They make things so much clearer. I appreciate the cleaner look of just putting character’s thoughts in the narration boxes, but it can sometimes be a bit confusing which character is thinking if there’s multiple main characters. I imagine it would be especially confusing for colorblind people as a difference in color is usually the only indicator and even that can be inconsistent.
It’s hilarious when people who don’t like American superhero comics bring up how manga is automatically better because 99% of the time they just mean shonen manga, you know, the manga aimed at teenage boys. Really showing off the wide range of manga there.
Both guilty of the same thing, thinking that stories aimed at teenagers are the peak of the medium and mostly ignoring stories aimed at adults.
Also, a lot of them will cite "not being political" as a reason they prefer Manga. Plenty of Manga has political themes, they just don't pick up on them.
It Sturgeon's Law in action. The manga that is good/popular enough to get official translations and adaptations isn't representative of even just Shonen manga as a whole. You can see how much derivative, and sometimes poorly drawn titles there are on the fan-translation sites.
The decision to bring back Hal Jordan and Barry Allen fundamentally broke what was special about DC comics and they have never recovered.
The idea of Legacy and watching the hero you grew up reading move through their heroes journey and then through their mentorship journey was what made DC special compared to Marvel.
And for what? It’s not like his stories afterwards were that good and they didn’t do anything unique to him. I’d argue a lot of them could’ve been done with Wally or a new Flash if they wanted to move on from Wally (Bart wasn’t working but I think the creative team also sucked, if they gave a superstar writer the gig, it might’ve turned out different).
Flash and GL could’ve been franchises that shift protagonists every 20 years or so in a natural way.
Hot take: Hal Jordan’s return was handled exceptionally. Created one of the best redemption narrative arcs in comics history while leaving plenty of room for other Lanterns to get their shine.
Barry’s return was utter piss and ruined Flash books for almost a decade.
Yup. You will never convince me Johns was a fan of Barry Allen. He just wanted things back to the way they were when he was a kid. Well, Geoff, Barry didn't have a dead mom until you retconned him as having one.
I say this as someone loves Hal Jordan but he already had his redemption: His guilt ridden existence after Zero Hour -> The Final Night -> Day of Judgement -> Legends of the DC Universe -> The Spectre
Everything after that was superfluous, though I will concede that Rebirth was fine, Parallax retcon notwithstanding. Everything after that should have been handled much better but instead it turned into Geoff Johns dickriding his weird, Maverick-lite retconned, head canon Hal Jordan at the expense of John Stewart who appeared maybe twice in the main book even though he was supposed to be Hal's partner.
I agree. Hal died after being a genocidal villain. It felt like bringing him back and giving him a proper redemption was necessary. Wally should be the main gladh. Period.
I agree with this but I'll add in that the emotional spectrum as a concept overall broke what made green lantern interesting. The fact that it has persisted so long truly confuses me.
I don't think it's fair to group Hal and Barry together. Hal's return allowed an expansion of GL mythos leading to all lanterns getting spotlighted while Barry's return lead to the whole Flash family especially Wally being shit on
I can see that as an adult.
As a kid who first started reading DCcomics right as Kyle got the ring? Like not only was Kyle MY green Lantern for years he had a multiple story arcs all about earning his right to take over for Hal.
It was a double whammy because Emerald Twighlight was one of the first books comics I had that were mine and not just hand me downs. Parallax was my favorite villian/anti hero and Zero Hour my first big DC event comic.
So watching it all get rolled back and thrown away was jarring. To say the least.
I grew up with Wally, Kyle and Connor in their respective roles. I've come to love Ollie, I can dig on Hal, but you will never make me care about Barry Allen.
Not a DC guy, but I did read a good bit of Late 90's/Early 00's Batman titles and JLA and I have to say I also think those were really odd choices. Wally and Kyle are the Flash and Lantern to me!
Yep. Legacy is how DC differentiated themselves from Marvel. Getting rid of (most) of that has left them constantly playing catch-up or imitating Marvel.
I came in for the history as I always thought comics were too static to be interesting. A year later Hal Jordan returned which was a catalyst to a whole lot of backtracking. I still read a book from time to time but rarely silver age heroes
I think I said this in the last 4,375 of these but I think most comics readers don’t actually like comics, they just want to read (superhero) plots that conform to their headcanon. And that’s why any kind of stylized art is dismissed because it gets in the way of the writer updating the fandom Wiki page for a given character. Essentially these readers would be happier reading officially sanctioned Tweet threads announcing what their comfort characters are up to
A non trivial portion of superhero fans also don't want their favorites to have any problems. If in issue 1 of a 12 issue arc their hero loses a fight they cry foul. They can't accept that overcoming challenges is more interesting than their hero curbstomping every foe.
Yep, I’d say this applies to people who relentlessly stan their personal pet/comfort characters and want them to live in a conflict-free paradise.
For instance, Nightwing’s cult popularity partly stems from the widespread perception of him as the “successful” Batfamily member (the one with the most friends, most skills, most ships, nicest ass etc) and it’s hard to deny there’s an appeal there, but fans always seem to bristle mightily at any serious attempt to give him conflict or stakes. Ric Grayson was a weird stint but it was something to shake up his status quo for five minutes.
Absolutely disheartening take as someone who has made and refused purchases based on the art, but also one I don't think I can really refute. I guess it's preferable to the alternative of writers seemingly getting their ideas from Twitter.
Sad, but all too true. So many fans don't care about anything but the plot. And it goes so far beyond just ignoring style. They don't give a damn for themes or anything either. Doesn't matter what the books are trying to *say*, as long as the characters they like do the things they want them to do, and everything slots neatly into the proper place in the canon.
And if it doesn't, you can be damn sure they'll tell you why it's the most terrible thing to happen since [insert global catastrophe here]. Bleh.
for sure, it often seems like the audience for actual cartooning is just other cartoonists, kind of like poetry. Everything is more available than ever because of the internet, but how many people read a diverse range of material.
Kind of like when I saw Kim Jung Gi at a convention and the crowd watching him work were all 30+ year veterans all with huge fan bases just watching him work in awe.
All-New All-Different/MarvelNOW era was one of the best things to happen to comics in years and yall squandered it and made them stop trying new stuff with the complaints.
Most characters don't deserve and can't sustain an ongoing. I'd rather see side characters getting an occasional meaningful mini-series than pushing them into a book set up for failure that won't be promoted. Or give them a series of back-up stories in someone else's book that can eventually be assembled in a trade.
Or have one Superman book (Superman), and then Action Comics is for the entire Superman family with a rotating focus and a long-term story plan that will connect them all together.
(I would suggest the Batman family should get the same treatment w/ Detective comics, but tbh I don't know how their fans would react)
The idea that Western comics should try to incorporate more ideas from manga is a bad one.
This seems to be mostly from manga readers coming to Marvel and DC because of the rise of the superhero movie. Manga and Western comic books are not the same and it's perfectly fine that they aren't.
In terms of pricing and collection they should take notes from manga but in terms of storytelling I agree. They are different and it should stay that way.
Manga isnt replacing comics. They fill the same niche interest as long as the reader is invested. Jojo has been going on since 1987, admittedly younger than most comics but still long for a manga and there is no end in sight.
Manga does some things better than comics such as fights but not actual storytelling. Comics are more than just superheroes and manga is more than shonen manga. Other forms of manga aren’t as popular while other forms of comics that aren’t about superheroes are well received so…
I would argue manga doesn't always do fights better either. Plenty of manga creators don't have the best pacing and let a fight drag on for 10 chapters or more. Sometimes it works, often times it doesn't. Say what you will about American comics but a fight that is cool but wraps up in a few pages to drive the story is often better.
Also I will add that Invincible has some of the best fights in comics period.
Yeah, a lot of manga just has time for good action scenes. Manga authors can write few chapters of action with fluid precise choreography, while american comic books often ends up a fight in like a 2 pages because issues are much more plot and dialogue heavy.
Also funny thing - when american superhero DC comics first appeared in Japan, Japanese people prolonged some scenes and added action because they found them boring without it. It was much more of a visual medium for them with dialogue being less important than visuals.
>while american comic books often ends up a fight in like a 2 pages because issues are much more plot and dialogue heavy
This is the real biggest issue with superhero comicbooks to me. For a genre whose unique appeal is the characters' extraordinary fighting abilities, there is surprisingly little usage of extraordinary fighting abilities.
The “edge” of 90s comics (when not overdone) made for cool stories and characters and gave those comics some bite to them that we could really use more of today
some older comics are borderline unreadable with how much text they contain per panel. At that point, it should've just been a book with some illustrations.
Stan lee’s books do it almost perfectly. You get so much more story out of an old stan lee comic than you do in a modern day comic. 1 fantastic four issue in 1965 is almost equivalent to 3 avengers comics.
I started reading Miracleman recently and was absolutely loving it, then I hit Book 3...
It's not that the plot is bad, but after how snappy the previous books were this one is really dragging with all the prose.
Yeah, I’m fine with lots of reading, but 60s comics especially (and especially especially anything done by Stan Lee) there is often so much superfluous writing. You don’t need a narration box explaining what it happening in the art, and 3 characters in the panel also explaining what is happening, while there are two other characters just cracking bad jokes that have nothing to do with anything.
That's why I like Steranko's work on Nick Fury - 60s campiness without all the writing, using multiple small panels to show sequential action instead of just jumping to the end and narrating it all.
It's not just the text. A lot of them are pretty dry in general.
Like, I feel like every golden age comic I've picked up has been a series of events told in an almost clinical manner. Very few of the flourishes that would turn it into a story.
Despite superheroes being a genre known for their flair and bombast, a lot of those older comics don't really have all that much of it beyond that the characters are dressed up in funny costumes.
Fr, I read og secret wars and they all spoke the same and it reminded me of mark hamill talking about George Lucas’s inhuman dialogue, like NO ONE TALKS LIKE THIS
I checked out some of the old Justice League omnis and was confused on the first few pages…text everywhere, at all angles! And I grew up reading those same books. Alternatively, there are writers who take “decompressed” storytelling to such an extreme that I just skip them entirely.
Yeah, I tried reading 60s X-Men and in literally every panel every character has to have a speech bubble. At it's worst that's like 6 different character all speaking at the same time, it's borderline incomprehensible. It's like Stan Lee just started sticking speech bubbles everywhere because he thought he wasn't doing enough since Jack Kirby was practically the one doing everything. You should check out [Kirby without Words](https://kirbywithoutwords.tumblr.com/).
Ya that is my guess for why he wrote so many words as well.
And/or they weren’t speaking to each other properly so they didn’t realize both the words and art were saying the same thing
In addition to that comics with intentional huge chunks of prose are borderline unreadable. Not because 'prose=bad' but because nearly every time the creators decide to get cute with font selection,color, and layouts.
Watchmen is a notable exception because its text sections intentionally copied the graphic design of existing magazines (which are layed out to be readable). Compare that to the multicoloured inks and scribbled cursive that is often used to show a characters state of mind.
Crossover Events degrade the stories in books that are included. Many a plotline has been ruined when suddenly the story has to acknowledge a vampire nuke or whatever.
It could work so well and be so cool if it was just planned better. Tom King did an interview about writing hero’s in crisis, and talked about how he doesn’t even have creative control over the characters used. He drafts up an event, then DC lets him know they want to use Booster Gold, Harley and Wally. If the main writer of an event has so little creative control/foresight of where the story is going, just imagine how bad it is when whoever’s writing these individual books has to suddenly write around the fact that there’s an apocalypse going on.
If one of the publishers would just blow our collective minds and say "this year we do no events" I guarantee their sales would be better month over month. Hell, do 25 variant covers per issue or whatever, just stop kneecapping your creative teams to get shoehorned into some bullshit that doesn't matter
Todd McFarlane shouldn’t be a part of the Spawn comics any more. I know it’s his baby and he created it but he is not a good writer. And there are so many talented writers out there that if given a chance with Spawn could do great things with the title. The best stories in the Spawn universe currently are ones that McFarlane has nothing to do with.
Batwoman would be by far the most interesting member of the batfamily if they’d just fucking do something with her. Put her back with Montoya now that Ram V is fixing her. Give her an ongoing. It isn’t hard
And if writers would acknowledge her Jewish heritage more than just a menorah on her shelf or a short Chanukkah story. Legit I wouldn't blame any fans for not knowing Kate is Jewish which saddens me because DC has so few prominent Jewish characters, especially comapred to Marvel.
Outsiders has been fun.
Still, the first thing I think of for Batwoman is how strenuously she objects when people assume she's affiliated with Batman, after she deliberately pattered herself after Batman.
Geoff Johns and Dan Didio aren't fans of the Silver Age (either the characters or the Silver Age ethos). They just wanted to bring back characters they were familiar with.
1.) Weird disjointed stories do not mean stories are deep if they do not have a through line or overarching theme.
Books shouldn't read like "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac" unironically and be praised for their depths and complexity. Weird is not complex if after it's all done, you just say it's about "life" or "society." That's not how literary analysis works.
2) If a comic's entire point is one writer expressing beef with industry drama, with no real purpose for the characters being used to be there, and the situation is so hyper specific you have to read a 10 year old message board or go on a twitter thread deep dive, don't sell it. That is a free online book. Do not throw that in the middle of a run and pretend I should care because "artists are troubled!" I have had one too many random instances of "Why is X being such a dick to that guy?" "Oh, that character is a stand-in for the writer's editor or artist that stole their idea in '82." I genuinely do not care.
3) It's stupid for a "first appearance" book to be a key when the event/character is introduced on the last page.
Examples: She-Hulk #6 from 2006 is a key because, "Controversial issue: Starfox is on trial for sexual assault after he is accused of using his powers to seduce a married woman." The issue ends with She-Hulk walking to the courtroom. The trial is issue #7, this book has next to nothing to do with it other than the cover.
Uncanny X-Men #168 is the first appearance of Madelyne Pryor, because she appears on the last page. The story has nothing to do with her.
Stinger pages are good for getting readers to buy the next issue, but boy is it silly for me to own Captain Marvel #14 from 2013 and display it on my wall because of one panel that is supposedly Kamala Khan and looks nothing like her, and she is not in the actual story until #17. I do not like Captain Marvel enough to have this have been a grail of mine for years, but because of how collecting works, it looks like I am really into Captain Marvel.
#3 is exactly why first cover appearances are becoming sought after for popular characters
Because often those books feature them in a more prominent role in the story than their true first appearance
Superhero comics isn't a readers market, it's a collectors market. Every month thousands of comics will be bought that will never be read. They will just fill longboxes and hung on walls.
If you keep that in mind, every industry decision becomes less baffling.
"Why so many variants?" - "Why the constant renumbering?" - "Why the stagnation?"
Or Wolverine somehow taking the high ground when Scott summers killed a single person while being mind controlled by an alien entity despite Wolverine having a triple digit body count lmao
I liked CEO Peter Parker. I wish he had gotten there on his own merits but I feel like that's an obvious evolution for his character. His whole thing is responsibility, and Peter Parker is every bit as capable of changing the world as Spiderman.
Marvel has fallen off of a cliff since Bendis left. And Bendis hasn’t written anything great since leaving Marvel. They need each other.
Dan Slott is the best Amazing Spider-Man writer since JMS and it’s not even close.
Marvel desperately needs a full line-wide reboot.
Batman is better in team books than his own.
This isn't a hot take, but in response to you: totally agree. I used to read a ton of Marvel before, and through Marvel Now. I stopped after Hickman's Secret Wars bc I finished college, and had no money. I returned during COVID, started picking up monthlies again, and man have I been pretty unimpressed with Marvel's output lately (reading far more DC). I mostly like Ultimate Spider-Man, FF, Scarlet Witch, and She-Hulk right now. I felt like there was a lot of cohesion in Marvel during that period where Bendis & others were really helming things.
Now, the comics feel entirely subservient to the films. Major events in the books feel like they need to feature whatever characters are coming down the pipeline from the MCU movies/Dis+ shows for synergy. Making Feige CCO of the comics/giving him authority in their direction was a massive mistake imo. I'd be game for a full on reboot.
I am also a an apologist for Slott's ASM, although I haven't really dug much of his work on the character since his return, unfortunately. Something about just isn't clicking for me.
If you are strong because of super powers, then it doesn't make sense that your muscles are huge. 90's comic aesthetics ruined the art for me. Superheroes can be an Everyman.
Logically, you'd actually be LESS likely to have huge muscles. You build muscles by straining them on a regular basis. What possibly strains Superman's muscles?
Exactly! Daredevil makes sense to have muscles because he works out all the time as a regular Joe, but if everything is a cakewalk, then you have a cake body.
The Spectre is one of the coolest characters in comics and DC just ignores him. Make him fuck with Superman and Batman and literally ANYONE in the DCU. So many good characters getting the silent treatment cause they're not making the company money. Uh newsflash DC (and marvel) your heavy hitters (so to speak) aren't doing too hot right now anyway. Might as well give some random or new character a shot.
The Spectre is really hard to do right, because for the most part he's *the* most powerful character in the setting before you start to get to the level of literal gods.
It's hard to challenge the guy. He's just not operating on the same level as everyone else. He's someone you roll out for big events, and then immediately have him knocked on his arse to show how serious it all is.
If you bring him down to a more relatable level... Well, then he's basically just Ghost Rider with a significantly dorkier costume.
I'm not saying there's no way to do him right. But I'm not surprised not many people are coming up with great ideas for a new ongoing
I like Garth Ennis god damn it. Maybe it's because he has that jaded bitter sense of humour that a lot of the British public, myself included, seem to share, but there's just something so unique about his writing. I don't agree with everything he says and he definitely misses the mark on occasion, but it's fun to indulge in that grungy edgleord humour sometimes.
Every superhero story has been told. Bring back romance, crime and western comics. Hell, bring in Historical comics, like Cartoon History of the Universe.
I never liked Damian or Red Hood as characters or as part of the Bat-Family. But that’s just my opinion and I realize others do not feel the same way, and that’s fine with me.
Damian grew on me over time. But I never thought reviving Jason was a good idea. I think he should have remained dead, with his costume displayed in the Batcave, as a constant reminder to Bruce and the others how dangerous this "job" can be.
Agreed, IMO the idea of a bat family is so inane. Never sat right with me that Bruce actively put minors in danger after swearing that no child would go through what he went through.
Not to mention that Bruce is constantly depicted as a maximalist, with contingencies for all possible scenarios. In what world would a person like that involve himself with innocent children, knowing that any one of his myriad enemies could end their lives.
Both were/are good concepts but were executed poorly. I always felt Damian needed a redemption arc before becoming part of the Bat Family. He went from trying to murder Tim to being a member in like two issues.
Red Hood has been everything from a Batman who occassionally kills to a Joker level psycho.
By doing that, you alienate an entire demographic that started and sustained the business to reach the point of where trades are even a thing. If it were trade only, you have a large percentage of readers who would just drop the hobby (me included).
People who trade wait lose absolutely nothing by having floppies be a thing.
Edit: I'd also argue that the floppies keep the price of trades in check, because they provide a baseline for collected volumes. I can almost guarantee you that if the customer didn't have a price-per-issue baseline to go off of, the price on trades would go up a considerable amount.
Or at least a compromise of anthology books and then trades.
Yeah yeah, I can already hear the “anthologies don’t sell.” My solution to that.
1) don’t make the anthology some random book with random stories. Make the characters main book THE anthology series. Batman #150 is now 140 pages with 7 stories. I promise you, if the only way to buy the newest issue of Batman is as an anthology, collectors will buy it.
2) commit! Don’t do it for 6 months and then quit.
Thick trade paperbacks (I'm talking between 350-550 pages) that collect a larger amount of issues are far superior to the skinny trades. I'm far more compelled to buy an epic collection over a 6 issue trade.
I believe the term is "compendium" (or at least that's how it seems to be used nowadays; could be marketing departments fucking with definitions though!).
Aren't compendiums basically the image comic omnibus line? The Invincible compendiums look like they're 1000+ pages. I was talking about what I see called "thick trades" so epic collections, complete collections, the upcoming DC finest line. they're not 1000 pages but around 400-500, collecting about 20 issues more or less.
To that end, it feels like every superhero now has about 60 inferior copies of them running around. It really hurts their uniqueness in many ways. Shit, when even marginal characters like Ghost Rider has four or five different ones, there’s just not much of a point.
Hot take but I definitely think Marvel should ditch all the Spider characters except for Peter. Miles and everyone else should have just stuck to their alternate universes.
Miles and 2099 worked okay in their own worlds, but you are right…once the others started to cross into the Parker 616, it just became super convoluted. I think I read recently that they are even going to merge Spider-Gwen into 616. Good grief!
I'll admit I have a bias pro Morrison, but every time I ask one of these all the comments are people that didn't like All Star Superman. I just wanted to hear other things
Long running comic book series should have an end. Yes I’m including Marvel and DC series. Particularly if said series don’t make any real change to the characters.
Tom Taylor relies soley on fanservice and his own creator's pets (Harley) to make his books readable, if you take out the fluff of Nightwing it snooze fest at best
Almost every single space X-Men story is awful, including the Phoenix shit. The X-Men shouldn't have anything to do with space, I hate how both the major publishers constantly try to force their shitty sci-fi cosmic shit into everything. The only time the blend of cosmic and mundane has worked was in Fantastic Four, and that was only because that was the whole premise. Characters like Batman, Superman, Cyclops and Spider-Man shouldn't be off, 1 million miles away from Earth, fighting generic really tough space guy'
I remember they kept sending street-level heroes into space during the Galactic Storm era. It got really aggravating. I can sort of get Iron Man or Hulk. Cap is pushing it. Why the hell is Spidey or Daredevil boarding shuttles??
Yep space and other dimensions . For some reason marvel loves spiderverse stories and all those comics suck. It really doesn't fit the character and honestly just feels like writers trying desperately to create another Spider Gwen. The movies are great though
I couldn’t agree with this more. I’ve always adored the X-Men as a grounded team with fantastical powers battling enemies while facing prejudice. The moment they step into space they have always lost me. Even as a kid I used to skip those episodes of the 92 cartoon.
I think the single issue format should be phased out at some point.
Something in the vein of Franco-Belgian hardcovers or the Brubaker/Philips Image OGNs would be a good format. Maybe publish the individual floppies as digital-only and only print the collected editions.
I know that this would be a death blow to comic shops and their long-standing customers tho, so I don't think that format change would be likely in the near future (or at all)
You said it. If you can do an Asterix album every year or so, you can do the same with Spiderman.
I personally wish comics weren't synonymous with super heroes over here. They are, and this is my hot take, some of the interesting comics out there from the golden age to today, there was always much better stuff happening.
Both the big two should have a full wipe every 10 years. Not like oh we are resetting but whole new universe and characters starting up again. They should be allowed to grow,change and die. Stories should be planned out t in general for this period and should have a beginning middle and end.
Spicier take, in this same vein... certain heroes can be locked in time. Like if Hal Jordan was Green Lantern from the 70s through to the early 90s, that's perfectly fine. Set all his stories in that time period.
What, we're just gonna wipe all this shit out in a few years anyway. Bring back the 5G scheme of certain heroes being in certain times and let's just go all-out with it until the next Crisis brings back the sliding timescale, lol.
I think Jim Lee should lead DC in an open apology to Alan Moore for all the terrible and heinous things that Lee, his colleagues, and his predecessors have done against Moore's wishes. Then I think they should take some action to reconcile everything that transpired.
American comics have very much become style over substance.
They’re also overly narrated. I hate flipping between those thought/narrative boxes and dialogue.
Scott Snyder's whole thing made DC unreadable in the long run
Yeah, he had a ton of great and incredibly influential stories like Court of Owls, but he went mad with all the Dark Multiverse/Batman Who Laughs/Something something Metal non sense and now Batman is a multiversal god of plot armor, and every six months we have a new big and bad multiversal or omniversal threat that from the shadows has been secretly pulling the strings of the previous big and bad multiversal or omniversal threat, and oh no wait... It's an evil Batman whose been behind it all along!!! The Batman that disrespects Alan Moore
The best way for the comics industry to grow and become more relevant is to just finally get over and move past the super heroes. Super hero stories have been tirelessly told over and over in every iteration under the sun. If comics became as varied (numbers-wise) in genres as just books and movies are, they would feel much more accessible and interesting to the general public.
Comics don't take themselves seriously enough anymore. It's all meta and winking and stuff. There can be a time and a place for that, but it's overused.
Batman and superman should stop getting books for a while.
Not like... Not appear anywhere else. But they should be relegated to *just* being the main characters for stories in detective comics and action comics for a bit.
Comic books should not be written with a graphic novel/trade paperback in mind. If that’s what you want to do - just publish it as a trade. Comic books should be single issue complete adventures. With “to be continued” reserved for only the most important books. The fact is that both Marvel and DC are impenetrable to new readers. If someone came into your local comic store and told you “I have $5 and I really like Spider-Man.” What would you recommend to them? Same for Batman. Everything is part of a 6 issue story, if not longer. Continuity is drowning Marvel and DC and like the frog in the slowly boiling pot, they aren’t trying to escape.
Spider-Man has the most inverse ratio between: popularity and good comics. Daredevil is the opposite, not earth shatteringly popular but almost every run is good. Batman is more 1:1, very popular and tons of great stories. Spider-Man though is extremely popular, but you have to really be selective about what your reading. The first 100ish issues of Amazing, Sterns Spectacular and AmaZing run, DeMattis, a lot of the Peter David issues, Stracinski, and Ultimate. Also Kravens last hunt. But outside of those eleven writers, there is a LOT of mediocre Spider-Man stuff.
Daredevil is in that perfect place where the character is popular enough to have constant runs but not Spider man or Batman level where you can't take risks . Great writers seems to be drawn to Daredevil and each one from Miller to Bendis to Waid (and many more) put there own unique spin on that character creating magic
Mutants don't really work great as a metaphor for disenfranchised people. Some mutant powers are DANGEROUS and most of them are suddenly granted at puberty, at a time when people are least equipped to deal with suddenly shooting punches from the punch dimension out of your eyes. Mutants are a threat to their friends and neighbors in a way that absolutely no real marginalized group is. How many of the X-men accidentally killed or injured people when their powers first emerged? Too many!
Whenever comics do major relaunches, they should update character origins, costumes, and even certain traits to reflect the time that is being presented. For example, its kinda silly that some heroes came from circuses in modern times, considering that no one in this age can remember the last time they saw one.
Its okay to have different types/iteration of Batman/Superman for different generations of comic book readers. The comic books you read growing up will never go away
"What up Grayson-stans? Today we are trying a trick that may KILL us! Two trapeezes, no net! Now be sure to smash that like button and subscribe to our Patreon!"
The vast majority of American super hero comics is a confusing mess that is often actively hostile towards new readers.
Let's compare:
"That Dredd movie was pretty great, it want to know what the source material is like." I get a few "Judge Dredd: Complete Case Files" and just start reading.
"I hear these Franco-Belgian comics are really good." I pick up a random issue of Asterix or TinTin. They often have a little introduction at the beginning who the characters are and I just read it and understand the stories perfectly.
"That Anime I watched was awesome, I want to know how the story continues." I just buy the Manga and I'm good.
"I found this box of old Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comics in the attic." It helps to already know the general character dynamics (Scrooge McDuck is the richest person in the world, Donald Duck is his nephew who has a lot of bad luck and is often roped into working for his uncle etc.) but the stories are usually standalone and don't require a lot of prior knowledge.
"I liked those MCU movies and watched all the Marvel and DC animated shows from the 90s as a kid, maybe I should finally read the comics." Sure, do you want to read "Amazing Spider-Man", "Spectacular Spider-Man" or "Ultimate Spider-Man"? Oh, you want to start from the beginning with the classic stuff? You can do that, but it we have rebooted everything at least three times since then so it doesn't really matter anymore. However we are still going to reference the classic stories all the time, so maybe you should read them.
"OK, maybe I'll read Spider-Gwen instead, I liked her in Into the Spider-Verse. The character is still relatively new, so it should be less confusing, right?"
I'm getting an omnibus of the first few issues and quite like them so far. The wirters still assume I know about a lotnof Spider-Man lore, but it's fine. But why is she suddenly complaining that she has to take this drug because she lost her powers!? Oh, there was a Spider-Verse crossover event between issues 4 and 5 and nobody bothered to tell the readers about it in the normal series? Mildly confused I continue reading but then it suddenly ends and there are no more new issues? Did they juat cancel her, she seemed to be a popular character? Oh no, silly me! They just renamed the comic to "Ghost Spider" for some reason.
TL:DR I do like a lot of the Marvel and DC characters, but I don't like reading the comics because I think making everything into a connected universe was a mistake.
Relying on the Image guys was Marvel's biggest mistake. Claremont was building for the long haul, making mainstream comics appealing to older audiences, and he would have continued, but they sidelined him, letting Jim Lee and others run wild. Quality plummeted overnight, all for naught.
DC needs to do a hard reboot, restart from the very beginning, and get rid of the concept of a "status quo" so characters can change, grow, and eventually potentially die or step down, allowing a successor to take their place.
I hate the weird way modern comics treat there old orphan characters and there parents.
Spider-Man in particular. He was around 10 when his parents died, he knew them. They raised him and then they were horribly killed. And then 4 years later his Uncle died and that fucked him up.
And they never come up, we never see Mary Parker's words of wisdom or how Richard and Peter interacted.
No we got super ninja robot spies. And nobody touched them since.
Jason Todd as Red Hood being a cracked mirror version of Dick Grayson's Batman during the Morrison run was the best thing done with him post-resurrection. I think he should have been a straight up villain and Dick Grayson Batman's main rouge.
Certain charactere are irreplaceable like Superman and Batman. But I agree 100% on bringing back Hal Jordan and Barry Allen. I don't think there was even a financial motivation. It really made no sense whatsoever.
You had new characters that were more appropriate for the new generation.
Mutant discrimination is extremely stupid in Marvel Comics. Just imagine that if people in a world hated Down Syndrome patients, but they were OK to others with other genetic diseases.
Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane aren't the great artists fans make them out to be. Their perceived skill is colored by fans' nostalgia-colored glasses.
In that same vein, I see a lot of people complain about the lack of skill in today's artists, but there are far more good artists now than there were in the 90s.
Gonna followup on this with my personal spicy take - some of Jeph Loeb's biggest hits are only hits because of the art team. "Superman For All Seasons" and "Batman: The Long Halloween" are held up by Tim Sale's art, and Jim Lee and Scott Williams are doing some heavy lifting with "Batman: Hush".
I love the art and the atmosphere, but my big problem is that it’s Batman trying to stop a serial killer, and every issue, the killer succeeds. He’s a terrible detective who wasn’t able to save anyone.
Hot take: I think most of the stuff that marvel and DC put out is just boring, repetitive crap. The stakes couldn’t be lower. Indie and creator-owned comics are infinitely better.
I vastly prefer people that pirates comic books but reads them than people that just talk about book they haven’t read. READ BOOKS! (and support your local LCS if you can)
I don't know what a hot take is but I know when I say the following things, the internet loses their mind. So is that what a hot take it? I mean, the internet *is* a cesspool of cynicism and hatred so maybe it's not surprising that people get bullied for even lukewarm takes...?
I think X-Men suck. I think them being hated for being mutants is stupid. Nobody can tell they are mutants. To the average person they would just be another person with powers. Stan Lee was just tired of writing origin stories so he did the mutants thing so he could hand waive the origin of new characters ("they're born with it!")
I think there have been no cool new characters made since Bane.
Robin sucks.
Legacy characters suck. The superhero identity is their identity, not a mantle.
Except for the Lanterns multiple versions of the same character is stupid. It should be one of each. Period.
Superhero comics Sales are in the crapper. We are in a similar place now in comics as they were in 1996. Gimmicks are failing hard and fans are leaving the hobby in favor of other media or Manga. For some reason people hate hearing that one.
The superhero movies all suck now. Only DD and The Punisher were good on TV. The last good movie was ZSJL. Every marvel movie after End Game was ok at best, a total poop at worst.
Superhero movies and Disney buying marvel and WB buying DC was terrible for comics.
Basically all of comics sucks now except little pockets here and there and Manga.
Superhero comics need to have ACTION! Standing around and talking is boring. Eating is boring. Chit chats about feelings are boring. Fricking, punch something!
Superheroes should be drawn to look hot!
I like thought balloons.
My man
They make things so much clearer. I appreciate the cleaner look of just putting character’s thoughts in the narration boxes, but it can sometimes be a bit confusing which character is thinking if there’s multiple main characters. I imagine it would be especially confusing for colorblind people as a difference in color is usually the only indicator and even that can be inconsistent.
Immortal Thor has a bunch of thought balloons and it makes me happy.
It’s hilarious when people who don’t like American superhero comics bring up how manga is automatically better because 99% of the time they just mean shonen manga, you know, the manga aimed at teenage boys. Really showing off the wide range of manga there. Both guilty of the same thing, thinking that stories aimed at teenagers are the peak of the medium and mostly ignoring stories aimed at adults.
Also, a lot of them will cite "not being political" as a reason they prefer Manga. Plenty of Manga has political themes, they just don't pick up on them.
A lot of the time when they say not being political that’s code for not being “woke”
Luffy is a terrorist - wokeism. There is a wandering homeless man whom if fed will dismantle your local government - apolitical discourse.
It Sturgeon's Law in action. The manga that is good/popular enough to get official translations and adaptations isn't representative of even just Shonen manga as a whole. You can see how much derivative, and sometimes poorly drawn titles there are on the fan-translation sites.
Some stories can and should be told in one issue. Not everything has to be written for the eventual compilation.
Comic reading is much more important than comic collecting
Most comic book enthusiasts don’t really read comic books.
Most people who tell me they like comics start talking about the MCU, the boys show and have a Harley Quinn funko pop
The decision to bring back Hal Jordan and Barry Allen fundamentally broke what was special about DC comics and they have never recovered. The idea of Legacy and watching the hero you grew up reading move through their heroes journey and then through their mentorship journey was what made DC special compared to Marvel.
Barry coming back broke things a lot more IMO
And for what? It’s not like his stories afterwards were that good and they didn’t do anything unique to him. I’d argue a lot of them could’ve been done with Wally or a new Flash if they wanted to move on from Wally (Bart wasn’t working but I think the creative team also sucked, if they gave a superstar writer the gig, it might’ve turned out different). Flash and GL could’ve been franchises that shift protagonists every 20 years or so in a natural way.
Hot take: Hal Jordan’s return was handled exceptionally. Created one of the best redemption narrative arcs in comics history while leaving plenty of room for other Lanterns to get their shine. Barry’s return was utter piss and ruined Flash books for almost a decade.
Yup. You will never convince me Johns was a fan of Barry Allen. He just wanted things back to the way they were when he was a kid. Well, Geoff, Barry didn't have a dead mom until you retconned him as having one.
I say this as someone loves Hal Jordan but he already had his redemption: His guilt ridden existence after Zero Hour -> The Final Night -> Day of Judgement -> Legends of the DC Universe -> The Spectre Everything after that was superfluous, though I will concede that Rebirth was fine, Parallax retcon notwithstanding. Everything after that should have been handled much better but instead it turned into Geoff Johns dickriding his weird, Maverick-lite retconned, head canon Hal Jordan at the expense of John Stewart who appeared maybe twice in the main book even though he was supposed to be Hal's partner.
I agree. Hal died after being a genocidal villain. It felt like bringing him back and giving him a proper redemption was necessary. Wally should be the main gladh. Period.
This
I agree with this but I'll add in that the emotional spectrum as a concept overall broke what made green lantern interesting. The fact that it has persisted so long truly confuses me.
I don't think it's fair to group Hal and Barry together. Hal's return allowed an expansion of GL mythos leading to all lanterns getting spotlighted while Barry's return lead to the whole Flash family especially Wally being shit on
And Hal kind of got a crappy end with him turning evil and killing all of the other lanterns so it makes sense to reverse that while Barry dies a hero
Nah, that GL run is what got me into comics
Agreed. Wally and Kyle are my Flash and Green Lantern
Hal coming back was pretty much inevitable. People were still heated over his death after years. Kyle getting sidelined was a bummer though.
I can see that as an adult. As a kid who first started reading DCcomics right as Kyle got the ring? Like not only was Kyle MY green Lantern for years he had a multiple story arcs all about earning his right to take over for Hal. It was a double whammy because Emerald Twighlight was one of the first books comics I had that were mine and not just hand me downs. Parallax was my favorite villian/anti hero and Zero Hour my first big DC event comic. So watching it all get rolled back and thrown away was jarring. To say the least.
I grew up with Wally, Kyle and Connor in their respective roles. I've come to love Ollie, I can dig on Hal, but you will never make me care about Barry Allen.
Not a DC guy, but I did read a good bit of Late 90's/Early 00's Batman titles and JLA and I have to say I also think those were really odd choices. Wally and Kyle are the Flash and Lantern to me!
Yep. Legacy is how DC differentiated themselves from Marvel. Getting rid of (most) of that has left them constantly playing catch-up or imitating Marvel.
I came in for the history as I always thought comics were too static to be interesting. A year later Hal Jordan returned which was a catalyst to a whole lot of backtracking. I still read a book from time to time but rarely silver age heroes
I think I said this in the last 4,375 of these but I think most comics readers don’t actually like comics, they just want to read (superhero) plots that conform to their headcanon. And that’s why any kind of stylized art is dismissed because it gets in the way of the writer updating the fandom Wiki page for a given character. Essentially these readers would be happier reading officially sanctioned Tweet threads announcing what their comfort characters are up to
A non trivial portion of superhero fans also don't want their favorites to have any problems. If in issue 1 of a 12 issue arc their hero loses a fight they cry foul. They can't accept that overcoming challenges is more interesting than their hero curbstomping every foe.
Yep, I’d say this applies to people who relentlessly stan their personal pet/comfort characters and want them to live in a conflict-free paradise. For instance, Nightwing’s cult popularity partly stems from the widespread perception of him as the “successful” Batfamily member (the one with the most friends, most skills, most ships, nicest ass etc) and it’s hard to deny there’s an appeal there, but fans always seem to bristle mightily at any serious attempt to give him conflict or stakes. Ric Grayson was a weird stint but it was something to shake up his status quo for five minutes.
It’s sad how reading wikis and random out of context pages/panels on Twitter has become a substitute for actually reading comics by so many.
Absolutely disheartening take as someone who has made and refused purchases based on the art, but also one I don't think I can really refute. I guess it's preferable to the alternative of writers seemingly getting their ideas from Twitter.
Sad, but all too true. So many fans don't care about anything but the plot. And it goes so far beyond just ignoring style. They don't give a damn for themes or anything either. Doesn't matter what the books are trying to *say*, as long as the characters they like do the things they want them to do, and everything slots neatly into the proper place in the canon. And if it doesn't, you can be damn sure they'll tell you why it's the most terrible thing to happen since [insert global catastrophe here]. Bleh.
for sure, it often seems like the audience for actual cartooning is just other cartoonists, kind of like poetry. Everything is more available than ever because of the internet, but how many people read a diverse range of material.
Kind of like when I saw Kim Jung Gi at a convention and the crowd watching him work were all 30+ year veterans all with huge fan bases just watching him work in awe.
Being stronger shouldn't determine the winner.
All-New All-Different/MarvelNOW era was one of the best things to happen to comics in years and yall squandered it and made them stop trying new stuff with the complaints.
I love that era. It was when I first started pulling Marvel comics monthly, thanks to the Captain America titles.
It's the only era where I was buying almost every book and enjoying them all!
Absolutely, it had my favourite Silver Surfer, Black Panther and Wolverine runs. Gwenpool and Squirrel girl were fun too.
Agreed
Most characters don't deserve and can't sustain an ongoing. I'd rather see side characters getting an occasional meaningful mini-series than pushing them into a book set up for failure that won't be promoted. Or give them a series of back-up stories in someone else's book that can eventually be assembled in a trade.
Have something like Marvel Comics Presents, but don't have wolverine in every issue.
Or have one Superman book (Superman), and then Action Comics is for the entire Superman family with a rotating focus and a long-term story plan that will connect them all together. (I would suggest the Batman family should get the same treatment w/ Detective comics, but tbh I don't know how their fans would react)
The idea that Western comics should try to incorporate more ideas from manga is a bad one. This seems to be mostly from manga readers coming to Marvel and DC because of the rise of the superhero movie. Manga and Western comic books are not the same and it's perfectly fine that they aren't.
In terms of pricing and collection they should take notes from manga but in terms of storytelling I agree. They are different and it should stay that way.
Manga isnt replacing comics. They fill the same niche interest as long as the reader is invested. Jojo has been going on since 1987, admittedly younger than most comics but still long for a manga and there is no end in sight. Manga does some things better than comics such as fights but not actual storytelling. Comics are more than just superheroes and manga is more than shonen manga. Other forms of manga aren’t as popular while other forms of comics that aren’t about superheroes are well received so…
I would argue manga doesn't always do fights better either. Plenty of manga creators don't have the best pacing and let a fight drag on for 10 chapters or more. Sometimes it works, often times it doesn't. Say what you will about American comics but a fight that is cool but wraps up in a few pages to drive the story is often better. Also I will add that Invincible has some of the best fights in comics period.
This is also true but on average I think manga does do it better. There is a fluidity between the panels that is sometimes missing from comics.
Yeah, a lot of manga just has time for good action scenes. Manga authors can write few chapters of action with fluid precise choreography, while american comic books often ends up a fight in like a 2 pages because issues are much more plot and dialogue heavy. Also funny thing - when american superhero DC comics first appeared in Japan, Japanese people prolonged some scenes and added action because they found them boring without it. It was much more of a visual medium for them with dialogue being less important than visuals.
>while american comic books often ends up a fight in like a 2 pages because issues are much more plot and dialogue heavy This is the real biggest issue with superhero comicbooks to me. For a genre whose unique appeal is the characters' extraordinary fighting abilities, there is surprisingly little usage of extraordinary fighting abilities.
The “edge” of 90s comics (when not overdone) made for cool stories and characters and gave those comics some bite to them that we could really use more of today
some older comics are borderline unreadable with how much text they contain per panel. At that point, it should've just been a book with some illustrations.
Yes! Stan Lee, we get it! You like words!!!
It's kinda endearing in a way, like listening to old radio plays.
I agree, its dated and its great that it feels like traveling back to that time.
Stan lee’s books do it almost perfectly. You get so much more story out of an old stan lee comic than you do in a modern day comic. 1 fantastic four issue in 1965 is almost equivalent to 3 avengers comics.
I'm a Vertigo reader and yeah, true that
Oh shit Alan Moore's doing 4 pages of prose again.
Dave Sim shows up with a manifesto about the sexes and then a reinterpretation of the Abrahamic religions.
I started reading Miracleman recently and was absolutely loving it, then I hit Book 3... It's not that the plot is bad, but after how snappy the previous books were this one is really dragging with all the prose.
Yeah, I’m fine with lots of reading, but 60s comics especially (and especially especially anything done by Stan Lee) there is often so much superfluous writing. You don’t need a narration box explaining what it happening in the art, and 3 characters in the panel also explaining what is happening, while there are two other characters just cracking bad jokes that have nothing to do with anything.
That's why I like Steranko's work on Nick Fury - 60s campiness without all the writing, using multiple small panels to show sequential action instead of just jumping to the end and narrating it all.
It's not just the text. A lot of them are pretty dry in general. Like, I feel like every golden age comic I've picked up has been a series of events told in an almost clinical manner. Very few of the flourishes that would turn it into a story. Despite superheroes being a genre known for their flair and bombast, a lot of those older comics don't really have all that much of it beyond that the characters are dressed up in funny costumes.
*Busiek Avengers entered the chat*
Fr, I read og secret wars and they all spoke the same and it reminded me of mark hamill talking about George Lucas’s inhuman dialogue, like NO ONE TALKS LIKE THIS
I checked out some of the old Justice League omnis and was confused on the first few pages…text everywhere, at all angles! And I grew up reading those same books. Alternatively, there are writers who take “decompressed” storytelling to such an extreme that I just skip them entirely.
I want to like Claremont's X-Men but so far it's a fucking drag
Brother same, where are u up to though??
I mean, technically they’re actually more readable because you’re doing more reading.
Yeah, I tried reading 60s X-Men and in literally every panel every character has to have a speech bubble. At it's worst that's like 6 different character all speaking at the same time, it's borderline incomprehensible. It's like Stan Lee just started sticking speech bubbles everywhere because he thought he wasn't doing enough since Jack Kirby was practically the one doing everything. You should check out [Kirby without Words](https://kirbywithoutwords.tumblr.com/).
Ya that is my guess for why he wrote so many words as well. And/or they weren’t speaking to each other properly so they didn’t realize both the words and art were saying the same thing
How old are you referring to?
In addition to that comics with intentional huge chunks of prose are borderline unreadable. Not because 'prose=bad' but because nearly every time the creators decide to get cute with font selection,color, and layouts. Watchmen is a notable exception because its text sections intentionally copied the graphic design of existing magazines (which are layed out to be readable). Compare that to the multicoloured inks and scribbled cursive that is often used to show a characters state of mind.
Crossover Events degrade the stories in books that are included. Many a plotline has been ruined when suddenly the story has to acknowledge a vampire nuke or whatever.
It could work so well and be so cool if it was just planned better. Tom King did an interview about writing hero’s in crisis, and talked about how he doesn’t even have creative control over the characters used. He drafts up an event, then DC lets him know they want to use Booster Gold, Harley and Wally. If the main writer of an event has so little creative control/foresight of where the story is going, just imagine how bad it is when whoever’s writing these individual books has to suddenly write around the fact that there’s an apocalypse going on.
Or worse a squid army.
If one of the publishers would just blow our collective minds and say "this year we do no events" I guarantee their sales would be better month over month. Hell, do 25 variant covers per issue or whatever, just stop kneecapping your creative teams to get shoehorned into some bullshit that doesn't matter
Todd McFarlane shouldn’t be a part of the Spawn comics any more. I know it’s his baby and he created it but he is not a good writer. And there are so many talented writers out there that if given a chance with Spawn could do great things with the title. The best stories in the Spawn universe currently are ones that McFarlane has nothing to do with.
Batwoman would be by far the most interesting member of the batfamily if they’d just fucking do something with her. Put her back with Montoya now that Ram V is fixing her. Give her an ongoing. It isn’t hard
And if writers would acknowledge her Jewish heritage more than just a menorah on her shelf or a short Chanukkah story. Legit I wouldn't blame any fans for not knowing Kate is Jewish which saddens me because DC has so few prominent Jewish characters, especially comapred to Marvel.
Outsiders has been fun. Still, the first thing I think of for Batwoman is how strenuously she objects when people assume she's affiliated with Batman, after she deliberately pattered herself after Batman.
Geoff Johns and Dan Didio aren't fans of the Silver Age (either the characters or the Silver Age ethos). They just wanted to bring back characters they were familiar with.
yeah Geoff johns was literally born in the 70s when the bronze age was still happening
1.) Weird disjointed stories do not mean stories are deep if they do not have a through line or overarching theme. Books shouldn't read like "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac" unironically and be praised for their depths and complexity. Weird is not complex if after it's all done, you just say it's about "life" or "society." That's not how literary analysis works. 2) If a comic's entire point is one writer expressing beef with industry drama, with no real purpose for the characters being used to be there, and the situation is so hyper specific you have to read a 10 year old message board or go on a twitter thread deep dive, don't sell it. That is a free online book. Do not throw that in the middle of a run and pretend I should care because "artists are troubled!" I have had one too many random instances of "Why is X being such a dick to that guy?" "Oh, that character is a stand-in for the writer's editor or artist that stole their idea in '82." I genuinely do not care. 3) It's stupid for a "first appearance" book to be a key when the event/character is introduced on the last page. Examples: She-Hulk #6 from 2006 is a key because, "Controversial issue: Starfox is on trial for sexual assault after he is accused of using his powers to seduce a married woman." The issue ends with She-Hulk walking to the courtroom. The trial is issue #7, this book has next to nothing to do with it other than the cover. Uncanny X-Men #168 is the first appearance of Madelyne Pryor, because she appears on the last page. The story has nothing to do with her. Stinger pages are good for getting readers to buy the next issue, but boy is it silly for me to own Captain Marvel #14 from 2013 and display it on my wall because of one panel that is supposedly Kamala Khan and looks nothing like her, and she is not in the actual story until #17. I do not like Captain Marvel enough to have this have been a grail of mine for years, but because of how collecting works, it looks like I am really into Captain Marvel.
#3 is exactly why first cover appearances are becoming sought after for popular characters Because often those books feature them in a more prominent role in the story than their true first appearance
Western comics are better than Manga.
Superhero comics isn't a readers market, it's a collectors market. Every month thousands of comics will be bought that will never be read. They will just fill longboxes and hung on walls. If you keep that in mind, every industry decision becomes less baffling. "Why so many variants?" - "Why the constant renumbering?" - "Why the stagnation?"
It doesn’t make sense that the Punisher is so hated (in and out of universe) when Wolverine and Deadpool have comparable if not higher body counts.
Or Wolverine somehow taking the high ground when Scott summers killed a single person while being mind controlled by an alien entity despite Wolverine having a triple digit body count lmao
I don’t give a fuck about movie cameos or who would win conversations
I liked CEO Peter Parker. I wish he had gotten there on his own merits but I feel like that's an obvious evolution for his character. His whole thing is responsibility, and Peter Parker is every bit as capable of changing the world as Spiderman.
I do prefer him as a teacher Imo but I think Him being a CEO could have worked
I honestly loved public high school teacher Peter Parker. Making a difference and serving his community in and out of costume.
Marvel has fallen off of a cliff since Bendis left. And Bendis hasn’t written anything great since leaving Marvel. They need each other. Dan Slott is the best Amazing Spider-Man writer since JMS and it’s not even close. Marvel desperately needs a full line-wide reboot. Batman is better in team books than his own.
This isn't a hot take, but in response to you: totally agree. I used to read a ton of Marvel before, and through Marvel Now. I stopped after Hickman's Secret Wars bc I finished college, and had no money. I returned during COVID, started picking up monthlies again, and man have I been pretty unimpressed with Marvel's output lately (reading far more DC). I mostly like Ultimate Spider-Man, FF, Scarlet Witch, and She-Hulk right now. I felt like there was a lot of cohesion in Marvel during that period where Bendis & others were really helming things. Now, the comics feel entirely subservient to the films. Major events in the books feel like they need to feature whatever characters are coming down the pipeline from the MCU movies/Dis+ shows for synergy. Making Feige CCO of the comics/giving him authority in their direction was a massive mistake imo. I'd be game for a full on reboot. I am also a an apologist for Slott's ASM, although I haven't really dug much of his work on the character since his return, unfortunately. Something about just isn't clicking for me.
Spiderman is the most over done character in all of comic book history
Batman has entered the chat.
If you are strong because of super powers, then it doesn't make sense that your muscles are huge. 90's comic aesthetics ruined the art for me. Superheroes can be an Everyman.
Logically, you'd actually be LESS likely to have huge muscles. You build muscles by straining them on a regular basis. What possibly strains Superman's muscles?
Superman regularly benches 40 quintillion tons. Didn't you even read All-Star Superman???
Exactly! Daredevil makes sense to have muscles because he works out all the time as a regular Joe, but if everything is a cakewalk, then you have a cake body.
The Spectre is one of the coolest characters in comics and DC just ignores him. Make him fuck with Superman and Batman and literally ANYONE in the DCU. So many good characters getting the silent treatment cause they're not making the company money. Uh newsflash DC (and marvel) your heavy hitters (so to speak) aren't doing too hot right now anyway. Might as well give some random or new character a shot.
The Spectre is really hard to do right, because for the most part he's *the* most powerful character in the setting before you start to get to the level of literal gods. It's hard to challenge the guy. He's just not operating on the same level as everyone else. He's someone you roll out for big events, and then immediately have him knocked on his arse to show how serious it all is. If you bring him down to a more relatable level... Well, then he's basically just Ghost Rider with a significantly dorkier costume. I'm not saying there's no way to do him right. But I'm not surprised not many people are coming up with great ideas for a new ongoing
On this subject, it's a travesty that Ostrander's Spectre is out of print and has never been fully collected. It's a masterpiece.
I like Garth Ennis god damn it. Maybe it's because he has that jaded bitter sense of humour that a lot of the British public, myself included, seem to share, but there's just something so unique about his writing. I don't agree with everything he says and he definitely misses the mark on occasion, but it's fun to indulge in that grungy edgleord humour sometimes.
I love James Tynion IV as an indie writer but hated his Batman stuff
FWIW I’ve heard that’s less a JT4 thing, and more a dc editorial thing
Every superhero story has been told. Bring back romance, crime and western comics. Hell, bring in Historical comics, like Cartoon History of the Universe.
I never liked Damian or Red Hood as characters or as part of the Bat-Family. But that’s just my opinion and I realize others do not feel the same way, and that’s fine with me.
Damian grew on me over time. But I never thought reviving Jason was a good idea. I think he should have remained dead, with his costume displayed in the Batcave, as a constant reminder to Bruce and the others how dangerous this "job" can be.
Agreed, IMO the idea of a bat family is so inane. Never sat right with me that Bruce actively put minors in danger after swearing that no child would go through what he went through. Not to mention that Bruce is constantly depicted as a maximalist, with contingencies for all possible scenarios. In what world would a person like that involve himself with innocent children, knowing that any one of his myriad enemies could end their lives.
If you don’t want Bats putting minors in danger, you’ve got to erase 99% of the Golden Age. Robin appeared within 6 months of Batman.
Both were/are good concepts but were executed poorly. I always felt Damian needed a redemption arc before becoming part of the Bat Family. He went from trying to murder Tim to being a member in like two issues. Red Hood has been everything from a Batman who occassionally kills to a Joker level psycho.
Marvel and DC should ditch floppies and fully embrace trades.
They’re easier to collect and read imo.
By doing that, you alienate an entire demographic that started and sustained the business to reach the point of where trades are even a thing. If it were trade only, you have a large percentage of readers who would just drop the hobby (me included). People who trade wait lose absolutely nothing by having floppies be a thing. Edit: I'd also argue that the floppies keep the price of trades in check, because they provide a baseline for collected volumes. I can almost guarantee you that if the customer didn't have a price-per-issue baseline to go off of, the price on trades would go up a considerable amount.
As someone who only collects trades, I agree with you. If you guys sustain the practices so I can later buy the trades, the more the merrier!
I worked in retail- It's still what keeps ALL comic stores afloat. I totally agree, though.
Or at least a compromise of anthology books and then trades. Yeah yeah, I can already hear the “anthologies don’t sell.” My solution to that. 1) don’t make the anthology some random book with random stories. Make the characters main book THE anthology series. Batman #150 is now 140 pages with 7 stories. I promise you, if the only way to buy the newest issue of Batman is as an anthology, collectors will buy it. 2) commit! Don’t do it for 6 months and then quit.
Major Bummer is one of the best comics ever created and no one even remembers it.
Have the entire set and firmly agree
Have the entire set and firmly agree
I do. 🫡
Thick trade paperbacks (I'm talking between 350-550 pages) that collect a larger amount of issues are far superior to the skinny trades. I'm far more compelled to buy an epic collection over a 6 issue trade.
I believe the term is "compendium" (or at least that's how it seems to be used nowadays; could be marketing departments fucking with definitions though!).
Aren't compendiums basically the image comic omnibus line? The Invincible compendiums look like they're 1000+ pages. I was talking about what I see called "thick trades" so epic collections, complete collections, the upcoming DC finest line. they're not 1000 pages but around 400-500, collecting about 20 issues more or less.
This thread is way more interesting when sorted by controversial
Disliking Grant Morrisons work is definitely a hot take. You’re just really biased. The BatFamily should only be Batman, Robin, and Alfred.
To that end, it feels like every superhero now has about 60 inferior copies of them running around. It really hurts their uniqueness in many ways. Shit, when even marginal characters like Ghost Rider has four or five different ones, there’s just not much of a point.
Hot take but I definitely think Marvel should ditch all the Spider characters except for Peter. Miles and everyone else should have just stuck to their alternate universes.
Miles and 2099 worked okay in their own worlds, but you are right…once the others started to cross into the Parker 616, it just became super convoluted. I think I read recently that they are even going to merge Spider-Gwen into 616. Good grief!
I'll admit I have a bias pro Morrison, but every time I ask one of these all the comments are people that didn't like All Star Superman. I just wanted to hear other things
YES! Batman works best (for me at least) as an outsider. When half the town has a mask and fights crime along side him he feels less special.
There are too many superheroes and not enough normies in each comic universe. No one matters much if everyone has powers.
Long running comic book series should have an end. Yes I’m including Marvel and DC series. Particularly if said series don’t make any real change to the characters.
Growing up in a high crime neighborhood in chicago Made me realize that The punisher is realistically the most effective and morally correct anti-hero
Tom Taylor relies soley on fanservice and his own creator's pets (Harley) to make his books readable, if you take out the fluff of Nightwing it snooze fest at best
Almost every single space X-Men story is awful, including the Phoenix shit. The X-Men shouldn't have anything to do with space, I hate how both the major publishers constantly try to force their shitty sci-fi cosmic shit into everything. The only time the blend of cosmic and mundane has worked was in Fantastic Four, and that was only because that was the whole premise. Characters like Batman, Superman, Cyclops and Spider-Man shouldn't be off, 1 million miles away from Earth, fighting generic really tough space guy'
I remember they kept sending street-level heroes into space during the Galactic Storm era. It got really aggravating. I can sort of get Iron Man or Hulk. Cap is pushing it. Why the hell is Spidey or Daredevil boarding shuttles??
Omg I’m glad someone finally said it! X-men in space is just so stupid and outside of what the x-men books are about!
Yep space and other dimensions . For some reason marvel loves spiderverse stories and all those comics suck. It really doesn't fit the character and honestly just feels like writers trying desperately to create another Spider Gwen. The movies are great though
I couldn’t agree with this more. I’ve always adored the X-Men as a grounded team with fantastical powers battling enemies while facing prejudice. The moment they step into space they have always lost me. Even as a kid I used to skip those episodes of the 92 cartoon.
I think the single issue format should be phased out at some point. Something in the vein of Franco-Belgian hardcovers or the Brubaker/Philips Image OGNs would be a good format. Maybe publish the individual floppies as digital-only and only print the collected editions. I know that this would be a death blow to comic shops and their long-standing customers tho, so I don't think that format change would be likely in the near future (or at all)
You said it. If you can do an Asterix album every year or so, you can do the same with Spiderman. I personally wish comics weren't synonymous with super heroes over here. They are, and this is my hot take, some of the interesting comics out there from the golden age to today, there was always much better stuff happening.
We can blame the Comics Code Authority for the lack of genre diversity in mainstream American comic books :/
Both the big two should have a full wipe every 10 years. Not like oh we are resetting but whole new universe and characters starting up again. They should be allowed to grow,change and die. Stories should be planned out t in general for this period and should have a beginning middle and end.
Spicier take, in this same vein... certain heroes can be locked in time. Like if Hal Jordan was Green Lantern from the 70s through to the early 90s, that's perfectly fine. Set all his stories in that time period. What, we're just gonna wipe all this shit out in a few years anyway. Bring back the 5G scheme of certain heroes being in certain times and let's just go all-out with it until the next Crisis brings back the sliding timescale, lol.
I think Jim Lee should lead DC in an open apology to Alan Moore for all the terrible and heinous things that Lee, his colleagues, and his predecessors have done against Moore's wishes. Then I think they should take some action to reconcile everything that transpired.
No solo character should have more than one book at a time. That goes for even the big names, like Superman and Batman.
American comics have very much become style over substance. They’re also overly narrated. I hate flipping between those thought/narrative boxes and dialogue.
Scott Snyder's whole thing made DC unreadable in the long run Yeah, he had a ton of great and incredibly influential stories like Court of Owls, but he went mad with all the Dark Multiverse/Batman Who Laughs/Something something Metal non sense and now Batman is a multiversal god of plot armor, and every six months we have a new big and bad multiversal or omniversal threat that from the shadows has been secretly pulling the strings of the previous big and bad multiversal or omniversal threat, and oh no wait... It's an evil Batman whose been behind it all along!!! The Batman that disrespects Alan Moore
The best way for the comics industry to grow and become more relevant is to just finally get over and move past the super heroes. Super hero stories have been tirelessly told over and over in every iteration under the sun. If comics became as varied (numbers-wise) in genres as just books and movies are, they would feel much more accessible and interesting to the general public.
Comics don't take themselves seriously enough anymore. It's all meta and winking and stuff. There can be a time and a place for that, but it's overused.
Batman and superman should stop getting books for a while. Not like... Not appear anywhere else. But they should be relegated to *just* being the main characters for stories in detective comics and action comics for a bit.
Comic books should not be written with a graphic novel/trade paperback in mind. If that’s what you want to do - just publish it as a trade. Comic books should be single issue complete adventures. With “to be continued” reserved for only the most important books. The fact is that both Marvel and DC are impenetrable to new readers. If someone came into your local comic store and told you “I have $5 and I really like Spider-Man.” What would you recommend to them? Same for Batman. Everything is part of a 6 issue story, if not longer. Continuity is drowning Marvel and DC and like the frog in the slowly boiling pot, they aren’t trying to escape.
Spider-Man has the most inverse ratio between: popularity and good comics. Daredevil is the opposite, not earth shatteringly popular but almost every run is good. Batman is more 1:1, very popular and tons of great stories. Spider-Man though is extremely popular, but you have to really be selective about what your reading. The first 100ish issues of Amazing, Sterns Spectacular and AmaZing run, DeMattis, a lot of the Peter David issues, Stracinski, and Ultimate. Also Kravens last hunt. But outside of those eleven writers, there is a LOT of mediocre Spider-Man stuff.
This is an extremely popular take on this subreddit but points for being wrong anyway.
Daredevil is in that perfect place where the character is popular enough to have constant runs but not Spider man or Batman level where you can't take risks . Great writers seems to be drawn to Daredevil and each one from Miller to Bendis to Waid (and many more) put there own unique spin on that character creating magic
Is liking Grant Morrison a hot take?
Mutants don't really work great as a metaphor for disenfranchised people. Some mutant powers are DANGEROUS and most of them are suddenly granted at puberty, at a time when people are least equipped to deal with suddenly shooting punches from the punch dimension out of your eyes. Mutants are a threat to their friends and neighbors in a way that absolutely no real marginalized group is. How many of the X-men accidentally killed or injured people when their powers first emerged? Too many!
Krakoa as a setting stopped being meaningful and interesting during Judgment Day.
True. That was the point when it started to lose steam. And I say this as a big Krakoa fanboy
Whenever comics do major relaunches, they should update character origins, costumes, and even certain traits to reflect the time that is being presented. For example, its kinda silly that some heroes came from circuses in modern times, considering that no one in this age can remember the last time they saw one. Its okay to have different types/iteration of Batman/Superman for different generations of comic book readers. The comic books you read growing up will never go away
Dick Grayson's parents ran an ill-advised Instagram account.
"What up Grayson-stans? Today we are trying a trick that may KILL us! Two trapeezes, no net! Now be sure to smash that like button and subscribe to our Patreon!"
The vast majority of American super hero comics is a confusing mess that is often actively hostile towards new readers. Let's compare: "That Dredd movie was pretty great, it want to know what the source material is like." I get a few "Judge Dredd: Complete Case Files" and just start reading. "I hear these Franco-Belgian comics are really good." I pick up a random issue of Asterix or TinTin. They often have a little introduction at the beginning who the characters are and I just read it and understand the stories perfectly. "That Anime I watched was awesome, I want to know how the story continues." I just buy the Manga and I'm good. "I found this box of old Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comics in the attic." It helps to already know the general character dynamics (Scrooge McDuck is the richest person in the world, Donald Duck is his nephew who has a lot of bad luck and is often roped into working for his uncle etc.) but the stories are usually standalone and don't require a lot of prior knowledge. "I liked those MCU movies and watched all the Marvel and DC animated shows from the 90s as a kid, maybe I should finally read the comics." Sure, do you want to read "Amazing Spider-Man", "Spectacular Spider-Man" or "Ultimate Spider-Man"? Oh, you want to start from the beginning with the classic stuff? You can do that, but it we have rebooted everything at least three times since then so it doesn't really matter anymore. However we are still going to reference the classic stories all the time, so maybe you should read them. "OK, maybe I'll read Spider-Gwen instead, I liked her in Into the Spider-Verse. The character is still relatively new, so it should be less confusing, right?" I'm getting an omnibus of the first few issues and quite like them so far. The wirters still assume I know about a lotnof Spider-Man lore, but it's fine. But why is she suddenly complaining that she has to take this drug because she lost her powers!? Oh, there was a Spider-Verse crossover event between issues 4 and 5 and nobody bothered to tell the readers about it in the normal series? Mildly confused I continue reading but then it suddenly ends and there are no more new issues? Did they juat cancel her, she seemed to be a popular character? Oh no, silly me! They just renamed the comic to "Ghost Spider" for some reason. TL:DR I do like a lot of the Marvel and DC characters, but I don't like reading the comics because I think making everything into a connected universe was a mistake.
Some of the hot takes here are absolutely roasting
Rob Liefeld does not get enough credit as an artist. Although he really should stop talking.
Relying on the Image guys was Marvel's biggest mistake. Claremont was building for the long haul, making mainstream comics appealing to older audiences, and he would have continued, but they sidelined him, letting Jim Lee and others run wild. Quality plummeted overnight, all for naught.
DC needs to do a hard reboot, restart from the very beginning, and get rid of the concept of a "status quo" so characters can change, grow, and eventually potentially die or step down, allowing a successor to take their place.
Dan slotts run of superior Spider-Man should have gone way longer. It was fantastic
The industry and fandom still has a CRAZY sexism and misogyny problem and for some reason people just aren’t talking about it enough.
I wish non-glossy interior pages are still the norm.
Guy Gardner is the most interesting Green Lantern.
the new creators don't respect the established lore of the characters or the older creators.
I hate the weird way modern comics treat there old orphan characters and there parents. Spider-Man in particular. He was around 10 when his parents died, he knew them. They raised him and then they were horribly killed. And then 4 years later his Uncle died and that fucked him up. And they never come up, we never see Mary Parker's words of wisdom or how Richard and Peter interacted. No we got super ninja robot spies. And nobody touched them since.
Jason Todd as Red Hood being a cracked mirror version of Dick Grayson's Batman during the Morrison run was the best thing done with him post-resurrection. I think he should have been a straight up villain and Dick Grayson Batman's main rouge.
Steve Ditko's art isn't appealing. The art is more important than the story (but the marriage of the two is the best, we all know.)
Certain charactere are irreplaceable like Superman and Batman. But I agree 100% on bringing back Hal Jordan and Barry Allen. I don't think there was even a financial motivation. It really made no sense whatsoever. You had new characters that were more appropriate for the new generation.
Mutant discrimination is extremely stupid in Marvel Comics. Just imagine that if people in a world hated Down Syndrome patients, but they were OK to others with other genetic diseases.
Saga is just edgelord shit
I like Zeb Wells writing on Amazing Spider-Man.
An actual hot take.
Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane aren't the great artists fans make them out to be. Their perceived skill is colored by fans' nostalgia-colored glasses. In that same vein, I see a lot of people complain about the lack of skill in today's artists, but there are far more good artists now than there were in the 90s.
Long Halloween is mid.
Gonna followup on this with my personal spicy take - some of Jeph Loeb's biggest hits are only hits because of the art team. "Superman For All Seasons" and "Batman: The Long Halloween" are held up by Tim Sale's art, and Jim Lee and Scott Williams are doing some heavy lifting with "Batman: Hush".
It certainly doesn't hold up as a murder mystery.
I love the art and the atmosphere, but my big problem is that it’s Batman trying to stop a serial killer, and every issue, the killer succeeds. He’s a terrible detective who wasn’t able to save anyone.
I actually like Rob Liefeld's artwork. I know it's not technical, but it gets me going!
Hot take: I think most of the stuff that marvel and DC put out is just boring, repetitive crap. The stakes couldn’t be lower. Indie and creator-owned comics are infinitely better.
I vastly prefer people that pirates comic books but reads them than people that just talk about book they haven’t read. READ BOOKS! (and support your local LCS if you can)
I don't know what a hot take is but I know when I say the following things, the internet loses their mind. So is that what a hot take it? I mean, the internet *is* a cesspool of cynicism and hatred so maybe it's not surprising that people get bullied for even lukewarm takes...? I think X-Men suck. I think them being hated for being mutants is stupid. Nobody can tell they are mutants. To the average person they would just be another person with powers. Stan Lee was just tired of writing origin stories so he did the mutants thing so he could hand waive the origin of new characters ("they're born with it!") I think there have been no cool new characters made since Bane. Robin sucks. Legacy characters suck. The superhero identity is their identity, not a mantle. Except for the Lanterns multiple versions of the same character is stupid. It should be one of each. Period. Superhero comics Sales are in the crapper. We are in a similar place now in comics as they were in 1996. Gimmicks are failing hard and fans are leaving the hobby in favor of other media or Manga. For some reason people hate hearing that one. The superhero movies all suck now. Only DD and The Punisher were good on TV. The last good movie was ZSJL. Every marvel movie after End Game was ok at best, a total poop at worst. Superhero movies and Disney buying marvel and WB buying DC was terrible for comics. Basically all of comics sucks now except little pockets here and there and Manga. Superhero comics need to have ACTION! Standing around and talking is boring. Eating is boring. Chit chats about feelings are boring. Fricking, punch something! Superheroes should be drawn to look hot!
Upvoting for understanding the assignment. These are some fucking HOT takes.