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  1. #436
    insulin4all CaptCleghorn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TooFlyToFail View Post
    Running away being good is the opposite of how Scot is portrayed. If anything he's portrayed as a coward, that's accepted that he's always going to be that, and he's fine as long as he's "free".

    I take it as either a neutral story; just a character study. Or a story that clearly there to show that Scot was never free, that no hero is all there. Which ties into his Crisis book. So a purposely depressing story, I guess.
    I'm a little defensive here, but is Scott really a coward? The suicide attempt not counted as that's often considered an act of cowardice.

    Scott strikes me as the "normal dude" among the New Gods cast. As a result he sticks out like a sore thumb and fits in much better with "real" people like Beetle and Booster. The series brilliantly combined the mundane with the extraordinary. If that wasn't appreciated by you, get out now. This isn't for you.

    My main problem was there was too much undefined about the entirety of the story. I could assume it's all "don't worry about it. it's just a story", but the near-entirety of the New Gods cast was killed and we all know they're popping up later elsewhere. Scott escapes. It's what he does. He puts himself into dangerous situations with a Batman level of prep time and hidden devices. So what are my questions?

    What was it Scott was supposed to be escaping? Was it a fake home life with Barda, or was it the war of the New Genesis/Apokalips situation?

    What was the purpose of the suicide attempt? Was it like Bruce Willis getting shot at the beginning of the Sixth Sense? If it was supposed to be a situation like that of the Lump or the plant from "For the Man Who Has Everything", the suicide seems a harsh part of a happy fantasy.

    Also, throughout the series Scott was lacking a couple of his moral guides in Oberon and Highfather. Removing them from the cast meant something.

    I dunno. I've heard this is kind of a followup to "Sheriff of Babylon" which seems odd, but whatevs. Proabbly worth me reading it anyway.

    In any case, it's nice seeing the varied and generally intelligent comments about this definitely thought provoking series.

  2. #437
    I am a diamond, Ms. Pryde millernumber1's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by whiterabbit View Post
    I'm sorry you feel hurt by the story. The truth is that our expectations and hitting the mark doesn't always happen with things we love. George Lucas made Star Wars and Steven Spielberg made Jaws, Gremlins, and ET, and they both together made Indiana Jones... and then Crystal Skull happened.

    This series wasn't a normal comic book story and it tried to do something different. It won't connect with everyone. If you're bummed out about Scott being dead then just remember that he's a god and they're impossible to kill for good. Plus, he's already openly said he can leave anytime he wants.
    I'm bummed because I'm not hurt, actually. I'm just kinda "meh." I do appreciate that it tried to do something different. My bummer with the "he's dead" interpretation is that it's so profoundly anti-heroic, and means he's still hurting Barda in his original reality instead of escaping.

    I love the idea of Scott trying to find balance with depression or trauma by living - but if he's doing that in a reality where his children and wife aren't real, that undercuts everything.

    Quote Originally Posted by HsssH View Post
    I read somewhere that King/Gerard considered this as a sequel The Sheriff of Babylon so it probably makes more sense to compare them with each other than with Omega Men or Vision.
    I've only read the second half of Sheriff, and that did kind of leave me "meh" as well.
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  3. #438
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    Quote Originally Posted by millernumber1 View Post

    I love the idea of Scott trying to find balance with depression or trauma by living - but if he's doing that in a reality where his children and wife aren't real, that undercuts everything.

    .
    I think the point is that Barda and Jake are real. If you notice, each of the Fourth World characters he sees tells him a different and often contradictory thing. “You’re in hell, you’re in heaven, you’re dead, none of this is real.” I don’t know why so many readers are assuming that any one of them is telling Scott the truth. I think that it is supposed to echo the way that depression often “lies” to our brains about what’s really going on. The final issue showed a Scott Free who is living with that depression—not defeating it but managing it. Hence the lines on the final page “Yeah, Darkseid is, but so are we.” They’re not going to ignore Scott’s trauma but they’re not going to let themselves be defined by it.

  4. #439
    I am a diamond, Ms. Pryde millernumber1's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RJT View Post
    I think the point is that Barda and Jake are real. If you notice, each of the Fourth World characters he sees tells him a different and often contradictory thing. “You’re in hell, you’re in heaven, you’re dead, none of this is real.” I don’t know why so many readers are assuming that any one of them is telling Scott the truth. I think that it is supposed to echo the way that depression often “lies” to our brains about what’s really going on. The final issue showed a Scott Free who is living with that depression—not defeating it but managing it. Hence the lines on the final page “Yeah, Darkseid is, but so are we.” They’re not going to ignore Scott’s trauma but they’re not going to let themselves be defined by it.
    Hmm. But how does that work with the static effects - is that just a sympton of the depression/trauma? And why do Barda's eyes change color?
    "We're the same thing, you and I. We're both lies that eventually became the truth." Lara Notsil, Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
    "All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
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  5. #440
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    Quote Originally Posted by millernumber1 View Post
    Hmm. But how does that work with the static effects - is that just a sympton of the depression/trauma? And why do Barda's eyes change color?
    I think the events of the miniseries act as a metaphor for trauma/depression, rather than a literal depiction of them. Given we are dealing with a group of characters who are gods and exist simulatenously on different planes of existence (eg Final Crisis/Death of the New Gods or Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle) it’s probably a mistake to assume everything falls on one side of the “real/not real” ledger.

    The emotional journey that Scott goes through is very real. That’s all that matters

  6. #441
    insulin4all CaptCleghorn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RJT View Post
    I think the events of the miniseries act as a metaphor for trauma/depression, rather than a literal depiction of them. Given we are dealing with a group of characters who are gods and exist simulatenously on different planes of existence (eg Final Crisis/Death of the New Gods or Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle) it’s probably a mistake to assume everything falls on one side of the “real/not real” ledger.

    The emotional journey that Scott goes through is very real. That’s all that matters
    So Scott's journey and challenges and how he adapts to them are what matters and we should not focus on details? That's not a great way of phrasing it, but I think I get what you're saying and it's an interesting way of reading the story. If this is the case, I suspect this is amuch deeper and well planned series than potentially any others I've read in my decades of funny booking.

    I imagine meeting Tom King at a convention and managing to get him out for a beer afterwards. I look at him and ask "WTF was up with Mister Miracle?" He, of course would look at me and reply, "What do you think was up with it?"

  7. #442
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    Quote Originally Posted by CaptCleghorn View Post
    So Scott's journey and challenges and how he adapts to them are what matters and we should not focus on details? That's not a great way of phrasing it, but I think I get what you're saying and it's an interesting way of reading the story. If this is the case, I suspect this is amuch deeper and well planned series than potentially any others I've read in my decades of funny booking.

    I imagine meeting Tom King at a convention and managing to get him out for a beer afterwards. I look at him and ask "WTF was up with Mister Miracle?" He, of course would look at me and reply, "What do you think was up with it?"
    Kirby definitely created and used the characters from the Fourth World for their symbolic and metaphoric power; many of the characters have direct connections to his own life (Funky Flashman being only the most obvious example.)
    They are also characters who have not always fared as well under other creatorsÂ’ pens when those creators treated the Fourth World as another superhero universe, or an techno-update of Asgard. Things such as the Source and the Anti-Life equation work best on that metaphoric level. When other creators have tried to apply logic to them or tried to devise explanations for them, they lose a lot of their power. I think King knew this when he chose to write about Mister Miracle: using these characters as allegory.
    In the Washington Post article, King talks about the panic attack he suffered that informed this series. He thought he was having a heart attack even though physically his heart was fine. But our brain, when ill, can lie to our bodies, and I think that “explains” a lot of what happens in the series. If we look at the book as a metaphor for PTSD or depression, whether what Scott experiences is “real” or not is entirely beside the point. It’s real to him, it has as real an effect on him as anything else. Using the Fourth World characters instead of Hawkman or Flash was a canny choice because of their metaphoric power but also because they’ve been shown to exist beyond life and death or even beyond our understanding of the multiverse—while it’s been shown there’s a Batman on nearly every parallel earth, there is only ever one Darkseid—allows King and Gerard to sidestep a lot of continuity questions that would creep up if this were a Batman story.

  8. #443
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    Quote Originally Posted by millernumber1 View Post
    Hmm. But how does that work with the static effects - is that just a sympton of the depression/trauma? And why do Barda's eyes change color?
    i only read first issue so my opinion means very little but it's not even just the eye colour change. One panel he is hooked up to a machine and next panel he is being wheeled out of the hospital which felt deliberately jarring and then to emphasise it even more that what we are seeing isnt "right" (because of jarring time between panels) then the eye colours comment. That's how I saw it but then i fell off quick because I felt the story rightly or wrongly was just going to be "and it was all a dream. The End."

    Book looked killer tho

  9. #444
    insulin4all CaptCleghorn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by iron chimp View Post
    i only read first issue so my opinion means very little but it's not even just the eye colour change. One panel he is hooked up to a machine and next panel he is being wheeled out of the hospital which felt deliberately jarring and then to emphasise it even more that what we are seeing isnt "right" (because of jarring time between panels) then the eye colours comment. That's how I saw it but then i fell off quick because I felt the story rightly or wrongly was just going to be "and it was all a dream. The End."

    Book looked killer tho
    The bolded part was something many of us believed. Oberon and Highfather were dead. It seemed like a typical comic book story, but the details and styling in it were so good that we went with it anyway. That's where a lot of our confusion with the ending came about. We expected a simple answer explaining it all and boom, there is no simple answer. More reasoning for the mature rating, I suppose.

  10. #445
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    Quote Originally Posted by CaptCleghorn View Post
    The bolded part was something many of us believed. Oberon and Highfather were dead. It seemed like a typical comic book story, but the details and styling in it were so good that we went with it anyway. That's where a lot of our confusion with the ending came about. We expected a simple answer explaining it all and boom, there is no simple answer. More reasoning for the mature rating, I suppose.
    Yes it was clear that they had put a lot of thought and effort into creating the book and whilst i dont think the story was for me, it did look a quality production which a lot of people enjoyed or at least engaged with till the end. You can ask no more of a book than that!

  11. #446
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    Was not a satisfiying ending for me. But I love Barda, it’s all about Barda, so, overall, I still enjoyed it.
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  12. #447
    insulin4all CaptCleghorn's Avatar
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    I don't think it's been mentioned but the second page of the last issue is a direct copy of the Bobby Ewing shower scene.

    Last edited by CaptCleghorn; 11-19-2018 at 08:17 AM.

  13. #448
    Astonishing Member TooFlyToFail's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CaptCleghorn View Post
    I'm a little defensive here, but is Scott really a coward? The suicide attempt not counted as that's often considered an act of cowardice.

    Scott strikes me as the "normal dude" among the New Gods cast. As a result he sticks out like a sore thumb and fits in much better with "real" people like Beetle and Booster. The series brilliantly combined the mundane with the extraordinary. If that wasn't appreciated by you, get out now. This isn't for you.

    My main problem was there was too much undefined about the entirety of the story. I could assume it's all "don't worry about it. it's just a story", but the near-entirety of the New Gods cast was killed and we all know they're popping up later elsewhere. Scott escapes. It's what he does. He puts himself into dangerous situations with a Batman level of prep time and hidden devices. So what are my questions?

    What was it Scott was supposed to be escaping? Was it a fake home life with Barda, or was it the war of the New Genesis/Apokalips situation?

    What was the purpose of the suicide attempt? Was it like Bruce Willis getting shot at the beginning of the Sixth Sense? If it was supposed to be a situation like that of the Lump or the plant from "For the Man Who Has Everything", the suicide seems a harsh part of a happy fantasy.

    Also, throughout the series Scott was lacking a couple of his moral guides in Oberon and Highfather. Removing them from the cast meant something.

    I dunno. I've heard this is kind of a followup to "Sheriff of Babylon" which seems odd, but whatevs. Proabbly worth me reading it anyway.

    In any case, it's nice seeing the varied and generally intelligent comments about this definitely thought provoking series.
    In regards to the cowardice, I agree with you that he's the "normal guy", because a normal person would be broken by the things he's gone through and would make sure they never experience such things again.

    Out of fear. Personally, I don't see cowardice as solely a negative. It may also be the appropriate response.

  14. #449
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    You know what I liked more about Vision compared to this book? It had an actual ending that tied things up.

  15. #450
    insulin4all CaptCleghorn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TooFlyToFail View Post
    In regards to the cowardice, I agree with you that he's the "normal guy", because a normal person would be broken by the things he's gone through and would make sure they never experience such things again.

    Out of fear. Personally, I don't see cowardice as solely a negative. It may also be the appropriate response.
    I think we're having a difference of opinion of the word "cowardice". I'm looking upon it strictly as a negative, where the fear of confrontation, or effort,, or something else is more than is needed to live life. Bravery is still possible with retreat. Many are brave who retreat and avoid confrontation.

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