Machine Man is an Avenger and Orion is JLA now?
Machine Man got that HARM/Zombies push, but I didn’t think it actually took.
I can’t speak for Machine Man, but Orion’s definitely been with the JLA during Morrison’s run.
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machine man was a reserve avenger for a while, and during morgan le fay’s reality warp, he became a member of the queen’s vengeance named “Sir MacHinnery”
i mainly remember this because it’s such a silly name[/spoiler][spoiler]and because “once an avenger” was an awesome story
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What’s good right now in DC? Besides the Flintstones?
look you can nest spoilers
spoiler 1 is related to spoiler 2 and the mega spoiler
it doesn’t work great
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Detective Comics is good. Deathstroke is good. New Super-Man is good. Wonder Woman is good. Titans is good.
Others too but those specifically come to mind right now
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Here’s my index of every single time Lady Shiva has been in a fight, along with the results.
Ok, I need to rant.
‘The Button’ thing pissed me off and made me confront an army of corporate apologists on Twitter today (why do I do this to myself) and it sparked something. So here we go.
‘the Button’, if you don’t know, is a Flash/Batman crossover where they someway somehow interact with the smiley face button from Watchmen. Which will lead to a connection to Dr.Oz (gee wonder who that is) and who knows what else. I also saw a frame from a Superman comic where they have the tentacle alien from Watchmen as well. All of this is hacky. All of it is gross.
Now I’m not always huge on authorial intent. But the battle between DC and Watchmen’s creators has become a famous cautionary tale for creator rights and led to some good in the company. Until the Image Reliance Vertigo, DC’s imprint had the best creator deal in the biz, I think part of that came from Watchmen’s Legacy, though clearly more V for Vendetta’s as well, but still the Moore connection.
Years ago they did ‘Before Watchmen’ and this debate got a new light and the time I heard about a great deal of this with clarity for the first time. Moore hated it and made it known he was against it. Gibbons went with DC on it, in part because they promised him that this and Watchmen wouldn’t be connected to the DCU.
Now here we are another promise broken, and for what? An ongoing story where the multiverse reset of DC is brought on by the cast of Watchmen? It’s gross, and another tired idea from a burned out DC who’s quality has been dropping with double shipping nearly every one of their books. For example, King’s Batman (the same in this ‘Button’ issue) just wrote a whole issue of Bane punching other noted Batman villans to set up that he’s a ‘big bad’ Just one page to the joker, riddler, zazz, and so on. Meet, greet, punch, move on. And you can see it in the art too. Of course, these issues are in 9 panel spreads But with fairly barren backgrounds and about 0 subtext.
Oh, but to say DC comics need to focus on fewer events and covers and focus on good storytelling that stands on it’s own right. Man do the fanboys come out. The fact I’m calling them fanboys… I’m sitting in a room with access to thousands of DC comics but some good and bad. To say the whole line is good at any given time is insanity. There’s always good and bad comics. But when I point out declining quality, which sure is arbitrary. But if you take about any random DC comic from even the late 90’s through to the new 52 relaunch, I bet you’d find more to the comic in the story it’s in and less reliance on pre-existing ‘meta’ notions of what’s going on, and a higher word count, and more detail in a given panel. Exceptions would happen of course but most DC rebirth issues read like popcorn, you can finish it in about 5 minutes because there’s very little there, there.
Not to say I’m not enjoying some of them. Some are fun, and some are fun, for being light frankly. I think Nightwing has a good balance, for example. But I point some of that out (it’s twitter) and the financials come out. Their point being Rebirth is selling better than the New52. First. woo, Image is still growing faster than DC, and relatively right now IDW is growing way faster and if they make a couple of big moves I think we could have a ‘big 4’ more honest diversity in comics, and a lot more people reading. Beyond that. Comic sales figures right now are Diamon Direct only. Meaning we get a fraction of single issues sold in a month only. Direct Market. So anything sold at a normal bookstore, airport, drugstore, or whatever low as that may be, is not counted. Also, no trade sales or digital is counted which is where most new readers start. (Also where Image makes the Lion’s share of their money) Also, keep in mind Diamond issue sales don’t differentiate covers. So A/B covers and variant covers are all under a single line. But given how varients are sold, and that people will buy all the covers, how much a comic sells vs how many readers it has in the direct market only is never accurate but always lower.
Sorry, that was an aside, but I think relevant. I also think DC needs to focus on just telling quality stories with their characters and focus on Not doing events every five minutes. That was what Rebirth was supposed to be, and they’re already breaking that promise. Because they can’t leave a good thing to stand on it’s own. I love some of DC’s characters. I love some current DC creators. But I hate DC as a business. Same goes for Marvel. I wish there was more contention in the comic book side of the world today, because ‘the button’ is gross.
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it would have been better to do an arc where The Watchmen comics exist within the DC universe as comics, but it turns out their creator is an evil supervillain who wants to rid the world of heroes
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I agree that it’s kind of gross, but, I’m enjoying it anyway
and then grant morrison defeats the supervillain with the power of postive thinking and self belief?
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that is actually pretty close to the plot of grant morrison’s multiversity
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you weren’t kidding.
note that the rest of this cover includes a delightful smorgasbord of heroes that really bring back that silver age feel of wonderment and imagination- a whole range of crazy and wacky characters as if from the pen of Kirby himself. Just think, a cartoon rabbit in a superman style costume, (and get this) a superhero who is a native australian aboriginal!!!. CRAZY! Just Imagine!!! What will grant come up with next???
Ok, that was a bit faecetious, morrison has indeed written some good stories. He just does this weird tonal jumping thing that makes the writer’s voice seem like its smirking at you. For example, he did this issue of new x-men where magneto’s memory was redeemed in the aftermath of cassandra nova’s (prof x’s evil twin) bombing of genosha. It was a nice stand alone issue and included a nice range of characters beyond the new x-men standard cast. All and sundry gather in genosha to remember Erik, and Morrison adds to New X-Men’s very impressive range of iconic imagery with former Brotherhood of Mutants building a huge, mulitfaced statue of magneto out of the huge megasentinel that bombed the country. Then later in the run he resurrects magneto as a crazy drug addicted terrorist. Is he laughing at the reader for being affected by the previous story? Is he also laughing at the reader for investing in the new (and also suitably iconic) character Xorn, who he reveals to have been nonexistent, simply a disguise for magneto to infiltrate the school.
Sorry this is off topic.
I actually really liked how Xorn was handled in the run and was annoyed that subsequent writers undid all of that.
Morrison is definitely a writer to be read as incapable of laughing at his audience , rather he is someone who tries too hard to be clever (making his flaw as a writer almost identical to Gaiman’s flaw. Morrison is also vain and super narcissistic because he went to too many raves in the 90s). Still, his love of superheroes is entirely unironic and sincere (which is why both flex mentallo and all star superman are two of the best capes comics ever written)
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In this I think we can see one of the distinctions between Moore and Morrison’s work, in that Moore does actually succeed in investing substance and meaning into his work, especially at the larger structural levels that Morrison I think rarely succeeds at. However, to be evenhanded, Morrison may very well excel Moore at creating truly iconic moments within the genre. All Star Superman, not a work that I am a particular fan of, stars off with an epic, 3 panel recap of Superman’s origin, and there are many memorable elements of the series throughout, from the cubic bizarro earth to Superman saving the emo girl from suicide. Even more so, New X-Men as I have previously mentioned, was I believe most notable for Morrison’s introduction of characters and elements that not only seemed novel but also had the enduring character of X-men story elements, showing his understanding of the Platonic ‘essence’ of comics that he seems so invested in believing in. In contrast, works such as 7 soldiers, final crisis and multiversity are hobbled by Morrison’s awkward attempts at philosophical exposition which he is less capable than Moore of sublimating into the plot, characterisation, and other structural elements of his comics.
His narcissism is a troubling aspect of his infamy and role as would be cultural ambassador of super hero comics.
edit: and narcissism in itself is a fundamentally awful thing
The lack of irony that you mentioned I can see might be the root of this. In the magneto example above I agree that he is not laughing at the audience as such, rather he is attempting an ill conceived narrative reversal that fails to gel with the tone established earlier in his run.
7 soldiers was hobbled by mediocre first and last issues (and just not caring about a few of the characters) but overall I was really fond of the project as a sort of ‘comics continuity in miniature’ dioramas
It’s probably the only time I’ve been excited by an event series. It’s certainly better than final crisis or multiversity.
Morrison is at his best when he avoids trying to be an ‘important’ writer, and yeah, as far as Morrison vs (classic) Moore goes, Moore was actually able to render his philosophical musing through plot and character rather than just having a literal author avatar stand in and explain why he’s so great.
That being said, I feel like we go too easy on Moore because we remember all his classics and choose to politely forget that his writing has been getting seriously worse over the last 15 years (Black Dossier and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century are both far worse than the first two volumes were, his hp lovecraft fanfic is embarrassing)
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Moore’s decision to forgo all profits made from movie adaptations based on work of his that he does not approve of, inclines me to give him a certain amount of leeway.
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Should’ve donated that money to victims of sexual assault.
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