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Chad Carter
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 June 2005
Posts: 9584
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| Posted: 16 March 2009 at 5:40pm | IP Logged | 1
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It is frustrating when fans cannot make the simple distinction that what they
like may not be the best, and what they dislike may not be the worst.
As usual, JB sums it up. The thing I love about comics is finding the stuff nobody gives a crap about or thinks about and loving it. Micheline/Talaoc Unknown Soldier stories, Gerber's Zombie stories, HERCULES UNBOUND, SKULL THE SLAYER, and any time Brother Voodoo appears. Those issues are mine, they are part of who I am. Whether you like them or not, I could give a sh*t.
But fans want to piss on everyone else's "best" for not only not being good enough, it sucks. It sucks, right? Yeah, it sucks. Is it white boy day? Naw, it ain't white boy day. The fans dictate content by their verbal acceptance or displeasure, and the companies overreact wildly. Four variant covers later, the fans are displeased by the content. It sucks. But then the kicker: they still buy it.
How can anyone find quality product among inferior product when the readers have no loyalty to good work in comics--or barely know what it looks like (nor do the talent making the comics, half the time)--and the companies believe their own hyperbolic slaverings to those fans' whims?
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Chad Carter
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 June 2005
Posts: 9584
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| Posted: 16 March 2009 at 5:47pm | IP Logged | 2
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Paul Ryan is solid as a rock. I'd read a Ryan comic any day of the week.
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Ray Brady
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3740
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| Posted: 16 March 2009 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | 3
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"I've read any number of dismissals of Watchmen online because it's "just"
Alan Moore taking existing character types and using stories similar to other
stories that people have written before."
-----
I would never dismiss the series on these grounds, however I have often
wondered if I would have enjoyed Watchmen more if it had indeed used the
Charlton characters.
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Nathaniel Botin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 August 2008
Posts: 59
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| Posted: 16 March 2009 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | 4
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But then you'd have people moaning that he'd ruined the characters, surely?
I thought that SS was pretty good when I read it the first time- good enough
to read a couple of times, even- but I wouldn't put it in the same ballpark as
Watchmen. I'm not sure I'd even put it in the same game.
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Andrew W. Farago
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4079
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| Posted: 16 March 2009 at 6:29pm | IP Logged | 5
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I would never dismiss the series on these grounds, however I have often
wondered if I would have enjoyed Watchmen more if it had indeed used the
Charlton characters.
I think Dick Giordano had the right idea when he told Moore and Gibbons to
come up with new characters. At the end of the day, they were only
"breaking" their own toys, and Blue Beetle, Question, Captain Atom and the
rest were freed up for DC to use as they saw fit.
Then again, given what happened to Blue Beetle in the mainstream DCU,
maybe he'd have been better off as a character in Watchmen...
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Chad Carter
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 June 2005
Posts: 9584
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| Posted: 16 March 2009 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | 6
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I agree. The Question was totally undermined as a character. Peacemaker was turned into a raving psychopath. Blue Beetle had some success as a character before summary execution. Judomaster just got his back broken not long ago to satisfy Geoff Johns' ego or something. The Web...who knows? Thunderbolt's big moment was getting knocked out by Jay Garrick (I think) in the original CRISIS, and he wasn't even identified.
I think Charlton heroes would have fared pretty much just as well as WATCHMEN, unfortunately.
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Jason Fliegel
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 December 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 639
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| Posted: 16 March 2009 at 7:19pm | IP Logged | 7
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I wonder if Watchmen would have featured the Charlton characters if it had come along a few years later after the Elseworlds label was introduced.
Edited by Jason Fliegel on 16 March 2009 at 7:19pm
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Eric Smearman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 02 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 5823
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| Posted: 16 March 2009 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | 8
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The Web...?
Thunderbolt had a short-lived DC series written and drawn by Mike Collins.
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Chad Carter
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 June 2005
Posts: 9584
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| Posted: 16 March 2009 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | 9
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Yes, Thunderbolt did. So did Peacemaker. And the Question had about a three year run.
Heck, the respective series were good to great. They also really fatally compromised some of the best ones, like the Question and Peacemaker. The results haven't been good in a long time.
Not the Web. Nightshade. Whom I just realized was the same Nightshade from SUICIDE SQUAD. I thought the name had just been appropriated for another character?
I wonder: anyone know what was the last appearance of each of the Charlton Action Heroes in the DCU?
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Ed Love
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 October 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2712
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| Posted: 16 March 2009 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | 10
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Let's see if I can take a stab off the top of my head.
The Question: died in 52
Blue Beetle: killed off in Countdown to Infinite Crisis but has appeared in Booster Gold
Son of Vulcan: killed in War of the Gods
Peacemaker: died in Eclipso 13, however shows up alive as a mentor in the recent Blue Beetle series but completely unrecognizeable in look or character.
Judomaster: Infinite Crisis
Tiger (Judomaster's sidekick): killed Agents of L.A.W.
Nightshade: Agents of L.A.W.
Peter Cannon Thunderbolt: Justice League Task Force
Captain Atom: Countdown Arena, now known as Monarch.
Sarge Steel: still around behind the scenes as far as I know. Probably in Checkmate.
MIA: Yang, Dr. Graves, The Fighting Five, the Sentinels (actually on a poster in Crisis on Infinite Earths I think), the Shape, Tyro Team, Killjoy
The fate of the Charlton characters, even before the last two years, they suffered such complete character assassination is why I hold little hope that they will treat the MLJ characters with any degree of respect. I do think what makes Watchmen work though is the fact that it's not with the Charlton characters but with avatars. By not having to tie into any pre-set continuity, Moore was freed up to really build and explore the world and themes that he wanted to and create a complete stand-alone work. The quality of the craftsmanship of the book, the repitition of thematic symbols, the layering of the storytelling and structure. Squadron Supreme dealt with a similar theme, but it doesn't have that depth of storytelling.
The sad thing is that everybody took the wrong lessons from what makes Watchmen good. It wasn't the darkening of the characters, superheroes as fascists and fetishes and preoccupation with their sexual peversions, so-called "realistic" superheroes. That's just Moore's hangups. It's that he told a real story, a very literate story in a way that could really only be achieved through understanding and use of the medium as well as the conceits and expectations of the genre. The comic within a comic, the text pieces done up as "artifacts", the building and use of his fictional NY city and minor characters to make the world feel all the more real as if he had a model in his basement that he referred to. Instead of recognizing the amount of work that went into it, everyone seems to focus on the surface details: that this was the only way that superheroes could be taken seriously, to deconstruct them into disturbed, deluded and mostly ineffectual individuals, where the heroes themselves are the true threats and not the villains. So, writer after writer tries to recreate Watchmen in their themes and treatment of superheroes such as Dynamite's Project: Superpowers and the whole DCU and Marvel Universe these days. Instead, it's just one way to go. Not all mysteries and detectives are hard-boiled. Not all science fiction is cyberpunk. Not all comedies are Seth Rogen/Will Farrell vehicles. There should be room for serious high adventure superheroes alongside the deconstructed heroes.
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Anthony Frail
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 09 October 2007
Posts: 960
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| Posted: 16 March 2009 at 11:16pm | IP Logged | 11
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There's enough room for everything.
In fact, focusing on the handful of ways to do things is one of the cancers of
this industry.
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John Farnham
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 March 2009
Posts: 300
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| Posted: 17 March 2009 at 12:23am | IP Logged | 12
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Squadron Supreme is possible my favorite maxi-series right after Crisis on Infinite Earths. I think the magic of the series for me is that obviously the characters are versions of the Justice League but placed in a setting unlike anything the JLA had done previously (except in "imaginary" stories ore alternate Earth versions). There are a few arcs in SS that are not as strong as some others, but over all I read it and feel the love that Mark Gruenwald had for the material and characters in every word, every chapter, every act.
I don't get that same sense of passion in Watchmen. It reads like a good novel, a solid story, but I don't sense any true connection between the characters and the writer.
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