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  1. #106
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    Quote Originally Posted by manwhohaseverything View Post
    Nope!I have been saying the same.That is anti-technology message/narrative. It means tech would be antagonistic position or a position of failure in purpose. Pro-technology would be saying technology brings about utopia or some great age. This criticises that, Choosing muscle over steel ,neurons over circuits and finding equal footing with the machines, Not letting them colonise you. There is a reason why people want cyberpunk dystopia for metropolis . Wall e had people starting to plant tree again with hands.While,the ai found emotion called love,family bonds,friendship..etc.They then started living side by side trying to reinvigorate the ecosystem.Superman is against the tech fetish that exist.Superman was against machines replacing people(workers originally)
    "Man can be competent enough to fix his own problems with his own two hands.Dare i say, be better than the tools he created".
    Are you even reading what you're typing?

    Quote Originally Posted by manwhohaseverything View Post
    Exactly,man and machine working together.Not,being slave to it.

    superman was in his original incarnation counter balance to ironman and the likes,philosophically.
    How are you a counterbalance to someone that doesn't even exist yet? Iron Man was created 25 years after Superman. Most superheroes during Superman's time where in fact not very technologically heavy.

    And again, Superman is not an anti-technology character. It's inconsistent with how he's been written and it is an incredibly stupid philosophy to have.

  2. #107
    The Man Who Cannot Die manwhohaseverything's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    Are you even reading what you're typing?





    How are you a counterbalance to someone that doesn't even exist yet? Iron Man was created 25 years after Superman. Most superheroes during Superman's time where in fact not very technologically heavy.

    And again, Superman is not an anti-technology character. It's inconsistent with how he's been written and it is an incredibly stupid philosophy to have.
    yes,i am. I don't particularly see any problems in what i wrote. You may have this preconceived notion that i want superman to blow us back into stone age or something without trying to understand what i actually said. Maybe it's my fault. Maybe not.

    Why are you grasping at straws? Did i ever say superman had anti-tech themes because of ironman? No. All i said, these guy(ironman and the likes) are futurist characters, their narrative is built on the notion that tech will bring about great age or utopia. Superman's narrative says otherwise because he was meant to beat the machines at their own game. I am sorry does other heroes need to pro-tech for superman to be anti-tech? Nope. The socio-economic-cultural background during the depression era and WW2 is the basis for my assertion combined with siegel and shuster's influences, leanings... Etc.Industrial growth had very dehumanising effect on people . Just like charles dicken's books was influenced by industrial revolution that was occurring during his time.

    Yeah! Yeah! I got it, already. superman ain't anti-tech. You are welcome to your notions.Superman has been written as government stooge. I fail to see how the notion inconsistency matters. A version of the character meant something different during a time. Something i find still relevant, but whatever . Good day.
    Last edited by manwhohaseverything; 10-31-2020 at 09:51 AM.

  3. #108
    Golux Kurt Busiek's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vordan View Post
    Was that actually unpopular? Pre-Crisis WW outside of Marston and that brief mini Busiek did is generally awful. No clue how that era sold but it gave Diana agency and let her fight Bond villain organizations which sounds cool. The problem was that WW was the premiere superheroine, so her being de powered was always going to get some side eye, although it took an article in Ms. to undo that era right?
    It sold very well to start, and saved WONDER WOMAN from cancellation.

    Also the Sekowsky-written issues are great.

    Sales faded over time, but the fact that Sekowsky couldn't seem to get the issues done on time, resulting in too many reprint issues, may have had something to do with that.

    The series switched back to the costumed WW not because of sales but because Gloria Steinem pushed DC to do it and they thought they'd get some promo out of it. Shortly thereafter, sales were bad again and Julie Schwartz was brought in to save the book with two straight years of guest stars...

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  4. #109
    Golux Kurt Busiek's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    Yes. Dennis O'Neil himself grew to be ashamed of it.
    Denny's issues aren't that great (but they look terrific).

    But that doesn't have much to do with whether the series was popular or not.

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  5. #110
    Golux Kurt Busiek's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vordan View Post
    Silver Age WW was awful. Just boring stories about WW pining over domestic life, and trying to get Steve Trevor to marry her since the “proper” role of women was in the home. There’s a reason WW has never really gotten any of her Pre-Crisis stuff back, aside from the occasional attempt to fold some of the Marston era back into canon. Her stuff is really boring. “Modern” WW really begins with Perez. You can skip from Marston to Perez without missing a beat.
    You're forgetting the Teenage Glop from Outer Space, sir!

    Silver Age WW is...peculiar, but I don't think it's boring. It's deeply weird, in ways that some people like and some don't, but it's freakish more than boring.

    And there's a lot of material in there that could be updated in interesting ways, I think. Even more in the Golden Age stuff...

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  6. #111
    Astonishing Member Tzigone's Avatar
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    Silver Age WW was awful. Just boring stories about WW pining over domestic life, and trying to get Steve Trevor to marry her since the “proper” role of women was in the home.
    He tried to manipulate her into marriage at least once where she wasn't willing. Just like Lana and Lois did Clark. And Wonder-Tot was refusing romantic overtures from her toddler playmate because she had wanted to grow up and be Wonder Woman and couldn't do that with him around. I read very little with these in the silver age - hate that kind of icky behavior from love interests. At least Lana was new, silver age Lois and Steve were insults to the earlier versions. OTOH, I thought silver age Flash was quite good (my favorite silver age comic I've read so far). I know some say characters didn't have individual personalities in the silver age, but that is absolutely not the case with Barry and Hal. They may not have the personalities they had later, but they had personalities.
    Last edited by Tzigone; 10-31-2020 at 06:52 PM.

  7. #112
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    Quote Originally Posted by John Venus View Post
    A revamp of Zatanna edtiroially spearheaded by Kim Yale (Ostrander's wife and co writer of the seminal Suicide Squad run) which was heavily influenced by Vertigo at the time and written by Lee Mars and drawn by .
    The writers wanted to get rid of the 'silly' stuff to make her a more 'serious' heroine.

    The story is about Zatanna meeting her mothers ghost and realizing that she has to save San Francisco from a Chtulu like creature trying to break into 'our' world. She finds her father's backward speaking magic to be ineffective and slow so she switches to her mothers magic after discovering she can do magic based eye blasts. She also adopts a spear, has short hair and adopts a more sword and sorcery costume. Well...have a look:

    https://comicvine.gamespot.com/zatan...3/4000-122632/

    Pros:
    -Strong character work and an attempt to give her her own supporting cast.
    -The art by Esteben Maroto was a treat.
    -Zatanna takes on a JL level threat by herself and solves it.

    Cons:
    -"Oh woe is me, if only Constantine was here. I am not as cool or competent as him even though I've been around longer as a character and have been a long time JLA member."
    -It's yet another story where she lost her confidence and needs it back. It's the second story where she met the ghost of her mother and another in a long running series of stories where she gets advice or warnings from her parents from the beyond the grave. If you are familiar with her canon of stories, it's over done.
    -Eye beams, magic necklaces and staffs are no less silly than backwards speaking magic. If anything it made her less unique.
    -The costume switch to achieve 'balance', well that's been done too. In the Satellite era she exclusively wore the Perez designed outfit and only wore the fishnets for performances.


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    Did they specifically say they got rid of the backwards-speaking magic because it was too silly?

  8. #113

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    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    Did they specifically say they got rid of the backwards-speaking magic because it was too silly?
    Probably. Understand, Zatanna was a female character created by, and most likely handled almost exclusively by, male creators to appeal mostly to male fans up to that point. She was powerful, but not so powerful that she couldn't be stopped by a gag or some way of making her unable to speak. (Like Black Canary. Sound- or voice-based powers were looked at as 'dumb' because comics are a soundless medium.) Kim Yale and Lee Mars were bringing a decidedly more feminist viewpoint to both the character and to their creative approach to the comic itself. One of Yale's stated goals was to hopefully make Zatanna something like a 'bridge' between the more overtly superhero or regular DC line and what was then the recently created new Vertigo line, which was still mostly books and characters that had roots in the main DC Universe but had that more quirky, "suggested for mature readers" feel under Karen Berger's editorial auspices (and which seemed to appeal more to female readers).

    One thing Yale did as editor was something DC used to do in the 80's to generate fan interest and commentary in new titles, which was send black and white preview copies to a handful of fans who regularly wrote in letters to many of DC's letter columns, so they would hopefully get something back to print in new books' letter pages before they got mail from fans when the books were sold "for real." Yale printed some responses in the last couple of issues, I think all from male readers, but they were not entirely supportive. I remember one response that basically dismissed the very idea of a Zatanna mini, and Estaban Maroto's art in particular, as "nostalgic titillation." (A phrase which astonished Yale.) After this iteration of Zee made her final appearance in The Spectre by Yale's husband John Ostrander, she didn't appear anywhere for nearly a year. When she did, it was in one of the Superman books, and it was a hard reset to her status quo before the Come together mini, down to the backwards spells and the tux'n'nets outfit. It was like it wasn't enough to dump everything Yale and Mars had done, they had to double down on everything they'd tried to change about her.

  9. #114
    Astonishing Member Stanlos's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kurt Busiek View Post
    You're forgetting the Teenage Glop from Outer Space, sir!

    Silver Age WW is...peculiar, but I don't think it's boring. It's deeply weird, in ways that some people like and some don't, but it's freakish more than boring.

    And there's a lot of material in there that could be updated in interesting ways, I think. Even more in the Golden Age stuff...

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  10. #115

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    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    Did they specifically say they got rid of the backwards-speaking magic because it was too silly?
    That was the gist of it yeah. I do remember one specific line in the letter columns about the silliness of the fishnets.

    Quote Originally Posted by Timber Wolf-By-Night View Post
    Probably. Understand, Zatanna was a female character created by, and most likely handled almost exclusively by, male creators to appeal mostly to male fans up to that point. She was powerful, but not so powerful that she couldn't be stopped by a gag or some way of making her unable to speak. (Like Black Canary. Sound- or voice-based powers were looked at as 'dumb' because comics are a soundless medium.) Kim Yale and Lee Mars were bringing a decidedly more feminist viewpoint to both the character and to their creative approach to the comic itself. One of Yale's stated goals was to hopefully make Zatanna something like a 'bridge' between the more overtly superhero or regular DC line and what was then the recently created new Vertigo line, which was still mostly books and characters that had roots in the main DC Universe but had that more quirky, "suggested for mature readers" feel under Karen Berger's editorial auspices (and which seemed to appeal more to female readers).

    One thing Yale did as editor was something DC used to do in the 80's to generate fan interest and commentary in new titles, which was send black and white preview copies to a handful of fans who regularly wrote in letters to many of DC's letter columns, so they would hopefully get something back to print in new books' letter pages before they got mail from fans when the books were sold "for real." Yale printed some responses in the last couple of issues, I think all from male readers, but they were not entirely supportive. I remember one response that basically dismissed the very idea of a Zatanna mini, and Estaban Maroto's art in particular, as "nostalgic titillation." (A phrase which astonished Yale.) After this iteration of Zee made her final appearance in The Spectre by Yale's husband John Ostrander, she didn't appear anywhere for nearly a year. When she did, it was in one of the Superman books, and it was a hard reset to her status quo before the Come together mini, down to the backwards spells and the tux'n'nets outfit. It was like it wasn't enough to dump everything Yale and Mars had done, they had to double down on everything they'd tried to change about her.
    The most amusing anecdote from the letter columns was when Kim Yale mentioned that she got letters written backwards from fans. But yeah, she also got some demeaning sexist letters as well at the time.

    I don't mind a more feminist perspective on Zatanna. In fact, I welcome it. I'm a straight dude but I don't need to see Zee in fishnets all the time and posing suggestively. Whilst, I like Lee Mars characterization of Zee in the mini, it was the powers themselves that bothered me. Magic necklacke? Staff of power? Jacket? How is that any less silly than backwards speaking spell? In the old satellite era comics, she was the one who often saved the day and was the key to figuring out problems that happened in that time. However, the stories and characterization were always kind of flat during that era. Then as we progressed into the 90's and 00's, when comics became more and more playground for adolescents, she became more sexualized, the gagging and bondage moments increased and a lot of her history and mythology save for Zatara was forgotten.

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