Your DC-Only controversial opinions...

[t hedge coke]

It should be good while also respecting the comics that came before it. That universe isn't a sandbox you made yourself, but rather one that was created by people a long time ago that you now have the privilege to play in. You owe it to them to at least respect their space.

I'd say I've never seen a Crisis that didn't, but well, I've read Identity Crisis.

I do agree, though. If not a duty to the past (or future), at least, a duty to those working on other comics at the same time, in the same universe, and to the audience who are, after all, putting money down for these things.

[Götterdämmerung]

I'd say I've never seen a Crisis that didn't, but well, I've read Identity Crisis.

Sorry folks, as I'm only peripherally on topic, but is Identity Crisis a good story? I was thinking about buying the trade. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[ed2962]

Sorry folks, as I'm only peripherally on topic, but is Identity Crisis a good story? I was thinking about buying the trade. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hmm...you might be opening a can of worms, it's a very controversial story.

I go back and forth on my own feelings about it all the time. I'd say the art is great and the mechanics of the writing is well done. However, the story suffers from trying to hard to be SERIOUS and EDGY.

[Götterdämmerung]

Hmm...you might be opening a can of worms, it's a very controversial story.

I go back and forth on my own feelings about it all the time. I'd say the art is great and the mechanics of the writing is well done. However, the story suffers from trying to hard to be SERIOUS and EDGY.

Edgy I can grow to like, too much dour and overblown atmosphere is very tiresome to me (hence Batman comics having limited appeal to me).

[colonyofcells]

I enjoyed Identity Crisis bec I have always believed that comics needs more sex rather than violence. I also enjoy gazing at the shiny bald head of Dan.

[deadboy80]

Geoff Johns......overated.

[colonyofcells]

Dc needs architects who are not familiar with the silver age, bronze age, the 90s, etc. so we can have more innovation rather than just cultivating the small number of current customers.

[ed2962]

Edgy I can grow to like, too much dour and overblown atmosphere is very tiresome to me (hence Batman comics having limited appeal to me).

This story involves campy silver age characters and rape. And superheroes operating in ethically compromising ways. The so called greater good is really just self interest

[Götterdämmerung]

This story involves campy silver age characters and rape. And superheroes operating in ethically compromising ways. The so called greater good is really just self interest

Thanks so much for the information. I'll gladly pass this up.

[Jim Kelly]

Dc needs architects who are not familiar with the silver age, bronze age, the 90s, etc. so we can have more innovation rather than just cultivating the small number of current customers.

Architects? With all apoloigies to Art Vandelay, I don't think architect is the right job description for what comic book story tellers do.

And I don't think someone ignorant of the past work of other story tellers is going to get you what you want. I find that writers who are ignorant of what others have done start to do the same thing over again that writers did before, not realizing that they're exhausting the same tropes.

I do think that modern writers use too much of the previous other writers' work--without giving credit or paying royalties--and often just replacing old versions of continuity with their lipstick on a pig new continuity. But at least when they know that they're doing it, they should be rightly ashamed and we can call them out for their blatant theft of ideas that were better done the first time. When a newbie creates redundant story lines out of ignorance, all I can feel for them is embarassment.

[Wonder Woman is a good example for this--as many writers are too lazy to read the old WW comics and so the same kinds of plots and characters have been re-created several times over.]

I have said it so often, it's become a mantra, but I don't want to see writers simply replacing one continuity with another. I want to see them build on continuity, so there's a sense of getting somewhere beyond where we've been before.

If they can't do that with the existing characters and the existing concepts--then they should be given their own worlds to create. Instead of just rebranding the same old things--as well as he might do it--I wish Grant Morrison had been given his own imprint and he had created a whole new world, with his own characters, in some kind of creative partnership with DC. I feel like we've rarely ever got to see what Morrison could really do if he was free to create a world from the ground up.

Thare are a lot of wannabe Stan Lees and Julius Schwartzes out there who are frustrated, because they will never have the same freedom that Stan and Julie had.

Even when Neil Gaiman created the Dreaming and the Endless, he did it using a lot of concepts that had already been created by many many writers and artists that had never been given due credit for all their ideas that Gaiman played with.

[Trey Strain]

Geoff Johns......overated.

There was a time when most fans, and apparently the higher-ups at DC, thought he could do no wrong. That was wacky, but I think a more realistic appraisal if him is congealing now.

[Pharozonk]

I have said it so often, it's become a mantra, but I don't want to see writers simply replacing one continuity with another. I want to see them build on continuity, so there's a sense of getting somewhere beyond where we've been before.

If they did that, then how could they dumb down their product to make them more marketable to movie studio executives and non-comic reading fans who are too lazy to care about continuity?

[Ascended]

There was a time when most fans, and apparently the higher-ups at DC, thought he could do no wrong. That was wacky, but I think a more realistic appraisal if him is congealing now.

Well, his quality has really gone downhill since his role at DC grew too. He cant focus on the books like he used to, since he has to spend so much time doing DCE things.

I loved his earlier work, and still do. I dont think its my tastes that have changed as much as his output, and I suspect that's the same for most people. If he were still doing stuff like Sinestro Corps War and his early JSA, we'd all likely still be head over heels for the guy. And his list of failings has grown too; he didnt have many bad stories when he was starting out; at most he'd have a bad arc or issue. But New Krypton really did a job on his cred and people seemed to think he jumped the shark with Blackest Night....

Thanks so much for the information. I'll gladly pass this up.

You should read some reviews before you decide. I personally loved Identity Crisis. Yes, it dealt with some pretty messed up stuff (the whole thing revolves around a murder investigation and gets more messed up from there) and most of the heroes dont come out the other side quite as clean as they had been. But it was, I think, a damn good story with heart and soul and if you can enjoy the work for itself and not what it's doing to the idea of the characters, you might like it.

And honestly, most of them had done some pretty terrible things by that point that we tend to gloss over anyway, so I dont think it did as much harm as some people say it did. There are a couple characters who really do come out worse, but....well, sacrifices at the alter of plot, you know?

Read up on it a little before you decide.

[t hedge coke]

Wonder Woman is a good example for this--as many writers are too lazy to read the old WW comics and so the same kinds of plots and characters have been re-created several times over.

While I feel you on this, in the abstract, do you have any evidence that this, in particular, is true? That that's why WW plots or beats sometimes repeat?

[Starchild]

Well, his quality has really gone downhill since his role at DC grew too. He cant focus on the books like he used to, since he has to spend so much time doing DCE things.

I loved his earlier work, and still do. I dont think its my tastes that have changed as much as his output, and I suspect that's the same for most people. If he were still doing stuff like Sinestro Corps War and his early JSA, we'd all likely still be head over heels for the guy. And his list of failings has grown too; he didnt have many bad stories when he was starting out; at most he'd have a bad arc or issue. But New Krypton really did a job on his cred and people seemed to think he jumped the shark with Blackest Night....



You should read some reviews before you decide. I personally loved Identity Crisis. Yes, it dealt with some pretty messed up stuff (the whole thing revolves around a murder investigation and gets more messed up from there) and most of the heroes dont come out the other side quite as clean as they had been. But it was, I think, a damn good story with heart and soul and if you can enjoy the work for itself and not what it's doing to the idea of the characters, you might like it.

And honestly, most of them had done some pretty terrible things by that point that we tend to gloss over anyway, so I dont think it did as much harm as some people say it did. There are a couple characters who really do come out worse, but....well, sacrifices at the alter of plot, you know?

Read up on it a little before you decide.

Man, I loved Identity Crisis so much in High School that I wrote my own version to it with The Avengers. I really wish people would give the book a second look, but they're too caught up on the rape part.