Your DC-Only controversial opinions...

[batnbreakfast]

The only thing I like by Miller is the Daredevil Born Again story, and it's by far my favorite DD story. Love that one a lot.

For me its the other way round (early Miller DD over Born again) in terms of story AND art. Mazzuchelli is a true master of the craft but early Miller art flows better to
my eyes. In terms of story I'd place Bendis DD over Miller (of course Bendis created from Miller's foundation)*passionate sigh*

[Trey Strain]

And I still say that comics covers where you have no idea what's going on are ridiculous.

[Götterdämmerung]

I'll take the Adam West Batman over the Frank Miller Batman any time.

Me too. I grew up as a little boy with that show. Though I do like the Dark Knight Trilogy films, the whole "grim Batman" thing gets real old for me quick.

[The Darknight Detective]

And I still say that comics covers where you have no idea what's going on are ridiculous.

That's kind of hard to disagree with, IMO.

[Pohzee]

And I still say that comics covers where you have no idea what's going on are ridiculous.

If you means like the trippy early Grayson covers, I'd have to disagree.

[byrd156]

That's not so controversial; other than those two stone-cold classics, Miller's other DC output has been underwhelming.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Generally when I express my distaste for Miller and his work I get in long arguments over it.

[Adekis]

I hate Batman.

I don't really hate Batman, just the way he's regarded by fans, by the company, whatever. I like all his supporting characters. I like Babs, Cass, Kate, Steph, Tim, Gordon, Damian- and Dick Grayson is probably my second favorite super-hero. I loved Kirk Langstrom in Gods and Monsters, probably because he didn't have to live up to being "goddamn Batman". But something about Bruce, how he's always got to be the best of the best, regardless of whether or not it makes sense, just drives me up the wall.

[Lorendiac]

I don't see test pilots as dated myself and think Hal works just fine in the present...

However I do agree that SOME characters work better in the past. Batman is a major one for me. Back when his detective work consisted of chemistry and deductions and fingerprint lifting and safecracking... all that hands on stuff. As opposed to the modern computer era where all crimes are solved with a push of a button and all security is bypassed by pushing another button.. and with Batman he's not even the one who often PUSHES that button..

By around the mid-2000s, it was starting to worry me that much of Batman's "detective work" was actually being done for him by a woman sitting in a wheelchair who was kind enough to share with him all the results of her hard work . . . so that he would then know where to go, and whom to clobber when he got there. I admit that in real life it makes sense to make crimefighting be a team effort instead of each individual detective trying to do everything all by himself in solving his current case . . . but we're not talking about real-life police procedure; we're talking about Batman. I grew up in an era when Batman was, in fact, supposed to be the World's Greatest Detective -- instead of needing support staff to dig up most of the interesting facts for his benefit.

Most heroes work better in a world without any kind of facial recognition and I always liked the WWII heroes to be in their mid 60's as opposed to 90+...

This just reminds me . . . a long time ago, I researched and wrote a rough draft of all the different excuses which DC has used, at one time or another in "canonical" comic books, to address the question of: "Why is Jay Garrick still in good fighting trim when he was already a grown man in the 1940s?" I never got around to polishing it up and posting it, but maybe I ought to dust it off and try again?

(Note: I found five different excuses which had each been used at different times.)

[Lairston]

Me too. I grew up as a little boy with that show. Though I do like the Dark Knight Trilogy films, the whole "grim Batman" thing gets real old for me quick.

Yeah the grim in the DC Universe gets old. I didn't mind it so much when it was a Batman thing but like now Superman is grim when before he was always the opposite of Batman. In fact I think there was times where Superman basically told Batman to lighten up some and enjoy himself in the 90s. Which usually resulted in a growl and gruff response. I doubt the nu52 Superman would do that but I don't really know much about the nu52 version since the costume just makes me incapable of reading an entire issue. I just hate it. Just like I despised that horrible Superman Red and Superman Blue period. That had to be the dumbest redesign in history...

BUt back to the whole grim thing... what do we get in the Man of Steel film? Basically Batman in a semi-Superman outfit... But then I didn't care for much of anything in the film except Russell Crowe's Jor el and Kevin Costner's JOnathan Kent.

One of the few times I actually enjoyed a replacement character was in the 90s when Dick Grayson became Batman after Knightfall because it was a lighter Batman. One who would joke.

And then they brought Bruce back and he was darker then ever and in a darker costume. I always hoped they'd go back to the blue, gray and yellow oval costume of the 90s pre-knightfall era when Bruce got over the Bane incident but alas...

[Götterdämmerung]

Overall the new 52 Superman and Action was a disappointment and a half for me. It at least had some promise early on, but again and again I got the impression that the writers simply weren't inspired. It didn't help when Lobdell took the reigns, but Action wasn't much better imo. Those two titles are the ones I tried to like the most, because Superman is only after Green Lantern Corps among my favorite superheroes. There needs to be great writers for those titles, and by that I mean inspired. People that have vision.

Shoot, they could have just populated the new 52 with stories/teams like Superman Unchained and Earth One (not sure if the timeline coincided on the latter at least the last two did I think). I would have been just fine with that. In fact, I'm not sure why they didn't do that, because imo those two series were the best Superman of the past six years imo. Please feel free to correct me regarding books outside the main titles on Supes since that time, and you might still come up with something better than the new sucks-bein'-you.

[upgrayedd]

This just reminds me . . . a long time ago, I researched and wrote a rough draft of all the different excuses which DC has used, at one time or another in "canonical" comic books, to address the question of: "Why is Jay Garrick still in good fighting trim when he was already a grown man in the 1940s?" I never got around to polishing it up and posting it, but maybe I ought to dust it off and try again?

(Note: I found five different excuses which had each been used at different times.)

because Jay is freaking awesome. The only super hero to get super powers while taking a cigarette break.

[colonyofcells]

I prefer to reduce the power levels of most of the dc heroes including Superman. I prefer the weak Superman by John Byrne right after coie. If the power level of superman is reduced, people in iron man armor can fight and kill superman.

[mathew101281]

By around the mid-2000s, it was starting to worry me that much of Batman's "detective work" was actually being done for him by a woman sitting in a wheelchair who was kind enough to share with him all the results of her hard work . . . so that he would then know where to go, and whom to clobber when he got there. I admit that in real life it makes sense to make crimefighting be a team effort instead of each individual detective trying to do everything all by himself in solving his current case . . . but we're not talking about real-life police procedure; we're talking about Batman. I grew up in an era when Batman was, in fact, supposed to be the World's Greatest Detective -- instead of needing support staff to dig up most of the interesting facts for his benefit.

Disagree, to me Oracle was my favorite DC character, and her role made perfect sense. Unlike now were I feel that the Bat family is to bloated and has way to many characters with overlapping skills.

[Jim Kelly]

My impression of Oracle was that her services were available to a large number of JLAers and their associates. So Batman consulting her, would be like him checking Wikipedia. It only bothered me when she would dialogue with Batman. I didn't think Barbara Gordon should have that much personal information on Bruce Wayne. But yeah, Batman should be the detective. Heck, on CASTLE, Rick seems to have more information in his head than the NYPD has in its database--which is not realistic, but why should fiction be realistic?

[Doctor Bifrost]

However I do agree that SOME characters work better in the past. Batman is a major one for me. Back when his detective work consisted of chemistry and deductions and fingerprint lifting and safecracking... all that hands on stuff. As opposed to the modern computer era where all crimes are solved with a push of a button and all security is bypassed by pushing another button.. and with Batman he's not even the one who often PUSHES that button..

Thanks for this. I'm not sure it's so much a past/present/future thing than just how the character has been handled. There was a scene in Earth-2 - a flashback to when the Trinity was still alive and kicking - where Batman says to Wonder Woman (I'm paraphrasing, I don't have the issue in front of me) "I have all my supercomputers working on finding your daughter!"

And I thought: Bruce, you're a detective. Not a software engineering genius with a sideline in cloning and uplinking memories. A detective! Detect!

The scene summarized most of what I dislike about the character currently (Earth-1, Earth-2, it all points the same way), and I actually set aside most of the Bat-related comics for a while.