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Post by jasonlatta on Jul 5, 2009 19:26:42 GMT -8
Not to derail from your thoughts about End League, which I haven't read and don't plan too in the next decade, at least, but...
You mentioned "real" ordinary people gaining super powers and hence reacting as real folk would in such a predicament, and I got to wondering, when has that ever been done well in comics?
I am certain it has been only rarely...At Marvel most of the characters were at the very least super geniuses before they received their particular tap on the cosmic shoulder and became superheroes. Reed Richards, Henry Pym, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Charles Xavier, Peter Parker, etc. even Donald Blake was a medical doctor before finding the hammer.
Meanwhile (ha!) DC's heroes seem to come from sensationalist glamor jobs or lifestyles before they became heroes...Bruce Wayne is a billionaire, Green Arrow too, Wonder Woman was designed by gods out of clay (!), the Martian Manhunter is a an alien, Superman is ANOTHER alien, Green Lantern was a test pilot, and Flash was a police scientist.
All representive of large segments of the population, for sure.
Where are the "real people as superheroes "?
Let's see...Uhm...I'm coming up with Animal Man and the Warriors of Plasm.
Yup. Maybe some of Valiant comics early characters, but, not really.
I still think this is an ideal we have yet to properly see...because if somebody is truly ordinary and gains Powers, they'll still be fucking boring...which is why we read superhero comics in the first place, to escape that boredom.
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Post by jasonlatta on Jul 4, 2009 10:31:44 GMT -8
I have a different perspective on it, but I'll do a little reading about what you said first before I reply. I could be wrong.
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Post by jasonlatta on Jul 4, 2009 10:26:42 GMT -8
Robert Kirkman has the same weakness, although he's improved markedly in the last two years...the writing in the newest issue of Invincible is a definite improvement over that found in the first 20 issues. Christ yes. "I don't care how strong you are. I don't care how fast you are. I can see the future, and you don't live to see tomorrow" is quite possibly the most cold-bloodedly awesome line I've read in a superhero comic since Midnighter's monologue in Authority#1 Oh, yeah. Not to spoil things for those who haven't read it, but the latest issue finally cemented Invincible as a "must read", at least for the time being. I'll dish out a few bucks every month to keep up with this. I actually found myself hoping that one character isn't really dead...and the great thing is, with Kirkman, he's got a history of offing major characters, so this has real dramatic weight, which is nice to see in the increasingly stale superhero genre.
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Post by jasonlatta on Jul 3, 2009 16:36:11 GMT -8
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/03/politics/main5131961.shtmlShe's whining about people being mean to a "Trig"? Says we need more Trigs in this country? I don't even know who or what the fuck Trig is, beyond the math course. Why? Because I can't follow every inept governor in the country. Between watching Rick Perry fuck up everything except his hair and Ah-Nuld chain smoking cigars while apparently driving California further into the depths of Depression with this IOU business (how would you like to be getting one of those from the California government right about now? )...I'm done with that business. Good riddance to bad rubbish. If she's seriously expecting to make a shot at the White House in 2012 and this isn't just the precursor to a major scandal popping loose like a breast from a loose bra, well, it'll be fun to watch.
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Post by jasonlatta on Jul 3, 2009 10:10:00 GMT -8
I am enjoying Morrison's new Batman and Robin comic. I missed out on the whole Batman Is Dead thing over the last few months, and dove back in to feed my wilted Bat addiction with Batman & Robin #1. The last DC comic I read before this was Final Crisis #7. As far as I know, Bruce is still trapped in 10,000 BC playing out his role as Morrison's superhero Odysseus, while his sons take over his house back at home.
The juxtaposition of the new hovercar Batmobile, new headquarters, new sidekick, new hero with the return of soundeffects, and the seriously bizarre (and scary in a way Joker has not been in ages) Pyg and his circus of crime, er, strange, evokes for me memories of comics from my less jaded days.
I almost wish they'd put the sensationalist tagline ALL NEW! ALL DIFFERENT! above the title, though admittedly that's a bit redundant, seeing as how the redesigned logo already tells you things have changed.
I couldn't help but notice the comic began with the Dynamic Duo chasing a Mr. Toad in a wild ride. I can't help it, that made me smile. And it seems to point the direction this series is going to take: a theme park amusement rollercoaster ride.
That's fine with me. Broody, tortured supergenius Batman was getting old. Maybe eating woolly mammoth and constructing his timemachine out of sabretooth tiger bones for the inevitable return will mellow him out a little so that Bruce is more fun when he makes his comeback in about 12 months or so...
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Post by jasonlatta on Jul 3, 2009 9:48:49 GMT -8
I see that Mark Millar still has good plotting skills but still writes what to me reads like juvenile dialog for his characters, as evidenced by his current issue of Fantastic Four. The words seem stilted and unnatural, as though the characters are poor actors reading their lines from cue cards off panel. I admit they get the point across but something about their flow grates on me.
Robert Kirkman has the same weakness, although he's improved markedly in the last two years...the writing in the newest issue of Invincible is a definite improvement over that found in the first 20 issues.
I'm no great writer myself, clearly, but after spending some time reading plays by the likes of Tennessee Williams, man, those characters have *got* to sound like PEOPLE, or I can't fully enjoy the work, regardless of how enjoyable the plotting and/or "mad, beautiful ideas" are.
Warren Ellis writes great dialog, as do several other comics writers. Ellis' greatest strength, in fact, is probably his ability to make spoken exposition entertaining to read. It seems to me that the "best" comics writers all have some variation of this skill...it's probably a necessity, given the confines of the word bubble.
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Post by jasonlatta on Jun 28, 2009 21:06:42 GMT -8
Happy Late Birth-day, Person I don't know!
(is this bad form?)
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Post by jasonlatta on Jun 28, 2009 21:05:36 GMT -8
I am such a nerd that when I watched the film I initially wondered if Kirk was fucking She-Hulk.
So, we can now expect the Shulkie movie in 2011.
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Post by jasonlatta on Jun 28, 2009 21:02:30 GMT -8
The Rule of Three People Dying is, how can I say it kindly, an annoying thing people talk about that I wish would go away.
There's what, 6 and a half billion human beings on earth? Any day of the week you can see 50,000 humans dying. Surely some of those will be famous, you know?
Still. Jackson dying WAS a shock for me. I had hoped he would die sooner, being that he was a pederast (allegedly *cough*.)
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Post by jasonlatta on Jun 28, 2009 20:55:35 GMT -8
I just wanted a place where I could talk about whatever random comics stuff came floating into my head. So, here is the thread I created! Enjoy.
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1) What actor or person should play what character in the inevitable Nerd Fiction movie?
These are the kind of questions nerds ask that always make for fun threads. There are really no wrong answers!
Or maybe there are. Hmmm.
I'll start with some thoughts:
Why the fuck did UFC heavyweight Champ (for now, at least) Brock Lesnar not play the Juggernaut in the horrid third X-men movie?
LOOK at that motherfucker! He's a human wrecking machine! Put the armor on him and NOTHING CAN STOP THE BROCK! No CGI needed...Lesnar looks like he can run through a brick wall right now...and let's face it, it's not exactly a part that requires a Shakespearean range to play, either.
I demand that Lesnar be digitally inserted into my waste-of-cash copy of X-men the last stand...at least it would be fucking SOMETHING to enjoy.
(And while I'm on subject for a moment, let's put some fuckin' blood into that POS Wolverine movie, too, shall we? That movie sucks shit through a three quarter pipe, I'll grant you, but hey, let's at least admit to ourselves that the main character has razor sharp knives sticking out of his hands half the time! Therefore when he slashes somebody there should be BLOOD. By happenstance I watched that film twice in the theater and I don't remember so much as a tiny dollop of blood throughout the film! Really? Yes...REALLY.)
Next, I'm not sure if you guys follow the Wheel of Time fantasy series formally written by now dead author Robert Jordan, but the guy who plays the vampire in the recent film Twilight is perfect to play a young Rand al'Thor. He is capable of looking handsome and conflicted, which I figure is really all the part needs.
Staying on that series of Nerdity for a moment, I figure sex symbol Angelina Jolie-Pitt (right?) should play Lanfear, as the seductive bitch-goddess figure that tempts Rand for much of the series. Come to the Dark Side and suckle upon these Pitt-Hardened Nipples, Boy! The One Power compels You! hahahhahhahahaha
If Ice-T could gain forty pounds of muscle he'd be ok as Luke Cage.
I dunno. Strike that last.
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Give me your random thoughts that are not worthy of a full thread!
and respond to the posts of others when you feel the need to.
Verily! (a word I only know from Thor comics, but which I'll use in real life at the smallest opportunity.)
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Post by jasonlatta on Jun 28, 2009 9:42:20 GMT -8
It's been a looonnngg time since I read some of the things I'm about to mention, so be kind if the memory is flawed.
There was a story in (I think, this was back in the eighties) Marvel Two-in-One that indicated the Serpent Crowns of different realities were all linked to one another. There was even mention that in various alternate realities, the SC had conquered the entire Earth. (In fact there was an issue of What If? where the literal sons of Set were released and are going from dimension to dimension killing everything!)
The heroes destroyed the super Serpent Crown made out of 666 SCs from different realties during the Atlantis Attacks crossover, but that still leaves the rest of the multiverse, if you follow what I'm saying. If they were all in communication with each other, I'd imagine the rest of the Serpent Crowns are pretty pissed off, as is Set, the god who they were made for.
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Post by jasonlatta on May 28, 2009 12:09:48 GMT -8
Although to be fair, in spacefaring movies, there's almost NEVER a body due to disintegration-in-space, which would mean that Khan could theoretically still be out there. Well, Khan IS still out there, since in this new timeline, the Botany Bay hasn't been discovered by the Enterprise yet. It follows that Nero will return...when he's actually born in another 70 years or thereabouts. Which also means Nomad, The Borg, The Tribbles, Q, etc. are also all out there. I can't imagine the next movie will be anything other than Klingons, though. You'll note in the film they were never even mentioned. BTW, tying all this back to comics, here's Paul Pope's short Trek piece: www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2009/whenWorldsCollide
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Post by jasonlatta on May 27, 2009 8:47:42 GMT -8
Petey's gonna get laid to-night, boy!
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Post by jasonlatta on May 27, 2009 8:41:16 GMT -8
A scientist dissects the whole Red Matter thing from the new movie. Not only funny in how bad the science of Trek is, but pretty dang interesting in how a Doomsday Weapon might actually work: scifiwire.com/2009/05/columnist-wil-mccarthy-st.phpAnd, Jard, Yes, the ship seen on earth is apparently the Enterprise after all. My bad.
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Post by jasonlatta on May 23, 2009 18:07:29 GMT -8
BTW, I don't want to argue about it--I understand and appreciate that others hated it--but I liked the new film quite a lot. Seen it three times so far.
My own very humble opinion on the matter is that the series needed to do something drastic to keep it going.
Speaking as a nerd who owns virtually everything that says STAR TREK on the package on dvd, I doubt I would have personally gone for a TOS reboot, but that's what they did, and (again, in my humble opinion) it mostly worked out for the best.
I don't buy the argument that Trek was ever particularly intellectually challenging...we're talking about a show that indeed had nicely constructed gems like "City on the Edge of Forever" sitting next to laughable episodes like "Spock's Brain"...or in the case of the newer shows, having some malfunction occur on the holodeck every four episodes and/or playing around with an android/buxom borgette who wants to be "human".
It was always low grade science fiction, a step above, say, Lost in Space, but never much more complicated plot wise than a typical Issac Asimov novel, except with far worse science.
Having said that, I will always believe that if it weren't for the original series and its "communicators" we wouldn't have the same sort of cell phone system we enjoy today...the reach and influence of those shows is undeniable.
But I believe in calling a spade a spade, and Star Trek has always been pretty silly. That's why I love it, personally. Just my two pence.
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