Your DC-Only controversial opinions (part II)...

[Cmbmool]

There are too many Robins in the DCU. Why can’t we lessen the Batman family abkt as Dc depends on them too much in comics and other media.

[Agent Z]

I think I want WW to be rooted in some reality than pure fantasy.

I guess I just don't see how the demigod origin is any less pure fantasy than the clay origin. Neither is more realistic than the other. Also, realism isn't from a lack of fantastic elements but from how characters react to those elements.

[Dred]

I think I want WW to be rooted in some reality than pure fantasy.

How is being the daughter of Zeus more realistic than being a statue brought to life? They are both equally farcical and fantasy based.

[Mataza]

"Brevity is the soul of wit," but then Polonius said that in HAMLET, and he was a pompous windbag, given to talking in aphorisms rather than plain speaking. And maybe when we're too brief, we don't communicate our honest thoughts.

See my complaint about a word salad like "Golden age thinking and playing to fandom tribalism over synergy are steering DC into a ditch and certain "fans" are contributing to the problem" is that it's so many buzz words and ready made phrases strung together to make a sentence. Which is the kind of writing that's been skewered since all the way back to George Orwell and has simply worsened in the age of twitter and smart phones, where we don't communicate in full paragraphs anymore.

The problem with relying on terms like "Golden Age thinking," "toxic masculinity," "SJW," "snowflake," et al is that no one talks about what they actually think anymore. They just throw a term out there and other people have to do the job of trying to unpack the meaning, which is like the proverbial six blind men describing an elephant. Everyone believes they understand the reference. And then, if they get it wrong, well it's their fault.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein observed that we play language games yet don't understand what the other person is saying because we're virtually talking in riddles.

My advice to people would be to stop using these prepackaged terms, don't create a string of mixed metaphors (if you can avoid it) and try to think through what you actually mean to say before you submit your final statement. Of course, because so many people are putting up these posts on their phones, it's hard to write out a full paragraph. But if the actual goal is to be understood and not just to fire out words without considered language, then you're going to have to stop and think.

If you really feel the need to use a buzz word or abbreviation, then explain it the first time you use it in a post, so that everyone understands what you think that means and how you are using it in the present conversation.

It took me an hour to compose this post and I gave it several passes before I hit "submit reply."

Quality post. An hour well spent.

[SiegePerilous02]

Bruce Wayne/Clark Kent's Generation needs to be allowed to grow old and die.

Current Justice League should be made of Dick's generation.

If there was a period where they could have started this trend and gotten it to stick, we are long since passed it. Dick taking over as Batman should have happened in the Silver Age if it was gonna get cemented. Or instead of doing COIE, they should have followed the train of logic of NTT being their biggest property and gradually phased out the JL generation and have the adult Titans take over as the main superhero team. "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" would have been the last canon Superman story, and I can think of worse notes for him to go out on. In some ways, a part of me wishes that had been it for Superman (and we had gotten similar stories for others in his generation), end his story on a high note instead of rebooting him over and over again, resulting in periodic low points.

But that time has passed. The OG generation has acquired new fans over the decades. It's not just older fans who are attached to them. And as far as the comics are concerned, the Titans' star has fallen pretty far. From a narrative perspective, it's the most logical path for them to follow, but we can't do it now. Not everyone is a fan of Dick's generation, or even if they are, they may be fans of the older characters as well and don't want to lose them in favor of the next group down. It's not fair to Batman's fans to lose him to make way for a character they may or may not even be fans of in the first place.

Plus, DC has made plenty of lousy business decisions, but I think retiring all of their big name money makers and marketable characters in favor of the unproven next generation would be a completely stupid and unnecessary risk. They'd only have two characters (Dick and Wally) who might be worth the investment. With Aquaman and Wonder Woman's movies, it'd be totally bonkers to retire them in favor of Garth and the hot mess that is Donna Troy.

And that's not accounting for the people who probably still want to read about the OG!'s preceding Dick's group.

I think a true and continuing ongoing narrative in a comic book universe is a cool and novel concept, if not one I think the Big Two could ever reasonably pull off.

Yeah, I love the idea of a sprawling shared universe that actually ages and shows developments. But in practice, it's not really possible with the Big Two, at least at this point. Way too many properties, some of whom have sub-properties/spin offs, a big fanbase that cannot agree on anything and has different desires, and different writers and artists who all want to do different things. And since all of this is going to go on indefinitely with no end in sight, you have to factor in future generations of creators/fans-turned-creators who are going to have their own views on what needs to happen that may be different than the current setup. How do you coordinate all that?

Maybe the respective shared universes should have come to a close a long time ago and both publishers branched out to do different things. Everything is nostalgia or brand driven these days, either regurgitating things or changing them up so they are no longer recognizable. People don't want their icons to be messed with, which is perfectly understandable, but at the same time they are not receptive to new ideas. And creators are not putting much energy into creating new icons, both in comics and elsewhere. And I mean legit NEW stuff, not repackaged/legacy stuff. Stan and the Marvel artists created the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Avengers, and the X-Men in the 60s, and it was all brand new and never seen before.

[Dr. Ellingham]

Bruce Wayne/Clark Kent's Generation needs to be allowed to grow old and die.

Current Justice League should be made of Dick's generation.

Nah.

DC was built on the popularity of the main JLAers. It has sustained for nearly 6 decades now; that's some pretty strong staying power. DC will mess with the formula periodically - as they should. New concepts, characters, new faces under old masks, etc. But DC's core strength and identity is:

[byrd156]

"Brevity is the soul of wit," but then Polonius said that in HAMLET, and he was a pompous windbag, given to talking in aphorisms rather than plain speaking. And maybe when we're too brief, we don't communicate our honest thoughts.

See my complaint about a word salad like "Golden age thinking and playing to fandom tribalism over synergy are steering DC into a ditch and certain "fans" are contributing to the problem" is that it's so many buzz words and ready made phrases strung together to make a sentence. Which is the kind of writing that's been skewered since all the way back to George Orwell and has simply worsened in the age of twitter and smart phones, where we don't communicate in full paragraphs anymore.

The problem with relying on terms like "Golden Age thinking," "toxic masculinity," "SJW," "snowflake," et al is that no one talks about what they actually think anymore. They just throw a term out there and other people have to do the job of trying to unpack the meaning, which is like the proverbial six blind men describing an elephant. Everyone believes they understand the reference. And then, if they get it wrong, well it's their fault.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein observed that we play language games yet don't understand what the other person is saying because we're virtually talking in riddles.

My advice to people would be to stop using these prepackaged terms, don't create a string of mixed metaphors (if you can avoid it) and try to think through what you actually mean to say before you submit your final statement. Of course, because so many people are putting up these posts on their phones, it's hard to write out a full paragraph. But if the actual goal is to be understood and not just to fire out words without considered language, then you're going to have to stop and think.

If you really feel the need to use a buzz word or abbreviation, then explain it the first time you use it in a post, so that everyone understands what you think that means and how you are using it in the present conversation.

It took me an hour to compose this post and I gave it several passes before I hit "submit reply."

Thank you, you summed up my thoughts in a whole hell of a lot smarter way than I was going about it.

[byrd156]

How is being the daughter of Zeus more realistic than being a statue brought to life? They are both equally farcical and fantasy based.

Fantasy is already pretty inherent in comics. A book focusing on connections with Greek myth and the actual Greek Gods shouldn't focus on relatability. At least on Diana's side. That's why Steve and Etta are around, to give that human connection with all the emotions and relatable life decisions and what not. Diana is a princess made from clay or a demigod that was raised on a mystical island of all women protected by gods. The word relatable shouldn't be near Wonder Woman I think. At least initially, there are some things like her discovering the world through naive and loving eyes like we have at some point. And others but that's not really my point.

[stargazer01]

Also, Diana isn't an "ancient warrior" as she's usually very, very young in her origin starting out in her 20s.

I was going by the movie. In modern times, she is ancient compared to others.

How is being the daughter of Zeus more realistic than being a statue brought to life? They are both equally farcical and fantasy based.

As the daughter of Zeus, I assume she was born like human beings do.

Maybe her mythos and origin is one of the reasons why I don't find her as interesting as other DC characters. Not very into it even after watching her movie.

[TheBatman]

1. Legacy is a totally overrated aspect of DC Comics.

2. Dick Grayson will probably never get the level of attention and focus he deserves unless he somehow became Robin again. I say that as someone who likes the Nightwing mantle.

3. I think alot of the fans who're upset by DC's supposed Silver Age obsession are hypocrites. Alot of them just want DC stuck on the 80's-2000's instead of the 60's-70's.

4. Black Lightning should have Cyborg's spot in the League.

5. Post Christopher Reeve, most Superman media isn't remarkable enough, and that's a big reason why Batman has taken his spot. Under the current management at WB/DC, he'll continue being second best.

[DrNewGod]

That would make a great one-shot...the night Alfred took it upon himself to avenge Jason...and for some reason, internal or external, fails.

That is a brilliant Elseworlds idea!

[Jim Kelly]

If you want to bring a more science based concept to Wonder Woman, I can go along with that thought experiment. The revivals of Green Lantern and Hawkman shifted from the supernatural to the space age. And I maintain that Martian Manhunter is the Spectre story done as science fiction.

But Zeus as father is simply a lateral move from a maternal goddess to a paternal god. Moreover, if he got Hippolyte pregnant by conventional means that's pretty much rape (because of the power imbalance). So you're giving what was once a female centred myth story a male centred myth update.

To do Wonder Woman as science, I'd have this New Age cult of women establish their own science based commune, free from men. But because they had no men around, they created an artificial system of procreation. The clay myth of Wonder Woman becomes the scientific production of synthetic people--all female.

If this sounds far-fetched, there was an actual cult, based in Quebec, called the Raelians who believed in space aliens, and back in the early 2000s they announced they had cloned a woman. It was hard to know if they had or they hadn't and their story was carried in newspapers around the world, with it seeming like the Raelians really could have carried out clone experiments and possibly produced a human child by such means.

[Agent Z]

I was going by the movie. In modern times, she is ancient compared to others.




As the daughter of Zeus, I assume she was born like human beings do.

Maybe her mythos and origin is one of the reasons why I don't find her as interesting as other DC characters. Not very into it even after watching her movie.

Demigods by their nature are not born like human beings are.

1. Legacy is a totally overrated aspect of DC Comics.

2. Dick Grayson will probably never get the level of attention and focus he deserves unless he somehow became Robin again. I say that as someone who likes the Nightwing mantle.

3. I think alot of the fans who're upset by DC's supposed Silver Age obsession are hypocrites. Alot of them just want DC stuck on the 80's-2000's instead of the 60's-70's.

4. Black Lightning should have Cyborg's spot in the League.

5. Post Christopher Reeve, most Superman media isn't remarkable enough, and that's a big reason why Batman has taken his spot. Under the current management at WB/DC, he'll continue being second best.

The 2000s were a lot more recent and a lot more progressive than the 60s and 70s.

[Agent Z]

If Huntress was kicked off the Justice League for trying to kill Prometheus, the JL members who mindwiped people should have suffered the same consequences.

[byrd156]

If Huntress was kicked off the Justice League for killing Prometheus, the JL members who mindwiped people should have suffered the same consequences.

I don't think that is very controversial. They were acting like villains.