Last edited by Odd Rödney; 02-18-2021 at 03:25 PM. Reason: Blue text became too cumbersome.
"Kids don't care **** about superhero comic books. And if they do, they probably start with manga, with One Punch-Man or My Hero Academia. " -ImOctavius.
I wish that Marvel and DC allowed their characters to age, even if it was at a slowed rate. It would open up so many more creative possibilities and allow for more meaningful character development. Instead, nearly every single important change in a superhero comic seems to eventually get retconned away, gradually leaving us with more of an abstract sketch of a character. I loved it when DC allowed the JSA to age for many years, allowing them to get married, have kids, and sometimes see those kids take up heroic identities. Or some other hero would take up a given name, like the new Mister Terrific.
I agree. I may be part of the minority here, but I really like the idea of legacy characters. That's not to say that I think they're always handled well or created with the best intentions, and that's not to say that I'll always prefer legacy characters over the originals (that's hardly ever the case), but part of age, especially in the line of service, is that you end up inspiring folks to follow in your foot steps. And to me that's an incredible honor. But the only way to show that and make it believable is to have some semblance of aging to begin with, otherwise it's not legacy, it's trend-setting, which comes from a place of different intentions.
Even thinking of it from a basis of a child following in the foot steps of the family business, or an idealistic teenager being inspired by a guest speaker or a mentor, or the kid of a group looking up to the oldest kid, or someone deciding that they've found their calling because they see it concretely by someone else -- those are all great. But that still denotes a passage of time. And time can create hopefulness and optimism, which in turn can create inspiration.
Another fun thing that I get a great kick out of: intergenerational team-ups. The old school showing how it's done, the youngins bringing in the latest tricks and developments, combining the both of them to form an excellent team. It's also a great way of celebrating that history. It's not just seeing the old favorites, it's seeing the old favorites face off against new threats that they never would have fought in their hayday. To me that was the beauty of the 90s/00s JSA, and it's something I sorely wish the time-displaced OG X-Men had fought more often when they came to the present.
I also nominate Goku apparently getting a lobotomy for Dragon Ball Super, especially the anime version. Like, dude is married to a traditional romantic like Chi Chi fire decades and practiced reading using Roshi's smut books, but somehow doesn't know what kissing is? Not to mention how he keeps making mistakes that he explicitly *didn't* make in previous arcs...
Yeah, that's my biggest problem with Super. Compare with OG Dragon Ball and DBZ, but power levels aside Goku's the same character from episode 1 of DBZ to the final episode of Super. By contrast, Super saw Vegeta continue the growth he had from his DBZ days, and Gohan kept flip-flopping (imo not in a bad way, at least character-wise) when trying to balance his domestic life, career, and fighting.*
*sure, I would've liked to see Gohan play a larger role in Super, but adulting really is a hard fact of life and I'm glad it was reflected somewhat in Super
Agreed on Gohan. Geniuses like Goku and Vegeta have to train like crazy to keep their strength up, and scholars have to study like crazy to keep their research up to date. It's entirely fair that Gohan couldn't keep himself in his prime, especially if he is also trying to be a normal husband and father as well.
That said, Kuririn somehow losing his groove really irked me too. He may never have been on Goku's tier, but he always seemed dedicated to martial arts to the point where he lived with and trained under Roshi for years after having far surpassed him, and was married to a girl that loves fighting (and apparently kept training alongside him, considering how she was using his signature technique during the Buu Saga and how much stronger she got by the Tournament of Power). Like, I don't even mind that he became a cop, but the way he was somehow weak to regular bullets (even in the sci-fi setting of DB Earth) so soon after throwing down with Frieza's soldiers was just super annoying.
Speaking of Frieza, while I generally like how they handled him in Super, I am still somewhat annoyed that this now means that DB villains no longer get their memories erased and then reincarnated (after a year in Hell, IIRC), which was what Vegeta was facing when he died during the Buu Saga, especially since we know that Kid Buu got reincarnated in that kind of fashion, what with Uubu existing.
Oh, and I have no idea why they made anime Future Trunks' hair blue if they were going to keep his young self's hair lavender, especially so soon after introducing Super Saiyajin Blue.
Last edited by The Drunkard Kid; 09-22-2020 at 03:13 PM.
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That's pretty much the first thing that came to mind.
Honestly, I just wish that they'd addressed it. Maybe state that his hair started turning lighter over the years or something, or imply that it is related to how he started generating that blue aura at the end of the Zamasu fight. Like, perhaps it was related to him being a Kaioushin disciple in the manga, or that he was inadvertently undergoing the human equivalent of the Super Saiyajin God ceremony by being treated as the last hope to the surviving humans under Goku Black's reign of terror, etc., etc...
For Naruto, I don't like the elemental affinity system that was added in post-timeskip. Not only did it give ninjutsu effectiveness into Pokemon logic instead of it all depending almost entirely on judgement and circumstances, but it also made Jiraiya look like a moron for never telling Naruto about it during their 3 years of training, especially since he apparently taught Pain/Konan/OtherDude all about it in less time (IIRC).
Oh, and how Genjutsu somehow went from "you're basically just injecting a premade hallucination into a person" into "Sharingan users, at least, basically have full on telepathy." Oh, and I don't know if it counts as a retcon, but the Sharingan's focus going from the already incredibly broken ability to read movements/chakra and use that to copy taijutsu and ninjutsu even faster then your opponents can use them, to the much less interesting and mostly completely random Mangekyo abilities.
I'll have to agree to disagree. That whole setup flew in the face what the Amazons had stood for going back decades. They're pirate rapists in the New52. Bad enough DC had them do Amazons Attack in pre-New52, but then went along with this. And throwing in Zeus, of all the Gods, in as Diana's father? If they're not backing down from the demi-goddess thing, there are far better gods to choose from than freaking Zeus.
Yeah, Trunks' blue hair was kind of weird. Though for me, it was a minor issue. The BIG issue, for me, was Trunks and Mai going to a future before Zamasu interfered, but they would also have doppelgangers. And would still be reminded of losing their entire universe. If Super had bothered to, like they did in Z, and gave him a wrap up episode/part of an episode, showing how he coped. Maybe even hint at the Supreme Kai of Time recruiting him and Mai for her soon to be Time Patrol.
I fucking hate Super. That’s just me and agreed with Winder Woman stuff.
The thing about Zeus being Diana's father is that I'm pretty sure that the mythological Zeus was mythological Hippolyta's biological grandfather. That said, she also slept with at least one of her biological uncle's in that case (Heracles and/or Theseus), and it's not like Zeus wasn't married to his own elder sister, Hera.
As for Future Trunks' dead timeline, I'm hoping that it was restored with #17's wish at the end of the Tournament of Power. Or that it ends up that the Whis of the timeline that he was dropped into is revived to train the two versions of Trunks to become the new and extremely empathetic and professional Dai Kaioushin and God of Destruction, which would allow them to visit/live with Mai even after she dies. And the next time something like Zamasu comes along, they're gonna have to deal with the two God Ki users on eac end of the creation/destruction spectrum being as Fusion-Compatible as Zamasu and Goku Black.