Really tired of Darkseid

[Starchild]

People really hype up Morrison on here, I see. I personally never found Darkseid interesting in the comics, no matter the writer was. In my opinion, he was only good in the DCAU.

[Dataweaver]

My only problem with Darkseid is this:

How can I miss you if you won't go away?

He's overexposed. Really, really overexposed. No sooner did he die in Final Crisis than he was back in the New 52.

DC should, IMHO, shelve him for about five years or so before using him again.

[FanboyStranger]

Morrison's Darkseid is the only great modern interpretation.

I think Morrison's interpretation is good (with great moments), but Simonson's is the best modern interpretation. His Darkseid is truly menacing with schemes within schemes even after his "death". The story of Darkseid plotting in the garden at Apokolips' core-- the one spot on the planet he can't corrupt-- just shows the grandiose power that Simonson's work with the character had. A place of peace and tranquility hosting a being of complete evil who can never find peace-- one of the great ironies that Simonson often played with in the series.

[K. Jones]

He's one of if not thee best villains in comics but he is rarely written correctly. I think Morrison is the only current writer who does the character justice.
Darkseid has really been put through the ringer in the New 52. First he shows up in Justice League and acts like a regular brute villain. A villain who hardly ever used to get his hands dirty is fighting the League as if he was the Hulk. Pretty ridiculous.
I'm not even going to get into the trainwreck that has become Earth 2.

He's supposed to be the ultimate Machiavellian schemer but with the power to stomp Superman. That's an amazing villain.

Thankfully. Grant has mentioned him in Multiversity.

That line about Hulk gets to another thing that's been pissing me off lately, though it's not limited to just Darkseid. Darkseid has never been depicted as a huge hulking Hulk-sized tank, ever. EVER. Kirby's Darkseid in physical humanoid scale was bigger than Superman, but not any bigger as a "human shape" than say, Bane. Which is totally intimidating but not in an aggro testosterone 90s frat boy way, right?

Mongulseid, or whatever NuSeid is, has constantly been depicted as Incredible Hulk-sized. But before I trounce only about Darkseid not only being mischaracterized but depicted preposterously as well - the same thing happened to Bane! I don't care if it's the Arkham games fault or Jim Lee & David Finch's, it's awful. (Luckily, LUCKILY, we got the truly fantastic Graham Nolan villain's month Bane issue. I was hoping Giffen's Darkseid depiction in Forever People might at least absolve some of the Hulkish sin but he's mostly been depicted in abstract.)

[K. Jones]

I think Morrison's interpretation is good (with great moments), but Simonson's is the best modern interpretation. His Darkseid is truly menacing with schemes within schemes even after his "death". The story of Darkseid plotting in the garden at Apokolips' core-- the one spot on the planet he can't corrupt-- just shows the grandiose power that Simonson's work with the character had. A place of peace and tranquility hosting a being of complete evil who can never find peace-- one of the great ironies that Simonson often played with in the series.

This is a caveat for me that has yet to be remedied. I'm obviously a longtime Morrison fanboy and an original Superman:TAS watcher and recently finally read Kirby's Fourth World and truly have an understanding of the characters now - but I've yet to get to the Simonson (or Evanier) stuff. As I understand it, it's very good material. I'll get to it eventually, assuredly, but I have to say off-hand, I'm not surprised it's good. 1. It's Simonson, and 2. It's late-Bronze Age. Literally straddling the decades between Kirby's opening salvo and the mid-80s reformation? I can't think of really ANY bad DC comics from that period.

[FanboyStranger]

This is a caveat for me that has yet to be remedied. I'm obviously a longtime Morrison fanboy and an original Superman:TAS watcher and recently finally read Kirby's Fourth World and truly have an understanding of the characters now - but I've yet to get to the Simonson (or Evanier) stuff. As I understand it, it's very good material. I'll get to it eventually, assuredly, but I have to say off-hand, I'm not surprised it's good. 1. It's Simonson, and 2. It's late-Bronze Age. Literally straddling the decades between Kirby's opening salvo and the mid-80s reformation? I can't think of really ANY bad DC comics from that period.

Simonson's run began in 2000, so it's not Bronze Age. It actually used Morrison's JLA as a selling point on the cover, not that it helped sales. It's odd, though-- you're the third poster I've seen this week that thought that Walt's run was from the late '70s-'80s.

Evanier's run isn't that good. It spins out of Starlin's Cosmic Odyssey and takes a lot of its cues from that mini. (Starlin actually plotted the first few issues.) Even Mark isn't fond of his work on the book.

[Patrick_C]

People have already mentioned what the problem with Darkseid is. I just wish to add that it's bigger than Darkseid. It affects most "comis top threats" in comics: They get so overexposed and badly used they become jokes.

Like, the Anti-Monitor. He was this horrible, titanic villain from CoIE. I thought of him as the greatest villain ever - even bigger than Darkseid. He's just this force of nature that, in his original seires, was killed like, five times and always came back to haunt the heroes once more.

Then came Sinestro Corps War and he became a chump Sinestro and Superboy Prime can bully around.

Likewise with Doomsday. And even Mongul.

Over there at the concorrence, there is Galactus that suffers from the same evil.

If the Great Cosmic Threat shows up every other week, and is trunced with greater ease each time... Well... Maybe it's not that great of a cosmic threat, after all...

[Nite-Wing]

I really find the whole Darkseid is the ultimate evil of the DCU tiring
I'm ready for Nekron or the Anti Monitor to just take over and stop the needless Darkseid over saturation.

[Deniz Camp]

That line about Hulk gets to another thing that's been pissing me off lately, though it's not limited to just Darkseid. Darkseid has never been depicted as a huge hulking Hulk-sized tank, ever. EVER. Kirby's Darkseid in physical humanoid scale was bigger than Superman, but not any bigger as a "human shape" than say, Bane. Which is totally intimidating but not in an aggro testosterone 90s frat boy way, right?

Mongulseid, or whatever NuSeid is, has constantly been depicted as Incredible Hulk-sized. But before I trounce only about Darkseid not only being mischaracterized but depicted preposterously as well - the same thing happened to Bane! I don't care if it's the Arkham games fault or Jim Lee & David Finch's, it's awful. (Luckily, LUCKILY, we got the truly fantastic Graham Nolan villain's month Bane issue. I was hoping Giffen's Darkseid depiction in Forever People might at least absolve some of the Hulkish sin but he's mostly been depicted in abstract.)

This isn't that accurate, really. Kirby's Darkseid wasn't very bulky, it's true, but he increasingly grew in stature over the years, and many, many intepretations - from Mignola to Porter to Mahnke to Gleason - had a hulking figure.

[Deniz Camp]

I think Morrison's interpretation is good (with great moments), but Simonson's is the best modern interpretation. His Darkseid is truly menacing with schemes within schemes even after his "death". The story of Darkseid plotting in the garden at Apokolips' core-- the one spot on the planet he can't corrupt-- just shows the grandiose power that Simonson's work with the character had. A place of peace and tranquility hosting a being of complete evil who can never find peace-- one of the great ironies that Simonson often played with in the series.

I think it has to be noted that Morrison's Darkseid isn't a character -- he's a force. the Ultimate Antagonist. The Dragon.

He is Evil. Or, more accurate, Darkseid Is.

Morrison did a lot of very fun, grandiose, powerful things with his "Darkseid", but his goals and his work were very different from the complex and nuanced work that Kirby did.

Kirby's Darkseid was a person. Morrison's Darkseid was not.

[Slade]

Darkseid exhaustion? Seriously? We saw him in one story arc in 2011, then recently starting in 2014 with Earth 2 and Earth 2 Worlds end. Other then that he has just been alluded too or referenced in other books. If that is whats causing your exhaustion then you have no business reading DC comics, Darkseid is always the big bad evil pulling the strings behind the scenes. That's his very nature.

[MajorHoy]

Just follow what I do . . . don't waste your time or money on anything written by Geoff Johns.

PROBLEM SOLVED!

[Slaughter]

We were talking about Darkseid as a Superman villain in the Superman forum a few months ago, and here's what we got:

The problem is that Darkseid and the Fourth World keep being introduced wrongly in the DCU.
I've read some of Kirby's classics (not all, I need a better reading list, I got the stuff) and the 4th world was introduced slowly, subtly.
First there was Intergang, then the Evil Factory, then the Forever People and then Superman finds himself in the middle of a Apokolips infiltration of Earth. Remember that Darkseid was introduced in Jimmy's Olsen title! Heck, Darkseid doesn't even get a splash page at his introduction, he barks orders to Morgan Edge and we're told that this is the beginning of a vast intrigue! And it was!

Look at the original Orion book. Darkseid wasn't invading the world all-out, he was infiltrating it, perverting it, using human criminals as paws to do jobs a New God could't (because it was easy for New Gods to be detected by Fourth World tech, but that didn't work with humans). The people Orion rescues in the first issue becomes his agents on Earth, helping him fit and infiltrating where he could't, and even fighting sometimes, while Orion does the heavy lifting. There were many similar themes in Kirby's Mister Miracle, Forever People and Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen.

Darkseid should only step into the ring rarely, and when he steps into a fight, whoa, far out. Heroes used to rarely pounce at Darkseid because they knew it was pointless to do it. Darkseid has a immense legion of paws and puppets and subordinates, they're the ones that should do the fighting. If Darkseid is going out fighting, then he's either desperate, the heroes are desperate or something went wrong.

Another mistake is that newer writers don't treat Darkseid as a person. I think this is what makes the New Gods unique - they're not merely eternal gods, they're persons as well. Current origin shows Darkseid as pretty much always owning Apokolips, while the Kirby origin is that Darkseid used intrigue to take over by manipulating everyone, and named himself after an ancient and most vile ruler of Apokolips (the fact Darkseid is a regnal name, not a given is a nice touch - I could totally see a future ruler of Apokolips calling himself Darkseid the Third or Darkseid [Adjective] in the eastern roman style). Darkseid mused that the generation after him would be even worse than he was.

[Dextersinister]

He's overexposed. Really, really overexposed. No sooner did he die in Final Crisis than he was back in the New 52.

Depends of your personnel view of too soon, there was a 3 year gap between the new 52 in Final Crisis, his actual appearance in the event was fairly brief and as was his initial New 52 appearance.

Excluding the pretty bad Earth 2 there has been very little Darkseid, just a lot of build up involving the fourth world.

I also really like his inclusion in Multiversity, I need to find a shot of the scene with him in the jury with real life tyrants.

[Starchild]

Writers should be able to write Darkseid however they see fit, instead of doing it how Kirby did ages ago. Believe me, if I'm a comic book writer, I'm going on write the characters the way I want them to be.