December 30, 2011 11:16 am I think much of the new costume is to tie the comic character to the design for the Young Justice version. I'm fairly disappointed with the New 52 version of Teen Titans. The time compression brought on by the reboot and eradicating of big evens like Crisis and the death of Superman and who-knows-what changes to Wonder Woman's continuity makes most of these characters' histories (and thus, past development) pretty irrelevant. Tim and Conner, especially, had become such richly developed characters and it all feels like such a waste.
December 26, 2011 12:40 am You completely left out his great turn in the supporting cast of Birds of Prey. He really distanced himself from the joke of a character that he'd become. It was the growth of the character in that series that made his death hit so hard.
October 12, 2011 3:19 pm I love the Shadow. I first got into it via radio dramas starring Orson Welles. Much like the Green Hornet, I think The Shadow is "of a time" and I think is best successful when working within that time. I did, however, really like the late 80s/early 90s DC series that I've been able to get my hands on, especially the Chaykin miniseries which did a pretty good job of updating the mythos. I even dug the Alec Baldwin movie. I also have a great affection for The Green Hornet which I discovered via the radio dramas and the NOW Comics series that came out when I was a kid. The new movie and series seem to range from mediocre to crap except for the Matt Wagner-penned Year One series and the Kato spin-off. I'm not sure why these character need to be updated, though. No one thought there needed to be an updated Lone Ranger or Zorro. Unless an updated Shadow is super-gritty and avoids the tropes of flashy gimmicks and technology, a lot of these characters that started out as a regular guy who punches and shoots people tend to get pretty silly when someone tries to "superhero" them up.
I picked up most of the entire run of the old Vigilante series from the 80s when I was working at a comic shop in high school and loved it. I'm excited that Wolfman is back writing this. I really dug the Bruce Jones mini but was never sure if that was in continuity or not.
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilante_(comics) for more info.
Well, the only problem with Hawkman's continuity is the "whatever happend to Katar Hol" question. The recent Hawkman series (morphing into Hawkgirl for "one year later"). I was an avid Hawkworld reader and it was really great and I never had a continuity problem. They defined the relationship between Carter and Katar the same way they define the relationship between Alan Scott and Hal Jordan. That's what they lifted for the animated series. Thangarian's had come to Earth in ancient Egypt and exposing ancient Khufu and Chay-Ara to nth metal at the times of their deaths started this reincarnation thing. They used to tie Thangarian technology into some mystical stuff. Katar and Shayera showed up while the golden age characters were in limbo fighting ragnarok as Thanagarian police. The fact that everyone's name is similar is just kind of coincidence. Shayera died (I believe) just before that in a pretty awesome storyline in Hawkworld. The problem was Zero Hour when Golden Age Hawkman/Hawkgirl along with alternative universe Hawks merged with Katar Hol forming the "Hawk God". That's when everything turned to crap. Post-Zero Hour I remember Hawkman Katar Hol living in an abandoned church steeple which with weird bird eyes. He could also talk to and control birds. Then I think the series was unceremoniously cancelled because I don't remember a story after that. I think there were plans to restart the series at some point after that but it never happened.
The latest Hawk-series was really good and basically sidestepped all of this by saying the new Hawkman was Carter Hall. He had somehow been reincarnated on Thanagar with dark hair like Katar. The whole Hawk God thing was kind of retconned out which was fine because it was stupid. Again, it went to shit with Rann-Thanagar and never recovered. I've been waiting for some sort of annual or special or Who's Who to sort all this out. I think it will take some star writer who really cares about the character to lay down the law at DC and say "this is Hawkman's story and that's the end of it".
August 18, 2008 6:03 pm I just can't imagine anyone else doing Frank the right way. Ennis turned him into one of the best developed and complex characters in comics in such a complete way over the entire run of the comic. I though the Annual was ok but it didn't blow me away. I'd almost rather they just ended it.
I really don't understand what this power is that Grant Morrison has over the geek comic buying public. He writes stuff that doesn't make sense with no explanation as to how it came about. When other writers do that its called "bad writing". When he does it, it gets acknowledged as not making sense but somehow its cool.
"Its a little known fact that death can't go faster than the speed of light..." What the hell is that? A little known fact of the DC Universe that he just made up that doesn't make any sense. And if Jay has known this little known fact then he'd have known that Barry hasn't been dead at all for the last 20 years.
What about Orion's death? He was dead already but reanimated at the end of Death of the New Gods. There's still be no satisfactory explanation between what happened at the end of that and FC #1.
Lex Luthor walks in on Libra going bananas on Human Flame and it gets accepted as a comic beat? Luthor is supposed to be a genius but certainly hasn't been acting like it.
How is Superman keeping Lois' heart going with his heat vision? How exactly is that supposed to work? Besides explaining that Superman has been M.I.A, that makes no sense.
S.H.A.D.E. - I really liked the Uncle Sam series but had no clue has to how that fit into continuity. I wasn't sure it did or thought it was maybe on an alternate Earth. But now the covert government organization with the most contrived name (obviously the acronym came first) is the S.H.I.E.L.D of DC and it employs guys in medieval radiation proof armor that ride giant dalmations. The whole Bludhaven thing hasn't made sense since about 20 minutes after Chemo got dropped. The Atomic Knights were a cool idea when they were on a post-apocalyptic world whose society had devolved to feudal city-states. You've got to give me some kind of idea as to where these things come from and they have to make sense in the world in which the events are taking place. So much of this series and Batman RIP doesn't.
Oh yeah, and a spam virus that ends the world? Kind of like interfacing your laptop with an alien space ship. Give me a break. Ohmigawd, I've got the anti-life equation in my Hotmail! And Morrison is a genius for referencing Cosmic Odyssey? Name a comic appearance of Darkseid in the past 15 years that hasn't centered around his quest for the anti-life equation which is sometimes an actual equation, sometimes a power to wield, and sometimes an entity with a personality.
February 25, 2008 10:51 pm This series has by far been the best thing to come out of 52 (and I'm including Countdown in that). It has been so under promoted. I'd love to see Rucka with a real Question series and bring back some of that GCPD magic with a little touch of creepiness thrown in. I'd really like to see the new Question and the new Spectre have an encounter together (speaking of really great wasted characters...)
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I picked up most of the entire run of the old Vigilante series from the 80s when I was working at a comic shop in high school and loved it. I'm excited that Wolfman is back writing this. I really dug the Bruce Jones mini but was never sure if that was in continuity or not.
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilante_(comics) for more info.
Well, the only problem with Hawkman's continuity is the "whatever happend to Katar Hol" question. The recent Hawkman series (morphing into Hawkgirl for "one year later"). I was an avid Hawkworld reader and it was really great and I never had a continuity problem. They defined the relationship between Carter and Katar the same way they define the relationship between Alan Scott and Hal Jordan. That's what they lifted for the animated series. Thangarian's had come to Earth in ancient Egypt and exposing ancient Khufu and Chay-Ara to nth metal at the times of their deaths started this reincarnation thing. They used to tie Thangarian technology into some mystical stuff. Katar and Shayera showed up while the golden age characters were in limbo fighting ragnarok as Thanagarian police. The fact that everyone's name is similar is just kind of coincidence. Shayera died (I believe) just before that in a pretty awesome storyline in Hawkworld. The problem was Zero Hour when Golden Age Hawkman/Hawkgirl along with alternative universe Hawks merged with Katar Hol forming the "Hawk God". That's when everything turned to crap. Post-Zero Hour I remember Hawkman Katar Hol living in an abandoned church steeple which with weird bird eyes. He could also talk to and control birds. Then I think the series was unceremoniously cancelled because I don't remember a story after that. I think there were plans to restart the series at some point after that but it never happened.
The latest Hawk-series was really good and basically sidestepped all of this by saying the new Hawkman was Carter Hall. He had somehow been reincarnated on Thanagar with dark hair like Katar. The whole Hawk God thing was kind of retconned out which was fine because it was stupid. Again, it went to shit with Rann-Thanagar and never recovered. I've been waiting for some sort of annual or special or Who's Who to sort all this out. I think it will take some star writer who really cares about the character to lay down the law at DC and say "this is Hawkman's story and that's the end of it".
I really don't understand what this power is that Grant Morrison has over the geek comic buying public. He writes stuff that doesn't make sense with no explanation as to how it came about. When other writers do that its called "bad writing". When he does it, it gets acknowledged as not making sense but somehow its cool.
"Its a little known fact that death can't go faster than the speed of light..." What the hell is that? A little known fact of the DC Universe that he just made up that doesn't make any sense. And if Jay has known this little known fact then he'd have known that Barry hasn't been dead at all for the last 20 years.
What about Orion's death? He was dead already but reanimated at the end of Death of the New Gods. There's still be no satisfactory explanation between what happened at the end of that and FC #1.
Lex Luthor walks in on Libra going bananas on Human Flame and it gets accepted as a comic beat? Luthor is supposed to be a genius but certainly hasn't been acting like it.
How is Superman keeping Lois' heart going with his heat vision? How exactly is that supposed to work? Besides explaining that Superman has been M.I.A, that makes no sense.
S.H.A.D.E. - I really liked the Uncle Sam series but had no clue has to how that fit into continuity. I wasn't sure it did or thought it was maybe on an alternate Earth. But now the covert government organization with the most contrived name (obviously the acronym came first) is the S.H.I.E.L.D of DC and it employs guys in medieval radiation proof armor that ride giant dalmations. The whole Bludhaven thing hasn't made sense since about 20 minutes after Chemo got dropped. The Atomic Knights were a cool idea when they were on a post-apocalyptic world whose society had devolved to feudal city-states. You've got to give me some kind of idea as to where these things come from and they have to make sense in the world in which the events are taking place. So much of this series and Batman RIP doesn't.
Oh yeah, and a spam virus that ends the world? Kind of like interfacing your laptop with an alien space ship. Give me a break. Ohmigawd, I've got the anti-life equation in my Hotmail! And Morrison is a genius for referencing Cosmic Odyssey? Name a comic appearance of Darkseid in the past 15 years that hasn't centered around his quest for the anti-life equation which is sometimes an actual equation, sometimes a power to wield, and sometimes an entity with a personality.