“Heroes in Crisis” Limited Series by Tom King & Clay Mann to Start in September

[Confuzzled]

My theory king messed up batman and booster gold on purpose so he can have characters to write about in this series

How was Batman not messed up before King?

[DGraysonWorldsGreatestSpy]

Superman was created originally to be “The Champion Of The Oppressed”, Batman was created with NO superpowers because that would be best to show a capable Human in relation to an Alien, Wonder Woman came when there were no Women Heroes. The Lord Of The Rings is influenced by WWII experiences and the same for the 4th World Saga. Many stories are influenced by the writers own experiences and stories that deal with consequences are needed in The DCU since the only people who do get reprimanded are the Titans under Abnett by the most hypocritical JLA.

[ed2962]

It’s not at all weird that an author taps their emotions and experiences to inform their work. In fact Scott Snyder talks about how his own fears and experiences influenced his run on Batman. That he was writing about himself to an extent. And that’s true of most authors. If you want to write from a genuine place, you write from yourself.

Tom King has lived many more lives than most comic authors, and his experiences enrich his work.

I agree. It's not that weird and it's something many writers from Kirby to Frank Miller on down have done. The question should be when is it appropriate and are we getting a good story out of it.

[j9ac9k]

When you start with a character that hasn't shown any signs of being mentally crushed and you turn him into either a mental mess or being stuck in his emo feelings,then yeah he transformed a character just to suit his desires and needs for his desired story.

Firstly, anyone who puts on a supertight costume to fight crime definitely has issues...

I haven't read all of King's work, but from the things I've read so far, rather than "turn someone into a mess," he seems to mine psychological issues that could be a natural extension of what has already been established. If you're basing your opinion on what he's written before, that's one thing, but generally speaking, it seems people have a tendency to over-react to brief descriptions because they're reacting to what they imagine the story to be and there's a reason most people aren't writers - is that they can't imagine the story that King does, or they just equate it to something that sounds similar - and in this case, "Identity Crisis."

I have my trepidations about this story, but so far I haven't heard anything that's a deal-breaker...... yet

[TheCape]

I agree. It's not that weird and it's something many writers from Kirby to Frank Miller on down have done. The question should be when is it appropriate and are we getting a good story out of it.

Althougth i agreed that every author put his own personal take on the characther, i think that you need a balance that IMHO many writters don't have this days, this quote said best.

*

As he began to write more he realized he would never have enough time to read that much material. Instead he would read just enough of the material to get the essence of who the character is.

“You have to know enough. You can’t just go in blind and make stuff up,“ he says. "You have to be grounded and read enough back story but a lot of hardcore comic book fans when they get into the business get obsessed with that thing that happened between panel two and three in that issue seven years ago. Eventually you sort of drop that and you start following the story.”

No matter what that story may be, DeMatteis still stresses that you still need to respect the tradition of that character. “You can’t suddenly turn Batman or Constantine into something they’re not but if you’re just writing the way they’ve always been it’s pointless. It’s boring.”

Well, to some degree they have to. Every character I write somehow reflects the truths of my psyche, in ways I often don’t realize. My Spider-Man isn’t Tom DeFalco’s isn’t Dan Slott’s. That said, there’s an ESSENCE of each character that has to remain. No matter who writes him, Peter Parker ihas to be…well, Peter Parker.

I think one of the main challenges of writing these characters is finding the place where our own unique voices and the voices of the character meet. And I hope that made sense!

This is from J.D Matteis, one of my favorite Spider-Man writters, who also (much like King) really enjoyed to give a phycological spin to their stories, Matteis in particular created the idea that Peter guilt issues came from some unconfronted feelings about the death of his biological parents during the story "The Child Within" whose main theme was denial and repression, i personally disagreed with that notion (Peter was too young to be able to cognitize something like that, so really he shouldn't feel any guilt about his parent's demise), but in spite of that his Spider-Man feel like well Spider-Man most of the time, at least in my opinion, King Batman sort of goes to the same direction for me, i don't agreed with a lot of his take, but his Batman doesn't sound completly alien to me, i guest than that is the problem that many fans has with his run.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

How was Batman not messed up before King?

Yeah, I've only read the first HC of his run (that's how I'm reading it as I started late and it's actually a great way to do it: oversized, nice paper, big chunks of story) but most writers treat Batman as borderline psychotic at best - is King's Batman really that bad?

[WonderScott]

King is an excellent writer to tackle this based on his life experience. It'll be interesting to see how he sets this up with superheroes and thematically what he has to say about a trauma and violence and treatment and survival.

[Assam]

So I'm not the first one to raise this point, but having talked about it with some people, I do think it's disgusting that not only is King killing a bunch of characters, something which, even if everything else we knew wasn't a factor would still be enough for me to write this story off, but he's going to be saying that these characters were mentally ill and were killed seeking out help.

Also, as I said on the Wally West thread, only in a Tom King book would Booster Gold and Wally West be prime suspects in a mass murder of heroes.

And I shouldn't be surprised by any of this honestly. As I keep saying, these characters are nothing but props to King.

[JasonTodd428]

Nevermind saw what you were talking about.

[DGraysonWorldsGreatestSpy]

So I'm not the first one to raise this point, but having talked about it with some people, I do think it's disgusting that not only is King killing a bunch of characters, something which, even if everything else we knew wasn't a factor would still be enough for me to write this story off, but he's going to be saying that these characters were mentally ill and were killed seeking out help.

Also, as I said on the Wally West thread, only in a Tom King book would Booster Gold and Wally West be prime suspects in a mass murder of heroes.

And I shouldn't be surprised by any of this honestly. As I keep saying, these characters are nothing but props to King.

And very much in the same way the appearances of the Robins were fan service until they were attacked by Bane and put in timeout in the Fortress Of Solitude but Batman needed to team up with several other characters who will fade into obscurity. I feel most Sorry for Wally West fans. Reboots and Crisis have always been unfair to Legacy characters. King is great in series where the characters have more leeway in personalities.

[Sam]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Tom King have a history of misleading solicitations?

[The Dying Detective]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Tom King have a history of misleading solicitations?

That seems to be the case from what I heard too. And didn't Bleeding Cool admit their reboot tale might be false and source was unreliable?

[EMarie]

I'm not too thrilled with what I've been hearing. Just reading how this place is run makes no sense to me. Robots and holograms? Not even taking into account security issues wouldn't it be healthier to know you're talking to a living trained professional who could have gone through similar experiences? I get that a lot of heroes want to remain anonymous but doesn't the extreme level of secrecy feel like it's adding to the stigma already on mental health? Or is that just me?

I've never been a fan of massive death of characters just for a shock value or to make the story feel heavier. I've already heard one rumor that if true goes to show how forced and bad this story can be and the characters they chose.

So I'm not the first one to raise this point, but having talked about it with some people, I do think it's disgusting that not only is King killing a bunch of characters, something which, even if everything else we knew wasn't a factor would still be enough for me to write this story off, but he's going to be saying that these characters were mentally ill and were killed seeking out help.

Also, as I said on the Wally West thread, only in a Tom King book would Booster Gold and Wally West be prime suspects in a mass murder of heroes.

And I shouldn't be surprised by any of this honestly. As I keep saying, these characters are nothing but props to King.

Yeah that's bad on it's own.

Believe me I don't like having either of them as suspects. This idea could work in a different scenario with everyone presuming they were imposters or mind controlled. In this case it feels awkward because the implication seems to be that if they did it then it's because they snapped. All I can think of is how poorly planned the Sanctuary is by the Trinity.

Sad but that's how I feel too.

[stephens2177]

You trying to pitch yourself as the villain of this series or something?

Yes the guy using common sense NOWADAYS would be considered the villian I guess.

It was immature then and it is immature now. It's not an actual critique, just a childish insult.

Clearly these people do need help because they never dealt with their problems just ignored them.

The fact that emo is NOW a terrible insult,just means it's worse than ever sigh.

They dealt with stuff,they just didn't need a separate mini series to get through it,and some ppl can actually deal with things theirselves,not everything takes a village.

Think maybe that could have been worded a little differently.

What did I say wrong? Honest question

Firstly, anyone who puts on a supertight costume to fight crime definitely has issues...

I haven't read all of King's work, but from the things I've read so far, rather than "turn someone into a mess," he seems to mine psychological issues that could be a natural extension of what has already been established. If you're basing your opinion on what he's written before, that's one thing, but generally speaking, it seems people have a tendency to over-react to brief descriptions because they're reacting to what they imagine the story to be and there's a reason most people aren't writers - is that they can't imagine the story that King does, or they just equate it to something that sounds similar - and in this case, "Identity Crisis."

I have my trepidations about this story, but so far I haven't heard anything that's a deal-breaker...... yet

So if you magically got superpowers you wouldn't go out to help others right? You would sit on your hands until you "had something wrong with you" before you went?

King uses EXISTING characters as props for his PSAs,instead of creating new characters to mess with.

Oh I'm getting this,I love it when the whole DCU get together and under a great artists,my only problem is how he needs to make characters drown in their problems instead of fighting through them.

[Kaijudo]

Well said.

Damian Wayne does not have PTSD. And I don’t need that explored in the DCU.

But it's not just PTSD. Damian was trained to be a killer and now he's bucking that training. It might require some kind of outside therapy to help. Think of all the issues of the Cassie Kane Batgirl series where she struggled with her own training.