expect readers to roll with it fundamentally doesn't think of a character as a single continuous person.

Post Crisis they can still write stories about their characters. As archetypes. ( Read more... )

I like the US news headlines today. Those look hopeful. It's nice.

I am not so much liking any headline with a number in it, but, the ones about the vaccine are at least going in the right direction.

I have lately fallen into reading fic of Blue Beetle/Booster Gold, who I have been a fan of for so long they were on the cover of the first comic I remember buying. Canon has not always been kind to them. But in fanfic they get time to get older and cope with middle aged problems and just hang out with their friends, all of whom are alive for reasons that dont need exploring at this juncture. It's a big multiverse. Everybody lives.

It is a whole bunch of feels reading all of that. There is one I read last night where Beetle gets a heart operation and Booster looks after him. Another about that time Booster was on life support and Beetle looked after him. And one with a whole big argument about that time Superman died and the guys were both badly hurt.

... fanfic tends to add the comfort to the hurt/comfort equation canon starts.

I dont know why I'm finding it compelling to read about people the story dismissed as small time also rans having people sized problems with world shaking epic sized problems going on in the background.

... okay, phrased like that I maybe do.

It's kind of depressing when the chance to support each other through major surgery counts as a chance at happily ever after, but, *waves vaguely at canon*.

But then I really lost track of what canon thinks of them lately anyway. I mean I have 'Heroes in Crisis' but I dont know how it fits in with anything.

I feel like by now my fav characters should be, like, maybe fifty? Little bit less? Like they were always older than me but not older-older.

And then their next gens could be wearing the name because maybe the olders dont want to get beat up quite as often these days?

There could be a multi generation history and everyone growing into their own accomplishments without having to erase anyone else.

In fanfic the guys seem to hit forty. Maybe. Mid thirties at least.

... and only in fanfic.

It's disheartening when all the heroes are younger. You hit a point where the stories havent got any suggestions.

... obviously the comic book suggestions can be unsuitable. 'Dress up as a bat' is seldom a socially appropriate solution. But 'channel your grief into making the world better' almost always is.

I dont know.

But I've been reading fanfic and having feels about it for the first time in A While.

Those feels just seem to be about Time and how there is so little and so much.

I continue to read through the Justice League International omnibus, and I just read the Extremists arc.

Very drama and very Wacky. I like it.

But there's one bit that hits different after this year: ( Read more... )

It's just odd looking back and seeing how the threat level assessment was just... waaaaaay different. And not even because it was a quarter century ago. It would have looked reasonable even in 2019.

*big sigh*

So.

Other than that some big hero stuff is happening, with the JLI typical range of weird, so I like it.

It's just different.

Rereading old stuff can be a bit of a :-(
like everyone is more sexist than you remember, and more racist than you remember, and it may have been years and everyone on the page seems to be white, and that's... not the happy place good bits version you remember.

Justice League Antarctica was funny because the Injustice League, the bad guys, try and be good guys, get sent to guard Antarctica, and get qttacked by killer penguin-piranhas.
And win. Major Disaster saves rhe day and steps up to be a hero. That was cool.

Unfortunarely every gag on the page relies on making fun of characters for being learning disabled and mentally ill.
( Read more... )

So I did not like this section. Which is :-(

The recurring theme of assorted heroes and villains only doing what they do in pursuit of a steady pay check, that I like.

Also how it swings between super serious (by comics standards) huge fighting and funny bits. People living their lives. Makes them people shaped.

But everyone is meaner than I remember and that's no fun.

I think I remembered Kooey Kooey Kooey as being funnier. ( Read more... )

The omnibus is still good to read though :-)

I started reading the Justice League International omnibus volume 2
and once again it is and isnt how I remember.
Like, they are saving the world, but they are also being funny about it, and making jokes about how bad the Justice League comics are because the characters are trying too hard to be funny.

I think in my memory I smoothed out the jokes to action ratio so I filled in more fighting between panels.

To be fair though I also remembered and was amused by many of the jokes. There's just a lot of them at once.

Also though: Simon Stagg.
The more I read and remember, the more I think Reverse Flash in the tv show had a defensible point. ( Read more... )

Somewhere before that point a responsible time traveller could very reasonably decide to stop him.

Sure it might be a better idea to get him arrested, stabbing is obviously a problem, but you can see where stabbing him would be coming from.

And Stagg blames it all on a rogue employee and as usual gets no consequences.

As bad guys go he's no Luthor but it appears not for want of trying.

This is the time traveller problem: Flash would bever believe it in the tv show.

... so obviously there should be less stabbing and more criminal prosecutions, solve every angle at once.

Still.

ANYway

The other thing that stood out was Doctor Fate - previously a man, Fate is now a hero usually created when a man and a woman join to make a mystically balanced being, but here represented by just the female half. She's super unsure she should be getting into anything like this, but she saves the world anyway. Is good.

But Guy Gardner is a dick about it.
( Read more... )

The good bits version in my head didnt keep very much of this. I remembered Power Girl getting hit, much angst and woe about that soon, some depowering. But a lot of the chatter is not so amusing later.

Honestly the funniest bit was Beetle falling asleep on Booster and snoring on his way towards danger.
... well he said he was asleep...

None of the ways men treat women are worth remembering
but the women all get stuff to do and take turns saving their team mates.

That bit I remembered.

Today I bought and read Heroes in Crisis
*notices time*
yesterday I bought it, and apparently reading it took me through one in the morning.

Taken as a stand alone, like fanfic, it is really, really good.
As things that happen to my friends in comic book universe, it makes me want to punch things.

So I don't really know what to do with that.

( Read more... )

So I said while writing about the Omnibus that the JLI in my head is the good bits version. So I thought I'd write a bit about what that version is? Only, not meaning the 'edited highlights' version that was the source of it, just meaning, the bits that interest me about these characters, if I'm going to write about them now.

And writing about them now I'd be drawing on their whole history since then, but filtering it for stories as still need told.

The basic Justice League setup where they work within a formal framework of checks and balances, and draw steady pay and benefits for it, I like and would like to keep. No secret government offices engaged in coverups, just places any random walk in all over the world can visit if they're having the kind of problems only a superhero can help with.

The team in my head is

Beetle & Booster
Fire & Ice
Guy Gardner
Big Barda & Scott Free
J'onn J'onnz

And in all cases it's the personalities and relationships I find interesting, not the power sets.

( Read more... )

So I just spent many, many words and about an hour writing only about Beetle and Booster. And there's so much more good stuff in having the whole team.

I mean if I was writing them now they'd end up Beetle/Booster, Fire/Ice with a whole Guy complication, Scott/Barda with Scott being a notably slight man and Barda being a very tall muscular woman. I'm not saying she's trans, but there are certain models of women we don't see so many of on TV. So it would be fun if they're trans, like, both of them, rewriting their own definitions, but it would also be fun if they're cis and just Like That.
But if they're trans, and the shapeshifter is genderfluid, then pretty much the whole team is LGBT?

Except Guy, but there's stories we can use for that. ( Read more... )

Wow that's an hour and a half of typing, I've covered five characters, and there's still more to go.

Scott and Barda are easy though, what I like about their relationship is summed up in a single image, where Barda is carrying Scott upstairs to bed, carrying him slung over her shoulder up the stairs in their little house in the suburbs. ( Read more... )

So that leaves J'onn, and I like the Supergirl version of him, but he's very different in the League. ( Read more... )

So that's pretty much two hours I've been typing and my fingers hurt.

And the League in my head are not as detailed as I thought. I pretty much can go on about Beetle and Booster and then... their friends, the Justice League. Eh, I could talk about Guy too. ... people with their own titles are easier to know than people in a team book? who knew?

But I like how I can tell a lot of stories with how they fit together, even if the only story I can think of for Fire and Ice is that they really like and support each other. I mean, how often do you even see that? Let alone with two women?

So this is what I like about the team in my head, a bunch of sets of partners that can fit together to be a team.

... the actual comics kind of didn't do that.

... the actual comics spent a lot of time on pranks and people being annoyed at each other.

Like, some of that, but mixed in with saving the world, and actually liking each other.

And I can't be having with comics time no more, it tells like two or three episodes a year, it's so sloooooow. They'd get through so much more story at TV speeds. I want to do that.

And also engage with the different attitudes to superheroics and authority that you definitely have in that team. Like, this incarnation work for the UN and within a legal framework, but you've got Guy who wants to ignore it, Booster who leaves it for more money, Fire who kind of infiltrates it? And Scott and Barda who came from a dictatorship and don't want to go back to one. That should all be interesting.

I want to think up meaty stories and then play with these people.

That would be interesting.

I finished reading the JLI omnibus. Turns out the first month of comics I bought that turned into a regular collection was August 89, JLI going inside the mind of Blue Beetle, and the JLE where Metamorpho's wife comes back and seeing her new husband restores his memory. Turns out this omnibus ends very shortly after that. But the last few issues were what I remembered, international intrigue and big adventure mixed in with the bwahaha. So, maybe after that they save the world a lot.

There was a lot to like in this omnibus, but the good bits were not all the bits, and there's stuff I notice now that I skimmed over at the time. Like, feminist just means being angry when team sexually harasses them. Every man is the same kind of sleezy to every woman, unless they're married or Batman. Women happen in varieties flirty or angry or... sort of nothingy, like the writers can't words them if they're not doing either of those. Comedy is a male thing, apparently. Though to be fair so is whining continuously or having arguments about who is in charge. After Canary left women wore less, except for Barda. Barda gets armour, even though she can stand being blasted with a mega rod. Women who have no super healing or armour are running around in swimsuits with super high legs and necklines to the navel.

And yet, I liked it. I thought it was plenty feminist. Because women existed, and got to tell off guys for being that way, and fought just as hard as anyone else.

I am so happy we raised the bar. So. Happy.

... we can argue about how high later, but, some things are better.

I liked the characters, I liked the setup, I liked the comedy and how they had adventures too, but the version in my head tends to edit the adventure to comedy ratio quite a lot.

So as I have concluded many times, I should go write the version in my head, because this version is trapped in the late 80s forevermore.

But it was cool then.

I have been rereading the old JLI omnibus
and
the good bits version in my head is much better than this.

Also I remember it as them making jokes while saving the world
but on reread I can understand the reading that says they aee the jokes
and that is annoying.

I have not yet caught up with the issues I was reading though, iirc, so probably the ratio of world saveage goes up later?

It's making me understand the whole thing where Beetle and Booster meet and Beetle thinks Booster is so childish now, because Booster didn't get written as much in other comics so Beetle was more grown up now. Except I'm still sure that was exaggerate. But, I get it.

So now I feel like I'm being grumpy at old friends.

But I understand better how frustrating time travel would be, since everybody is going to still be like this on that page every time you visit, but you are different every time. Nobody fits the same way again. And crankiness ensues.

I shoyld write the stories like they are in my head, that woyld be more fun.

well, collected old comics

Justice League International Omnibus volume 1

It is huge, hardback, on great paper, and so far really well printed.

It has been ages since I've actually read my copies, since they are in little bags and getting old now, and I'm fully aware that everyone in my head is The Good Bits Version.

But I sat down and read the first two issues worth right away, and it's going to be good.

:-D

The art is so expressive and I keep seeing Beetles I want to icon, which is a feeling I've not had for a while.

Happy :-)

I dreamt a confusing mess, including hair ties you could smuggle the insides of usb drives in, but the last image was Booster and Beetle doing the hug and fly. Like, Booster was annoyed and stomping, Beetle slung an arm around him and leaned in, more and more hug, until Booster acted annoyed at the weight and made them both fly. And then they grinned at each other and went for a flight together instead of stomping off alone.

It was sweet.

And somehow from there my brain went to that time Booster got turned into a tentacle monster.

(Extreme Justice 14 apparently, not afaik referred to after.)

It was part of a time Booster needed a life support suit and replacement arm, and somehow it transitioned him to All Well, and I should see if I have a copy to check what all happened there but that's not the point because I was thinking:

Symbiotic tentacle aliens that give you superpowers and healing
but you have to give them vitamins and play time.

Like, they'll spend all day being your arm if you really like, but they're shapeshifting tentacles at heart, they want some time to just hang loose and explore textures and stuff.

So Booster needed them for life support, but if they do repairing heart injuries then Beetle could too, though that's more reminiscent of Jaime's scarab deal than Ted's life.

And then maybe Guy in his Vuldarian phase is more wearing an alien than being one? He's certainly been injured enough. But his were brain injuries...

So it's not a story yet, but as an alternate setup, powers via prostheses that are actually assistants is a newish spin. Would focus on interdependence and needs.

... and tentacles...

I've been thinking on a bunch of / pairings today, the characteristic issues they face in fic, and why the canon frequently loses me, when it don't see their issues the same way. ... also when I can't find the source issues to read, and just lose track. But. For all the wide and wild range of fanfic, in many ways each pairing circles around a set of relationship issues, drawn from why they work.

( Read more... )

The whole how do we fit now at least one of us retires thing is a theme across multiple pairings. Or just the thing where they get together in one specific high pressure high achievement set of circumstances, and what do they do after? Or the part where one is more often in need of rescue than the other, and really, how do you do a relationship where you're vulnerable like that?

There's all this interesting stuff to work through, and yet while they're in canon getting in fights with things, they're not so much working on this.

And I want to see what happens next.

There's a lot of stories about young people finding their callings and starting to be a hero. But not so many about After. And I'm interested.

So this mostly ended up as me rambling about Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, and they get changed every time canon hiccups, but I haven't followed it for years.

But I still have a lot of feelings about who I think I remember they used to be.

And are in fanfic, sometimes.

This one says DC UNIVERSE REBIRTH across the top, and also Volume One, which apparently means it just sort of stops when things are getting ominous.

But the magic words on the cover were Ted Kord.

( Read more... )

I won't say I'm hooked, but this is an angle that could work, and what with everyone being more alive than when I quit reading there's all sorts of possibility in it.

But comics are so sloooooow. I don't know if volume two even exists yet, and if it did it would be more likely to put characters further up a tree than to resolve bits yet.

Also, still won't be primarily about Ted.

And never has been about his obvious partnership.

*sigh*

I may read the next bit but may also be tempermentally unsuited to reading an art form that's pretty much the world's longest and most complex WIP.

Because I wanted to change where things were shelved I just reread some of my graphic novels
and then deleted them off librarything ready to sell.
(I realise this way lies rebuying things I actually hated, but I didn't think to make a collection for deleted things and can't be bothered to start now).

The thing that surprised me was finding how many stars I'd given them in 2009.
Like, League if Extraordinary Gentlemen was four stars?
But with that conceit there's so many better ways they could have taken it.
Instead everything is messy death and sexual assault and it's boring.

The Batman books where he's actually a vampire aren't much interesting either. It's all gross body parts and internal organs, and a sexy lady who dies tragic to inspire him. Soooooooo bored.

Arkham Asylum I'm just kind of done with. I mean, I can see it has good aspects, I'm just... not interested.

The one with three halloween specials in wasn't bad or anything, it just wasn't especially good, and someone else may appreciate it more. Also, if a story has Barbara Gordon, I don't particularly need it to be about her being kidnapped by a madman. Mad Hatter isn't very interesting.

And I'm kind of fed up of Batman beating up on mentally ill people while being sad about his mum and dad and wondering if he is crazy. I mean, that story is done, I have read that story, and now I realise the whole longbox full of that story is just... unappealing.

The only one I actually kept so far has Tim as Robin. Also it is about Batman choosing justice instead of letting the Joker be executed, so that's proper Batman that is. 'I don't have to save you' can go hang. I liked how everyone else was all wtf saving joker but Tim totally got it. Batman has a family and they get him.

That was what was missing from all the others. Lone dark knight gets all screwed up, he needs a Robin.

Next up I get to decide if I need to reread Watchmen when I know both that I'm keeping it and that after... everything, after years and all the wrong lessons and the reader me changing, it won't be Watchmen. Not like reading it the first time.
Think I'm going to read it and hope it matures instead of going skinny.
Don't know yet though.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/3146657.html

This is shiny. I am probably going to give it five stars on LibraryThing.
It's just it's also confusing, or not confusing because comics so you just give up on canon that doesn't fit.

It's Agents of SHIELD Coulson, company many since after college, leading a team including May and FitzSimmons, doing a bit of a tour of 616 and showing how he and his fit in there.

His secret superpower is being an epic fanboy. The kind of fanboy who knows exactly how x could defeat y. He has them all memorised and can figure how to use diferent power sets, hero or villain, on an instant. And as a senior agent of SHIELD he can pull them all in on short notice to get things done, and they know and often like him. Like, he plays poker with Avengers, and wins. Everyone's friend and walking database full of clever tricks.
Obviously I can see the appeal of this setup.

The problem is I just finished reading Secret Avengers, which already has a 616 Phil Coulson, and he's an entirely different guy. Cheese, a Ranger in Afghanistan with best friend Marcus, joined SHIELD kind of later in life. Different history, different position within the organisation, different everything.

So this comic is great for new fans being brought in from the MCU, but it counts as a major retcon for 616 Coulson.

Which, this is comics, that happens. It's just frustrating? They've basically introduced him from scratch twice now.

... however I can see how the end of Secret Avengers could in fact lead to this exact effect, so, that's... kind of fun... *sigh*

Perfect Bullets only has Director Hill turn up a little, but it also features Agent May, Simmons with some backstory about her family, Valkyrie, Ms Marvel Kamala Khan, Scarlet Witch, and Sue Storm. Excellent choices. And they all get to show off a lot. Is good.

A great many characters only turn up for long enough to make you want to know more about them, and the whole thing is kind of an ad for 616, but in a good way. I mean I've only read Fraction's Hawkeye, six Secret Avengers trades since Reverie, one Captain Marvel and one Ms Marvel, so it's not like I have much background on 616, but it seemed to me the right balance of interesting to potential puzzling. I do indeed want to know more. And read more of this. So, win.

... is there more of this?
... how to find out is one of the things I'm fuzzy on. Thus far I find these things on the shelf in Waterstones or in the library, or read panels on tumblr.

My upstairs neighbour is doing their best to make me not like AC/DC, since they're blasting out 'Thunderstruck' on repeat. It actually takes a lot of work to put me off AC/DC but they may in fact be approaching that point. Ugh.

Also I need to leave the house to do late Sunday and buy chocolate brownies and bread and other essentials. But nope. That is a thing that has been persistently not happening all day.

Even when the alternative is music that is too damn loud even through the walls.

*big sigh*

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2953837.html

My life is so boring. All of the parts are boring. Everything I try and do is boring.
Yes I'm familiar with symptoms of depression, it is not helpful.
I need to do more and more interesting things.

It has been two years since college finished and I've been trying to think of those things for ... well, substantially longer than that, actually.

Spider-man cartoons with Coulson in them are fun, but he's the grown up, so he doesn't get much to do except be the punchline. I watched a couple of episodes today, including the one where we find he wears a Cap uniform under his suit to go meet Cap. In MCU that would have ended in unfortunate bloodstains.

The endless MarySue 'verse in my head keeps High School Principal Coulson. He probably gets brought back in a slightly different way, needs more time to recuperate, gets set on duty that was not expected to be combat: oversee teenaged Gifted. Probably he brings some friends. And not friends. Somehow I can see Ward as a high school gym teacher. It's not flattering. But science babies teaching science to only slightly younger science babies would be fun. The whole thing would be super secret even from a lot of SHIELD, which is slightly different from the cartoons, but if you smush it into MCU then it has to be anyway because you end up bringing X-men and everyone along with. The school would be secret because attitudes towards Gifted within SHIELD are... mixed, and Fury is trying to protect them. Which is also one reason they're not at a SHIELD academy. I like the cartoons MJ, internet savvy reporter in training, but I mix back in the latest Gwen, because awesome. So then Osborn is even more of a problem.

When I watch the movies and cartoons and comics I separate out the different canons just fine, but none of them are the perfectly perfect version, so parts and pieces go back in the stew for the version to live with.

Hawkeye in my head is more the Fraction version, but probably older. Black Widow looks like MCU but is lying about her age, among a great many other things. But then the way they were together in EMH was cool.

EMH needed more women more often. Black Widow was on all the boxes but not in many of the episodes. The Spider-man cartoons treat women like they're rationed, so you get one, maaaaaybe two per episode. Weird and creepy. And there's a whole disc of him meeting Avengers but so far only the guy Avengers. In fact in his little fantasy of being able to yell 'Avengers Assemble' only Hulk, Iron Man, Thor and Cap appear to be relevant. That's it for Avengers in that 'verse. Unacceptable.

Basically if I want women in my daydreams I have to draw on more than one canon to get them properly plural. Ridiculous.

I'm reading a book right now with a whole lot of women in it. It's just also a weird preachy Gaia worshipping dystopia of evil mind controlling environmentalists. Which... I am not seeing the appeal of.

So then I'm left holding a book full of women relating to other women in a variety of complex ways, in a multi ethnic society, with assumptions about sexuality changed so it isn't right to say queer characters cause they wouldn't think of it that way in such a queer world... but I'm epically and completely bored.

Yeah, I know, if I don't think the perfect book exists yet I should sit down and get to writing it. (hah)

I been thinking about multi generation stories, like I complained were missing from the shagging-and-politics stories. It's weird because it seems like only one generation gets to be actual characters at once in a lot of stories. Like, if it's a kids story, the kids will be well rounded characters with agency, plans, hopes, dreams, inner lives, and... parents, or parental units, or older type people, who kind of exist but aren't really properly real. But then if the story is meant to be for adults then the children are kind of empty and just exist to be threatened and maybe stand around whimpering? Well, not in every genre, but the contrast between Home Alone and what the average kid does in a not-kids movie is kind of huge, even though I think we all though up elaborate death traps with our toys at some point in our bored younger lives. ... didn't use them, obviously, and I can buy a tiny minority of kids would reach the point where they feel the need to do something like threats are real even when there's grownups around. But there's also an absence of elders in either of those stories, pretty often. Grandparents seem rare. Parents even, for adults. So many fantasy stories and even some SF start when a parent dies, like that's some kind of necessary prerequisite and otherwise you'd hide behind them. Not all parents are going to be skilled in relevant areas? And even if they are it could be cool like Indiana Jones, both knowledgeable but in such different ways.

I keep coming back to Batman and the Bat family, as they seemed to me in the 90s when I was reading comics. Like, you've got Batman, Nightwing, whatever Jason is calling himself at the time, Tim Drake Robin, and eventually more Robins after that. You've got Batgirl who became Oracle, and Batgirl who was Cass, and also Spoiler. They're all in different decades, but they're kind of two generations, only Batman as an Older, and that kind of only just. Like, he was an adult when Dick was a teenager, but probably he was in his 20s then, not in fact old enough to be his father. Maybe he was older when Dick was the Robin in the comics? But the sliding timeline landed them closer together while I was reading. The only definite different generation was Alfred, who rocks but seems to parent every last one of them without the rights to go with the responsibilities. But for a long while Tim also had a surviving bio parent, he just wasn't very helpful. And Spoilers parent was, like, the source of her problems. Oracle's dad is still around, but can't actually solve anything for her, cause the problems are bigger. There are multiple ages, at least two generations, and they still all seem weirdly teenage.

In the Spider-man cartoons Coulson is a joke, because if he was a competent grown up that could handle the problems for them then why would they hero? Well, because there's more problems than that, obvs. But by extension SHIELD is a joke, to make it so teenager supers are a thing. Like, whenever the team runs back to SHIELD for protection and support, SHIELD get kicked and the team ends up doing the fighting. Which just seems unnecessary? Like, law enforcement is a real thing that tends to work, and yet crime happens because police have to actually arrive after they're called. The episodes are only 20 minutes long, run them in real time and New York traffic and do you really need an excuse for why SHIELD aren't there yet? Well with a helicarrier that's always above the city then yes you do. But still.

It's like how urban fantasy mostly makes it so the police can't help, could just get themselves killed, so the 'hero' can ignore the whole concept of law and law enforcement and capturing criminals and holding them for trial and trials and prisons and sentences and appeals and, you know, civilisation, and instead can just solve problems with violence.

The way most superhero stories are set up, they're left on their own to solve problems with violence, and prison is a revolving door, treatment ineffectual at best, and capture kind of futile. Why write it that way? Why not have the hero be part of a loyal law enforcement team that works within a system that has trials and lawyers and all the rest?

Power fantasy. Blergh.

Stories need different generations to be actual people on the inside, systems to be set up so that humans can be human and it actually work, diplomacy and redemption to be actual useful words. Otherwise they're all twisted up small and turn into long fight scenes.

... or I could watch different genres.

... but I kind of like these ones, with some tweaks, I just complain about them a lot.
*facepalm*

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2920518.html

I liked it
:-)

This is not a story I have read before. And it is a story that feels true.
It also feels teenage in ways that aren't going to grab me as much, so I only like not want to hug forever, but it's a very good story.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2756415.html

I was at the bookshop today looking at graphic novels and Hawkeye wasn't in, but I saw Captain Marvel and Ms Marvel. I'm new to marvel via the MCU and all I've read so far are tie ins and Fraction's Hawkeye, but I've been hearing about these others on tumblr a lot, and all I've been hearing is good.

So, I just read the volume Higher Further Faster More, and now I have a face like :-D

(I maybe hugged this comic. A bit. while making the face like :-D )

It started difficult. I suspect despite the 1 on the edge this isn't the beginning of anything. There's a lot of people I don't recognise and they're doing stuff, and I'm sort of making a mental list to wiki later, but then

Carol goes to space

and all is awesome.

Characters! Who are awesome! Starship battles! That bit in the middle where the big saviour person should be really embarrassed! Poking around and finding Clues and the way even I can keep up which I am quite grateful for! Really Big spaceship battles! And then the big ending!

... yes I am thinking in mostly ! right now :-D

I went back and read the good bits over again. The flashback format at the start made more sense by the end of course. but mostly I just liked watching her stand up and be awesome. well, I say stand, but mostly fly... :-D

I did find myself grateful for Kit's little summary page of powers origins, partly because it's like giving me permission to not know anything beyond that. Like, here's what you need to know, aaaand we're off!

So now I want to order more just like this, and handily the inside covers have the ISBNs for more that indeed look greatly like this. Though there's more than one volume 1.

I just kind of just spent quite a bit of money ordering more Hawkeye though...

But I do have Ms Marvel still to read :-)

... I kind of want to sit here staring at the Captain Marvel until I get all the details out first though :-D

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2755908.html

Today: picked up Hawkeye: Little Hits from the bookshop.

:-D

I have read many comics. I have not read this comic before. Is good.

This guy, he's such a screw up, and kind of made of *facepalm*, and he feels weirdly familiar without being any particular person I know, and that's cause he feels like a real regular guy. Who just happens to use arrows. And pick fights with, like, a bazillion people at once. And then there's his love life...
( Read more... ) I want to see more of this guy.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2690581.html

5 episodes, no women. 2 non speaking villains that I noticed, no speaking parts.
Ugh.

Of the good: Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle, Dr Choi The Atom, and Bronze Tiger, bringing a tiny bit of ethnic diversity to the heroic lineup.

There was another episode with the GL Corp written by De Matteis, who wrote a ton of Justice League when it was good. There was Guy Gardner and G'Nort. G'Nort saved the day! ... eventually. Also, Batman one punched Guy. Kind of importing the greatest hits moments.

There was a double episode with Owlman and the Injustice Syndicate. The whole thing seemed to be a setup for a teamup with the Joker. That was funny.

watching these cartoons is like eating cereal: I can happily eat cereal for a long time, but it don't ever get exactly filling. still, cheers me up.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2663020.html

There was going to be a Wonder Woman movie. There's often going to be one, and yet here we still wait. I went around reading what was planned for it, and something about it bugged me. The writer, whose work I otherwise liked, was talking about Diana first arriving in man's world, and learning about it.

No.

Diana is not here to learn. She is here to teach.

Her weapon is truth. She is here to make the whole of man's world look at itself and see the truth of what they have become. To see the injustice, the inequality, the harms subtle and gross that they have built into their systems, that they do to each other day after day after day. And she is here to show them a better way.

When I was growing up, reading Wonder Woman, what I understood from it was this:
( Read more... )

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2636326.html

I was reading an actor interview thing and he was making noises about not doing another sequel to his really popular thing. "How many sequels can you really do and make them fun?" he asked, or something like that.

My first thought was, that is a movie actor. That is really not a television guy.

How many stories can you do? Aim for a minimum of 100.
( Read more... )

Television is hard. But just by virtue of series length and preference for continuation it says something very different about the nature of Important. Every week is important. All your life is important. Your daily grind is our weekly viewing. And how many of that story can stay fun?

Aim for at least 100. Sometimes hit half a century.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2566693.html

I'm reading a lot of fic with archers, and I have discovered something about my attitude to bows. While the uber high tech shiny ones have clear advantages, I don't feel the same way about them as I do about a proper Robin Hood job. I feel one of the essential features of a bow is that you can take to the woods and make them your own self. All the fancy arrowheads and alloys just seem to miss the point. A bow and arrow is up there with bare handed martial arts, with quarterstaff or bo or escrima sticks. So simple they can never take it from you.

That's key.

Sticking an archer on the same team as a billionaire inventor, making it about being a military sniper... it's just not the same vibe at all. Even the DC Arrow clan have a splash of that, with the trick arrows and occasional richstuff background. But a good bow and arrow is about being stripped down to the basics, letting it all fall away until the arrow falls right into the target.

I don't know what stories I want to tell about the Robin Hood stuff (aside from a strong feeling they are British stories). I'd probably need to watch some actual Robin Hood or attempt to read my Green Arrow collection that I can't currently recall a single bad guy from or something.

But it would not be about the high tech.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2431359.html

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beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

Entries tagged with comics

JLI

While being annoyed about Crisis again

Time passes, with milestones

JLI omnibus volume 2

Justice League Antarctica

Club JLI

Justice League: The Teasdale Imperative

Heroes in Crisis

JLI: The Good Bits Version

JLI Omnibus

JLI

yaay for new comics

Booster and Beetle

Why they work

Blue Beetle: The More Things Change.

Rereading, Reevaluating

Comics: SHIELD: Perfect Bullets

(no subject)

Ms Marvel: No Normal

Higher Further faster More

Hawkguy

Batman the Brave and the Bold disc three

Wonder Woman

Sequels and series

Bows