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  1. #16
    Mighty Member Mike's Avatar
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    I just avoid his work.

  2. #17
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    I'm really loving his Young Justice, Event Leviathan, and Batman Universe. Plus, there have been a lot of great books that seem to've only come to fruition because of him, like Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Wonder Twins.
    Keep in mind that you have about as much chance of changing my mind as I do of changing yours.

  3. #18
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    I haven't checked out any of his work save Teen Titans and the upcoming Legion of Super-Heroes stuff. Teen Titans has been so-so, so far. Good artwork, decent new and old characters, but nothing groundbreaking yet, nor anything dire or fretful. The Legion stuff, I'm seriously not liking the smell coming out of the kitchen.

    I have no issue with a diverse Legion. For that we have Invisible Jacques, Glorith, Tyroc, Kid Quantum 2, GEAR, XS, Catspaw, Dragonwing, Chemical Kid, Dragonmage, Harmonia Li, Karate Kid 2 / Myg, etc., etc. many of whom have great potential, and some of whom have been Legionnaires for decades, all of whom (save Dawnstar) he has surgically excised from his thirty-odd member lineup, to focus on only the traditionally white Legionnaires, and to compensate for that, he's put a few of them in blackface or yellowface. Ugh. I know that's not *intended* to be racist, to say that all of the *dozen or so* black and Asian Legionnaires suck and need to be replaced by turning a few of the white ones black or Asian, but it sure comes off a bit iffy.

    I'm not even opposed to a few traditionally caucasian Legionnaires getting some melanin. Superboy's Legion had a version of Tinya, generally the palest of the Legion ladies, who was East Indian in skin-tone, and that was cool. Similarly, Salu and Rokk have looked more or less Asian, in various 'Boots, and that drift was fine with me, but to replace all the *actual* black and Asian Legionnaires with these racebent whites? Yikes.

    At least Dawnstar is still around, and as brown as ever. It would perhaps have been a little obvious if she was sent to the cornfields with the blacks and Asians, and someone like Timber Wolf was mysteriously now Native American...

  4. #19
    (Formerly ilash) Ilan Preskovsky's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sutekh View Post
    I haven't checked out any of his work save Teen Titans and the upcoming Legion of Super-Heroes stuff. Teen Titans has been so-so, so far. Good artwork, decent new and old characters, but nothing groundbreaking yet, nor anything dire or fretful. The Legion stuff, I'm seriously not liking the smell coming out of the kitchen.

    I have no issue with a diverse Legion. For that we have Invisible Jacques, Glorith, Tyroc, Kid Quantum 2, GEAR, XS, Catspaw, Dragonwing, Chemical Kid, Dragonmage, Harmonia Li, Karate Kid 2 / Myg, etc., etc. many of whom have great potential, and some of whom have been Legionnaires for decades, all of whom (save Dawnstar) he has surgically excised from his thirty-odd member lineup, to focus on only the traditionally white Legionnaires, and to compensate for that, he's put a few of them in blackface or yellowface. Ugh. I know that's not *intended* to be racist, to say that all of the *dozen or so* black and Asian Legionnaires suck and need to be replaced by turning a few of the white ones black or Asian, but it sure comes off a bit iffy.

    I'm not even opposed to a few traditionally caucasian Legionnaires getting some melanin. Superboy's Legion had a version of Tinya, generally the palest of the Legion ladies, who was East Indian in skin-tone, and that was cool. Similarly, Salu and Rokk have looked more or less Asian, in various 'Boots, and that drift was fine with me, but to replace all the *actual* black and Asian Legionnaires with these racebent whites? Yikes.

    At least Dawnstar is still around, and as brown as ever. It would perhaps have been a little obvious if she was sent to the cornfields with the blacks and Asians, and someone like Timber Wolf was mysteriously now Native American...
    Thank you! I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who finds race-swapping characters to be, at best, horribly misjudged. It's largely seen as OK now by liberal types (of which I normally am one) but I do think it's one of those things that everyone's going to look back at in a few years with real embarrassment.
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  5. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ilan Preskovsky View Post
    Thank you! I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who finds race-swapping characters to be, at best, horribly misjudged. It's largely seen as OK now by liberal types (of which I normally am one) but I do think it's one of those things that everyone's going to look back at in a few years with real embarrassment.
    Race-swapping in and of itself is not a problem when paired with the inclusion of original non-white characters. I doubt anyone's going to see race-swapping as embarrassing given the long history of whitewashing characters or the overuse of white characters compared to minorities in fiction over the years.

  6. #21
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    I'm not interested in the whole Leviathan thing, Jon's accelerated aging, the Legion's now missing from Clark's childhood, the Invisible Mafia is better suited for Black Lighting than Superman, but he could help at time. WHEN does Young Justice take place and when they return to the Own home, then what's the situation for them overall ?

    Namoi....Interesting thing given that David Walker's co-writing this, but then again I do not trust Bendis and Continuity in the same sentence as he ignores them more for his own benefits.

    Bendis is like Rian Johnson to modern day comics, with the exception of Ultimate Spider-man and its history.

  7. #22
    Ultimate Member Lee Stone's Avatar
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    To me, he's a really good writer when writing in his element, but outside his element he comes off a bit awkward and his weaknesses get amplified.

    Kinda like Quentin Tarantino or Kevin Smith.
    "There's magic in the sound of analog audio." - CNET.

  8. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    Race-swapping in and of itself is not a problem when paired with the inclusion of original non-white characters. I doubt anyone's going to see race-swapping as embarrassing given the long history of whitewashing characters or the overuse of white characters compared to minorities in fiction over the years.
    Yeah, and that's the rub. If the new Legion lineup included a couple of raceswapped characters, to a lineup that was created in the sixties and seventies as a bunch of white kids, *and* there was some use of the already existing characters of color, like Tyroc or Karate Kid 2, or Dragonmage and Kid Quantum 2, I'd be fine with it. But surgically excising all the pre-existing characters of color (save Dawnstar) and replacing with Black Lightning Lad and Cosmic Asian Boy seem kind of muddle-headed. There's nothing wrong with an Asian Rokk, or the Ranzz family being 'African-Winathian' or whatever, but going out of your way to not include the *dozen* actual ethnic minorities I listed in the previous post? That's just weird and off-putting.

    That being said, I don't love all those characters, regardless of their ethnicity, so I don't particularly mind that Invisible Kid 2 or Harmonia Li aren't around for this version of the team, but I did really like Levitz's new iteration of Tyroc in the last Legion run, and would love to see more of Myg, or classic universe versions of Dragonmage or Kid Quantum 2, who were some of my favorites from the Reboot.

    Plus, I'm kind of tired of the three Founders and Brainy. They've been retired, or on the cusp of retired, for decades, with, in Garth and Imra's case, children already in the picture. Meanwhile, other Legionnaire's stories are just picking up, such as the romance between Ayla and Vi, and I think that retiring the Founders could give some of the other characters more focus (and retiring Brainy, in particular, would allow all of the *other* geniuses and scientists among the Legion to get a word in edgewise, since Brainy seems to suck all the 'smart person' air out of the room, and retroactively become responsible for every smart thing that's ever happened in the universe, even if, like Flight Rings, they were invented by other smart Legionnaires back in the day). Bendis' choice to use Rokk, Imra and Garth as the centerpiece of his rebooted Legion seems like a step backwards, to me, and not one that changing their race particularly helps (and indeed, could hinder, since now people like me who want to see less of those three could be tarred as racist by the usual disingenuous folk that sometimes creep into these discussions).

    TLDR; retiring a few of the white characters (like the Founders) and then focusing more on some of the minority Legionnaires like Tyroc and Dragonwing, would have been a better long-term choice than making some of the old white standbys black or Asian for this Boot.

  9. #24
    (Formerly ilash) Ilan Preskovsky's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    Race-swapping in and of itself is not a problem when paired with the inclusion of original non-white characters. I doubt anyone's going to see race-swapping as embarrassing given the long history of whitewashing characters or the overuse of white characters compared to minorities in fiction over the years.
    Well, whitewashing characters is pretty much the exact same thing as race-swapping but is toward caucasian than away from it. My problem with it is as follows. First, if the colour of a person's skin is completely irrelevant then why bother race-changing at all? More importantly, if you do race-swap in such an instance then you're making the colour of a person's skin a big deal when it shouldn't be and are effectively doing exactly what racists do, which is reducing people to the colour of their skin. If, however, the colour of a person's skin is a cultural marker of some sort - and it is only some sort; cultures and sub-cultures far transcend something as surface-level as race - the race swapping is, if anything, even more problematic. Race swapping can do any one or all of these things: it negates one culture for another, it diminishes individual cultures by making them purely about skin-colour, and/ or it says that certain cultures are unable to stand on their own and only work when being drafted onto already existing characters of a different, more "established" culture.

    From a liberal perspective, absolutely none of these are acceptable. Especially when it comes to the more outward signs of variant cultures. Having an established character come out as bisexual, say, or giving them an ethnic or religious background that wasn't mentioned before but wasn't directly contradicted works because such things add different layers to established characters in much the way that discovering unknown parts of our family histories or discovering one's own sexual preferences can add new layers to real human beings. Race-swapping (or, for that matter, taking established straight characters and retroactively making them entirely gay or taking, say, a well-established Catholic character and retroactively making them an Orthodox Jew), on the other hand, don't so much add layers but negates the more traditionally dominant cultures for not being "other" enough, while negating the "other" culture for, effectively, not being "established" enough to work with people.

    This doesn't mean that I don't think there's real value in diversity (though I do resent it when it's only about diversity and it becomes, effectively, tokenism) but race-swapping is the absolute worst way to go about it. I did bristle at seeing Lightning Lad as a black guy but I also would at seeing John Stewart as a white guy. It's the difference between "black Wally West" - which has been such a millstone around the character's neck that even after they made Wallace a separate character, he is still fighting an uphill battle against being a race-switched version of an established character with the same name - and brilliant new legacy characters like Jon Stewart, Miles Morales, Jaime Reyes, or Khamala Khan. And that's to say nothing of the all-new minority characters that you can find in both established superhero universes and, most especially, creator-owned comics.

    Like the more extreme forms of political correctness and identity politics that are out there at the moment, I do think that race-swapping comes from a fundamentally good place but that doesn't make it any less stupid and, dare I say it, any less offensive if you actually think about what it actually suggests.
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  10. #25
    It sucks to be right BohemiaDrinker's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cmbmool View Post
    Namoi....Interesting thing given that David Walker's co-writing this, but then again I do not trust Bendis and Continuity in the same sentence as he ignores them more for his own benefits..
    I'd usually agree, but right now? Almost nop continuity makes sense at DC, and what little that does sucks more than it ever sucked.

    So go for it and ignore the crap, I say!
    ConnEr Kent flies. ConnOr Hawke has a bow. Batman's kid is named DamiAn.

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  11. #26
    Mighty Member Dr. Skeleton's Avatar
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    Not a fan, especially from his Marvel work and I don't agree with the Iceman decision. It's a matter of time before he ruins a DC character.

  12. #27
    Mind Controller Arnoldoaad's Avatar
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    ok
    Out of his DC work I have read Superman, AC, Young Justice, Naomi, Event Leviatan, Batman Universe and Scarlet(still count even though is not DC continuity related)



    Young Justice Is by far the best of all
    I just love everything that is happening in the book with the characters and keep looking forward to this every month
    If I have a single compain is that im very disappointed of what happen with Superboy in the first arc, a huge misopportunity.

    Superman and AC are pretty much what I expected them to be, I cant remember the last time that any other writer used Superman to its full potential and the use of characters is good...
    except for Jon
    I hate the aging up of Jon and I think sending him to LSH is a major mistake
    the thing about Jon is that I feel he and Damian are pretty much the faces of their own generation of heroes, this is one of the reasons why Damian's titans just dont work but Supersons did, they are a group that they belong to and now is separated to the point that he is literally becomes a new character.
    That being said, I dotn hate that new character, I hate that in order to get that we are sacrificing a better one in my opinion

    Naomi starts slow and quite boring to be honest, there is nothing interesting going on until chp 3 and then it becomes quite a big thing. its almost like its ready to become a movie. keep an eye on Naomi I think she will become the Miles Morales of DC.

    Event Leviatan is good Bendis
    when you have to think of what is good bendis vs bad bendis, this is an example of good, next to Daredevil or Alias, its intriguing and well set up and I know it will pay off in the end.

    Batman Universe on the other hand is Bad Bendis, I do like the dialog and the little bits here and there like Batman saying that he lves dinosaurs comepletely out of nowhere but this isnt Batman. its very weird espeially how contrasting this Batman acts to the one on EL, Im just very lost when I read this.

    and Scarlet is another good example of what Bendis not-hero writing is about, really facsinating nd im mention it because I would love to see something like this on DC.
    Just reboot Gotham Central and give it to Bendis and a good artist and he will make one of the top 5 comics of the next 10 years.

    so yeah pretty much a lot of Hits and some misses which is kinda what I expected. the biggest question is what will happen afterwards.
    I really dont want him front and center on Batman after King leaves, not necesarily because he is bad onBatman but rather because he isnt needed there.
    Yes, Bendis made a ton of changes on Superman but lets face it, Superman needed some changes and even though I dislike what happen with Jon, Im pretty much on board with everything else
    Batman doesnt need Bendis right now.
    If anything, give him Wonder Woman, that comic is in desperate need of some new blood.

  13. #28
    The Man Who Cannot Die manwhohaseverything's Avatar
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    That he needs to go home and write a superfamily story. Que guile's music plays.

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ilan Preskovsky View Post
    Well, whitewashing characters is pretty much the exact same thing as race-swapping but is toward caucasian than away from it. My problem with it is as follows. First, if the colour of a person's skin is completely irrelevant then why bother race-changing at all? More importantly, if you do race-swap in such an instance then you're making the colour of a person's skin a big deal when it shouldn't be and are effectively doing exactly what racists do, which is reducing people to the colour of their skin. If, however, the colour of a person's skin is a cultural marker of some sort - and it is only some sort; cultures and sub-cultures far transcend something as surface-level as race - the race swapping is, if anything, even more problematic. Race swapping can do any one or all of these things: it negates one culture for another, it diminishes individual cultures by making them purely about skin-colour, and/ or it says that certain cultures are unable to stand on their own and only work when being drafted onto already existing characters of a different, more "established" culture.

    From a liberal perspective, absolutely none of these are acceptable. Especially when it comes to the more outward signs of variant cultures. Having an established character come out as bisexual, say, or giving them an ethnic or religious background that wasn't mentioned before but wasn't directly contradicted works because such things add different layers to established characters in much the way that discovering unknown parts of our family histories or discovering one's own sexual preferences can add new layers to real human beings. Race-swapping (or, for that matter, taking established straight characters and retroactively making them entirely gay or taking, say, a well-established Catholic character and retroactively making them an Orthodox Jew), on the other hand, don't so much add layers but negates the more traditionally dominant cultures for not being "other" enough, while negating the "other" culture for, effectively, not being "established" enough to work with people.

    This doesn't mean that I don't think there's real value in diversity (though I do resent it when it's only about diversity and it becomes, effectively, tokenism) but race-swapping is the absolute worst way to go about it. I did bristle at seeing Lightning Lad as a black guy but I also would at seeing John Stewart as a white guy. It's the difference between "black Wally West" - which has been such a millstone around the character's neck that even after they made Wallace a separate character, he is still fighting an uphill battle against being a race-switched version of an established character with the same name - and brilliant new legacy characters like Jon Stewart, Miles Morales, Jaime Reyes, or Khamala Khan. And that's to say nothing of the all-new minority characters that you can find in both established superhero universes and, most especially, creator-owned comics.

    Like the more extreme forms of political correctness and identity politics that are out there at the moment, I do think that race-swapping comes from a fundamentally good place but that doesn't make it any less stupid and, dare I say it, any less offensive if you actually think about what it actually suggests.
    Racebending white characters into non-white characters is not remotely the same as whitewashing. The former adds diversity, the latter erases it. With very few exceptions, most white characters in superhero comics do not need to be white in order to work. Hell, in the case of the Legion, two of their characters, Ferro Lad and Shadow Lass were originally going to be black but this was nixed by editors. So there's an argument to be made that racebending (we'll use this as a term for making white characters poc) is a good thing. It can be handled poorly (like with New 52 Wally West, Bendis' Legion arguably) but it can be done well (MCU Nick Fury, DCEU Aquaman, Young Justice Artemis).

    So why bother with racebending? Because it can be as valid a choice as creating new characters if done right. Normalizing the existence of poc characters will never be a problem. And in the case of the Legion, the cultures being "negated" are fictional to begin with.

  15. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by qwertyuiop1998 View Post
    Now Bendis has been doing his work in dc a while, And did make some changes in DC. What is your opinions about him?
    For me, Surprisedly is his works better than I was expecting. But I still don't like he aging jon, And makes him the funder of the Legion instead of Superman. Also his Superman run aside from a few issues I think is interesting most parts the comics are boring.
    Assume your question is restricted to DC and not his Marvel career. If the latter would need way more time than I have to address it.

    In summary however, Bendis tends to operate on extremes. When he's good, he's very good. When he's bad, he's a trainwreck! Of course at the end of the day, it boils down to personal preferences and opinions.

    I believe the only book Bendis is currently writing that I really like is Batman Universe. Absolutely enjoy it. Not sure is a direct result of King's current run, but I'm finding his Batman a breath of fresh air. Would love to see a Volume 2.

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