Page 8 of 8 FirstFirst ... 45678
Results 106 to 114 of 114
  1. #106
    The Detective Man The Dying Detective's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Location
    Look East
    Posts
    4,513

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    Every supporting cast has one or two members that don't get as much spotlight as the rest. I get that Steve and Etta are Marston creations but is it really so terrible that Perez focused on characters he created and personally liked more same as any other writer? Characters endure by persistent use something DC has had trouble doing for certain characters regardless of their popularity. Pet characters get tossed out too liberally on message boards.
    Because pet characters are not well liked when they are pushed to unreasonable levels. And if Perez was going to give the characters he created the lion's share of the spotlight then what was the point of him using the Marston creations when their roles were usurped by them? He should have thrown them out. There's nothing worse than dead weight in a story.
    "Excellent!" I cried. "Elementary," said he

  2. #107
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Posts
    34,000

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by The Dying Detective View Post
    Because pet characters are not well liked when they are pushed to unreasonable levels.
    Good thing this doesn't apply to the Kapatelis.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Dying Detective View Post
    And if Perez was going to give the characters he created the lion's share of the spotlight then what was the point of him using the Marston creations when their roles were usurped by them? He should have thrown them out. There's nothing worse than dead weight in a story.
    You know what I won't bother responding to this bit, it's just going in circles.

  3. #108
    The Detective Man The Dying Detective's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Location
    Look East
    Posts
    4,513

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    Good thing this doesn't apply to the Kapatelis.
    Right yet Diana spent more time with the Kapatelis women than Etta and Steve and they were considered her most important relationships. IT's a little trick called in story elevation to make characters who have not done much the star they are not.

    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    You know what I won't bother responding to this bit, it's just going in circles.
    That's because you keep saying that Steve and Etta were used but you don't get it that their roles and characters were underwhelming and useless.
    Last edited by The Dying Detective; 02-10-2018 at 11:00 AM.
    "Excellent!" I cried. "Elementary," said he

  4. #109
    Ultimate Member SiegePerilous02's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Posts
    15,234

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    Every supporting cast has one or two members that don't get as much spotlight as the rest. I get that Steve and Etta are Marston creations but is it really so terrible that Perez focused on characters he created and personally liked more same as any other writer? Characters endure by persistent use something DC has had trouble doing for certain characters regardless of their popularity. Pet characters get tossed out too liberally on message boards.
    Like Dying Detective said, if he wanted to focus on his own cast, that's fine. But why even use Steve and Etta at all? They were just dead weight in his run. The problem is that he used them and created underwhelming versions of them, so it would be impossible for future writers to utilize the classic versions and their history even if they wanted to. It's why they shouldn't have rebooted at all, and just written Steve and Etta out of the book for a while with their histories intact if they weren't going to be focused on anyway. It'd be far easier to bring them back.

    Sometimes you can blame DC for not being persistent in their use of characters...and sometimes it's possible there is nothing really there to work with. We had Perez's Steve and Etta for like 24 years, and nobody seemed eager to do anything with them. Until Simone, and she had to inject some Golden Age into Etta's personality to get something worth reading, which says it all.

    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    Good thing this doesn't apply to the Kapatelis..
    They were her main supporting cast in that run, at least in Man's World. More so than the guy who used to be her boyfriend and the woman who was her best friend and sidekick, who were both shunted off to the side. It totally applied to them.
    Last edited by SiegePerilous02; 02-10-2018 at 11:04 AM.

  5. #110
    The Detective Man The Dying Detective's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Location
    Look East
    Posts
    4,513

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by SiegePerilous02 View Post
    Like Dying Detective said, if he wanted to focus on his own cast, that's fine. But why even use Steve and Etta at all? They were just dead weight in his run. The problem is that he used them and created underwhelming versions of them, so it would be impossible for future writers to utilize the classic versions and their history even if they wanted to. It's why they shouldn't have rebooted at all, and just written Steve and Etta out of the book for a while with their histories intact if they weren't going to be focused on anyway. It'd be far easier to bring them back.

    Sometimes you can blame DC for not being persistent in their use of characters...and sometimes it's possible there is nothing really there to work with. We had Perez's Steve and Etta for like 24 years, and nobody seemed eager to do anything with them. Until Simone, and she had to inject some Golden Age into Etta's personality to get something worth reading, which says it all.
    Or he could have done what DC did with Jason Todd in the reboot and make Steve and Etta their own characters worthy of garnering interest. But instead Etta was reduced to being a painfully shallow woman who was difficult to look at. And Steve had his chances to be more interesting taken away by the Greek gods and his own mother who had no staying power not even her legacy was worth talking about after twenty four years since her debut.


    Quote Originally Posted by SiegePerilous02 View Post
    They were her main supporting cast in that run, at least in Man's World. More so than the guy who used to be her boyfriend and the woman who was her best friend and sidekick, who were both shunted off to the side. It totally applied to them.
    I'm totally with you on this one.
    "Excellent!" I cried. "Elementary," said he

  6. #111
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Posts
    34,000

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by SiegePerilous02 View Post
    Like Dying Detective said, if he wanted to focus on his own cast, that's fine. But why even use Steve and Etta at all? They were just dead weight in his run. The problem is that he used them and created underwhelming versions of them, so it would be impossible for future writers to utilize the classic versions and their history even if they wanted to. It's why they shouldn't have rebooted at all, and just written Steve and Etta out of the book for a while with their histories intact if they weren't going to be focused on anyway. It'd be far easier to bring them back.
    Let's say he did that. Do you really think the fandom still wouldn't have complained that Steve and Etta weren't around? It's easy to say he shouldn't have used them if his version were supposedly so underwhelming but I can definitely see a case where their exclusion is still met with hostility.

    Quote Originally Posted by SiegePerilous02 View Post
    Sometimes you can blame DC for not being persistent in their use of characters...and sometimes it's possible there is nothing really there to work with. We had Perez's Steve and Etta for like 24 years, and nobody seemed eager to do anything with them. Until Simone, and she had to inject some Golden Age into Etta's personality to get something worth reading, which says it all.
    I was referring to the Kapatelis with your comment about enduring characters.



    Quote Originally Posted by SiegePerilous02 View Post
    They were her main supporting cast in that run, at least in Man's World. More so than the guy who used to be her boyfriend and the woman who was her best friend and sidekick, who were both shunted off to the side. It totally applied to them.
    His claim was that they were pet characters that were not well liked and focused on unreasonably. Being called pet characters implies only Perez liked them. Not the case. Like I said, that term is tossed about far too liberally on message boards.

  7. #112
    The Detective Man The Dying Detective's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Location
    Look East
    Posts
    4,513

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    Let's say he did that. Do you really think the fandom still wouldn't have complained that Steve and Etta weren't around? It's easy to say he shouldn't have used them if his version were supposedly so underwhelming but I can definitely see a case where their exclusion is still met with hostility.
    That's why it was imperative that Perez prioritised making Steve and Etta as interesting and important as possible or else they become dead weight. Now anyone who reads that run past and present will just do their best to ignore them due how uninteresting they were. It's the mark of a good storyteller to make sure everything is interesting and has a purpose.
    Last edited by The Dying Detective; 02-11-2018 at 12:50 AM.
    "Excellent!" I cried. "Elementary," said he

  8. #113
    Ultimate Member SiegePerilous02's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Posts
    15,234

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    Let's say he did that. Do you really think the fandom still wouldn't have complained that Steve and Etta weren't around? It's easy to say he shouldn't have used them if his version were supposedly so underwhelming but I can definitely see a case where their exclusion is still met with hostility.
    There's always parts of the fandom that complain. I don't think he was too concerned with being met with hostility regarding their absence because they weren't featured too prominently anyway. When reading it, one gets the impression he included them only because they were classic elements with relative name recognition but didn't have any roles in mind for them. That's not good at all for a foundation story. For example, Steve crashes on the island long after Diana wins the contest and is in the process of leaving. The issue where he crashes is basically filler. It's so poorly constructed.

    I don't know if there is anything "supposed" about how underwhelming they are. They faded into the background fairly quickly when Perez left with no one eager to use them. Morrison and Renee De Liz also didn't go for those versions in their out of continuity tales. Etta especially is pretty clearly a favorite of theirs, and they didn't go with her post-Crisis counterpart. That says a lot.


    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    I was referring to the Kapatelis with your comment about enduring characters.
    In that case, they had to make Vanessa the Swan in order to have something interesting enough to bring her and her mother back and make them enduring. As of now, she's known more for being the Swan than anything else prior to that. Which is unfortunate in the case of her current Rebirth incarnation. If that hadn't happened, I imagine DC would be content with Byrne's Suspiciously Similar Substitutes (the Sandsmarks) being Diana's only mother and teenage daughter friends.



    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    His claim was that they were pet characters that were not well liked and focused on unreasonably. Being called pet characters implies only Perez liked them. Not the case. Like I said, that term is tossed about far too liberally on message boards.
    Saying they were not well liked at the time is indeed false or at the very least very subjective. I also don't think Perez should have been prevented from creating new characters, as that's what these franchises need to survive. But a whole new cast with a brand new continuity has proved to be a deadly combination with Wonder Woman more than once. Superman's reboot was problematic as well, but at least his core supporting cast remained the same which is why the endure more and his world has (slightly) more consistency. Perez made it so that Steve was not only no longer her boyfriend and Etta was no longer her best friend, but they never were. Like I said before, it would have been better if the overhaul of the title didn't come with a reboot. It would have been simpler to write them out of the book for a while if they didn't have an immediate purpose and leave their histories intact, as it would be easier to bring them back if so desired.

  9. #114
    The Detective Man The Dying Detective's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Location
    Look East
    Posts
    4,513

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by SiegePerilous02 View Post
    In that case, they had to make Vanessa the Swan in order to have something interesting enough to bring her and her mother back and make them enduring. As of now, she's known more for being the Swan than anything else prior to that. Which is unfortunate in the case of her current Rebirth incarnation. If that hadn't happened, I imagine DC would be content with Byrne's Suspiciously Similar Substitutes (the Sandsmarks) being Diana's only mother and teenage daughter friends.
    And Cassie wound up being more well known than Vanessa and even became the second Wonder Girl you know what would have been interesting if Vanessa and Cassie were best friends turned rivals for Diana's attention and which transforms Vanessa into the Silver Swan and becomes enemies with Cassie. Still if becoming the Silver Swan was the only rout available to revitalise Vanessa Kapatelis it kind of shows how weak her character really was compared to Cassie though can anyone imagine her being Wonder Girl?




    Quote Originally Posted by SiegePerilous02 View Post
    Saying they were not well liked at the time is indeed false or at the very least very subjective. I also don't think Perez should have been prevented from creating new characters, as that's what these franchises need to survive. But a whole new cast with a brand new continuity has proved to be a deadly combination with Wonder Woman more than once. Superman's reboot was problematic as well, but at least his core supporting cast remained the same which is why the endure more and his world has (slightly) more consistency. Perez made it so that Steve was not only no longer her boyfriend and Etta was no longer her best friend, but they never were. Like I said before, it would have been better if the overhaul of the title didn't come with a reboot. It would have been simpler to write them out of the book for a while if they didn't have an immediate purpose and leave their histories intact, as it would be easier to bring them back if so desired.
    In other words despite giving Steve Trevor the role of liaison he so messed up he completely unusable even under George Perez. And Etta was hardly Diana's friend man this run really left a bad impression for both Etta and Steve in the coming years.
    "Excellent!" I cried. "Elementary," said he

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •