Keep in mind that you have about as much chance of changing my mind as I do of changing yours.
Considering some of those old concepts hadn't really been in play in the comics for a while and might not be ever (like a Joker henchgirl that's not Harley), I can at least see the narrative necessity for them and what they bring to the table.
King promised a lot but kind of failed to deliver on several fronts. Should he be respected for the attempt? Maybe, but there's not much worth talking about otherwise in my opinion. I can't say his follow ups from Knightfall were all that much better than anything Tynion's come up with.
It’s low hanging fruit. Harley’s popular so let’s just make new one like we did with Robin. Or hey let’s puts Bat symbols on everyone, or revert characters to how I and others remember them, but lets not actually say anything new with them or have them even do much of anything at all. Even Joker War, as over hyped and marketed as it was, in the end it was just a generic Batman vs Joker story. Compare that to War of Jokes and Riddles, sure Jokes and Riddles had far less pandering, but I find the story itself far more memorable just on the concept alone.
I mean, creating a new character to fulfill a narrative function that you can't do with another character anymore doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I don't buy into Harley's current direction that warrants it, but that's a whole other topic.
I don't see anything wrong with building characters back up again, even if you don't care for said characters or the way Tynion is going through building them up just because it hearkens back to the past. It's still too early into his run to claim he's not doing much of anything with them in my opinion.
War of Jokes and Riddles felt more pretentious and messy to me, like a lot of King's Batman stories, but that's just me. I'm one of those who quickly became disillusioned with King's work.
Joker War is complete. It’s not too early to say he didn’t do anything with them, because he didn’t. For example you can literally remove Nightwing’s return and it wouldn’t impact the story. Despite Joker War eating up like 6 months of his solo. He padded his story, and market that moment for his story, but nothing was really done with it. Like I said, it’s low hanging fruit. Bringing Nightwing back is easy brownie points. But it was almost worthless narratively. Same with putting Bat symbols on the girls, or putting Babs in a chair. But all that speaks to a section of the audience, that will eat up those member berries, despite them being shallow and half cooked. Even Punchline, she looks cool and speculators ate her up, but she was not a new concept there was a necessity for. But she seems to have hit so I’m not gonna knock her. But let’s not pretend she’s this new or innovated concept.
Last edited by Godlike13; 11-03-2020 at 12:44 PM.
Joker War ran into the same Batfamily problem King had in his run. I guess at least King didn't try to give Harley panel time he should've given to more relevant characters.
The stuff with Steph, Cass, and Babs seems to be developing on an ongoing basis past that arc. I appreciate that Tynion actually cares about these characters and wants to use them how he feels is best for them.
Punchline's not an entirely new concept but she's one that, again, hasn't been fulfilled since DC tried to spin Harley as a non-villain and Tynion is trying to make her distinct from Harley so she's not a retread.
Keep in mind that you have about as much chance of changing my mind as I do of changing yours.
Catwoman flip flopping - check
Riddler being gimmick villain - check
Joker causing mass chaos like Endgame & targeting Batfam members - check
Bringing in popular characters like Deathstroke to boost sales - check
Coming up with anti Batman, anti Harley characters to be villains - check
Batman saving his villains or attempting to save them (Penguin, Joker) - check
Batman stopping other vigilantes from killing criminals - check
What other cliches that i havent come up with?
Last edited by prepmaster; 11-07-2020 at 06:03 AM.
THE SIGNAL (Duke Thomas) is DC's secret shonen protagonist so I made him a fandom wiki
also, check out "The Signal Tape" a Duke Thomas fan project.
currently following:
- DC: Red Hood: The Hill
- Marvel: TBD
- Manga (Shonen/Seinen): One Piece, My Hero, Dandadan, Jujutsu Kaisen, Kaiju No. 8, Reincarnation of The Veteran Soldier, Oblivion Rouge, ORDEAL, The Breaker: Eternal Force
"power does not corrupt, power always reveals."
lemonpeace's point was that it is unreasonable to conveniently complain about Bat-verse storytelling conventions that you personally hate and find "cliché" right when Tynion is writing, when pretty much everyone who's been on the mainline Batman books for some length of time, including every contemporary writer, has "indulged" these "clichés" as a normal and in fact anticipated facet of telling Batman stories.
As it stands, you're ranting, and this isn't the thread for that.