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Thranguy posted:I mean, Superman wanting to enlist (and being thwarted by secret identify issues) goes back all the way to the roots, with 'why the heck wasn't Clark ever in the military' being a question that needed some kind of answer for decades. No it isn't. The reason is simple. He didn't join the military because he's a good person.
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Jun 18, 2019 01:36
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Instead of Frank Miller, how about we talk about Jim Cheung channeling some Jack Kirby? Love the ol’ Barreling through a group of mooks thing Kirby would do with OMAC, Cap, Orion, etc;
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Jun 18, 2019 01:46
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Vince MechMahon posted:No it isn't. The reason is simple. He didn't join the military because he's a good person. What on earth are you talking about? I think Superman being in the military is an appalling notion, but it factually was a going concern within the books, notably during WWII. Here is the most often cited example, from 1943's Superman #25.  The prior reference is to the February 16-18, 1942 installments of the Superman newspaper strip. Just because I don't like something doesn't mean it never happened. This took 30 seconds to look up. How Wonderful! fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Jun 18, 2019 |
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Jun 18, 2019 01:50
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Vince MechMahon posted:No it isn't. The reason is simple. He didn't join the military because he's a good person. There was a draft for several decades of his history so he needed more of a strategy than that even after the army stopped being in the Nazi-fighting business.
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Jun 18, 2019 02:01
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Archyduchess posted:What on earth are you talking about? I think Superman being in the military is an appalling notion, but it factually was a going concern within the books, notably during WWII. Here is the most often cited example, from 1943's Superman #25. It's not 1943. It's 2019. Superman would not have been alive during the draft currently. There is absolutely no reason to address this in 2019 unless you are writing a period piece. And even then you don't actually need to because the answer is "it's a comic book." What the gently caress are you even talking about?
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Jun 18, 2019 02:38
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Thranguy posted:I mean, Superman wanting to enlist (and being thwarted by secret identify issues) goes back all the way to the roots, with 'why the heck wasn't Clark ever in the military' being a question that needed some kind of answer for decades.
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Jun 18, 2019 02:46
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Needed, past tense. In 2019 it does not need an answer, unless they are writing a period piece. Which they are not. So again, what does "why didn't Superman join the army and fight in WW2" need an answer in 2019, when in 2019 the character was probably born in the 80's or maybe even 90's, long after WW2 and well outside of the draft?
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Jun 18, 2019 03:03
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Vince MechMahon posted:Needed, past tense. In 2019 it does not need an answer, unless they are writing a period piece. Which they are not. So again, what does "why didn't Superman join the army and fight in WW2" need an answer in 2019, when in 2019 the character was probably born in the 80's or maybe even 90's, long after WW2 and well outside of the draft? Because he needs to be by water
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Jun 18, 2019 03:08
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Vince MechMahon posted:Needed, past tense. In 2019 it does not need an answer, unless they are writing a period piece. Which they are not. So again, what does "why didn't Superman join the army and fight in WW2" need an answer in 2019, when in 2019 the character was probably born in the 80's or maybe even 90's, long after WW2 and well outside of the draft? Well, it being 2019 didn't really have anything to do with the post you quoted and saying they were wrong when clearly archy proved they weren't so I'm not sure what you're on about now besides moving goalposts
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Jun 18, 2019 03:27
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Vince MechMahon posted:It's not 1943. It's 2019. Superman would not have been alive during the draft currently. There is absolutely no reason to address this in 2019 unless you are writing a period piece. And even then you don't actually need to because the answer is "it's a comic book." What the gently caress are you even talking about? Superman is a fictional character who has been around for over 80 years, and the old stories don't stop being of artistic, cultural, and historical interest just because the diegetic Clark Kent has "aged" out of them. I don't throw Anna Karenina out the window because it has out-of-date information about trains in it. As I said-- I think Superman being in the military is a dumb idea, and in the context of this particular comic probably a loathsome one. But despite it being 2019, as you've helpfully noted, the thematic proximity of Superman and the US military is not novel and is in fact present from very early on. If it isn't to be celebrated necessarily it's still there to be grappled with and understood, just as Morrison, for example, chose instead to grapple with and elevate the character's very foundational roots as a working class socialist hero. This is how dealing with texts works. "It's [just?] a comic book" is a pretty lackluster way of engaging with the medium.
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Jun 18, 2019 03:45
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It feels like we're having three different conversations here, none of them very enlightening. Yes, Clark Kent probably needed a reason to not be in the military back when the draft was mandatory, but A) most readers 100% did not give a poo poo back then because Superman is a cartoon character and B) it looks like they came up with an explanation eventually anyway, so. Y'know. Great. Nowadays, we don't need any explanation for any characters not being enlisted. And it feels a little weird to be citing comics from the old days as some sort of precedence for tackling the issue because...well, it was a non-issue then and remains a non-issue now. And especially since the cited precedence ends up depicting that Superman wasn't ever enlisted so like...why is it relevant anyway? All in all it's just sort of a touchy matter because it sounds like someone going "Well hold up now y'all...look, noted literal crazy rear end in a top hat Frank Miller's idea of putting His Goddamn Superman into the armed forces is actually totes good and interesting because of this thing from the Silver Age" and it's like...nah. Nah, it still isn't.
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Jun 18, 2019 03:47
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I don't think anyone is claiming that it's a good idea, let alone that this particular Miller/Romita comic sounds at all good or anything other than insanely ill-advised. In fact in this thread I've specifically called it dumb, "probably loathsome," and appalling. My point I guess is that saying, quite rightly, "blending superheroes with military institutions is disturbing and sort of horrifying" doesn't negate that superheroes have often been blended with military institutions and deeply troubling insinuations of nationalism. I think it's a long-term issue that haunts the genre, and not acknowledging it doesn't make it go away.
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Jun 18, 2019 03:52
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Superman did join a foreign government's army in his second story ever, but that was to torment a weapons manufacturer, who he also forced to join, into not being a piece of poo poo. Is there anything out there quite like the early Golden Age Superman? It sounds like Morrison's New52 stuff kinda scratches at it, should I check it out? Open Marriage Night posted:Instead of Frank Miller, how about we talk about Jim Cheung channeling some Jack Kirby? Love the ol’ Barreling through a group of mooks thing Kirby would do with OMAC, Cap, Orion, etc; Yes, please. Are there plans for more Kirby trades? I'd like to read OMAC and Kamandi at some point.
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Jun 18, 2019 04:19
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catlord posted:Superman did join a foreign government's army in his second story ever, but that was to torment a weapons manufacturer, who he also forced to join, into not being a piece of poo poo. Yeah, Morrison's stuff might scratch that itch. Otherwise I'm not really sure-- I think it's difficult to capture that mercureal, improvisational energy of really, really early Golden Age comics, when the rules of the genre were being figured out on the fly. There's that incredible early Batman story where he goes to Europe and blunders onto a bunch of flowers with anguished human faces, like something out of a Gothic novel or an Artaud play, that is so out of place for a conventional superhero story but perfectly in keeping with the series as it was at the time, still trying on different flavors of weirdness and atmosphere to see what stuck.
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Jun 18, 2019 04:24
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Greg Pak on Action Comics wrote a very Golden Age style Superman when he was writing Truth. Unfortunately towards the end it kinda loses its way and ultimately the story has been retconned pretty hard but the early chapters had a fun grassroots storyline about Clark defending the citizens of Metropolis from evil shadow demon cops and chaining himself to the streets to do so.
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Jun 18, 2019 05:42
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He also punches a cop who is only later revealed to be a possessed monster.
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Jun 18, 2019 05:44
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Paktion wasn't retconned, that Superman just went bye bye.
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Jun 18, 2019 05:50
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Teenage Fansub posted:Paktion wasn't retconned, that Superman just went bye bye. It was retconned after that. Wonder Woman never tapped any version of that, post Rebirth.
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Jun 18, 2019 06:01
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Iirc Superman Reborn merges them and had Mxyzptlk remove Truth to preserve Clark’s identity. Broadly I think what’s left to be Superman canon is a broad strokes version of Morrison Action Comics given the Kents car crash death is still in Doomsday Clock that takes that origin and has Clark slow grow from there into SuperDad and family with the occasional Post Crisis or New 52 Superman moment referenced. AFoolAndHisMoney fucked around with this message at 06:34 on Jun 18, 2019 |
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Jun 18, 2019 06:31
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Oh my God the Marvel attitude towards canon is so much better. Edit: I'm reading Tom King's Batman in trades and I literally don't know how much of Knightfall is canon. Air Skwirl fucked around with this message at 06:44 on Jun 18, 2019 |
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Jun 18, 2019 06:41
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Thranguy posted:It was retconned after that. Wonder Woman never tapped any version of that, post Rebirth. There was a dead and buried N52 Superman in Tomassi's Rebirth issue. I assume he had some adventures and stories from the previous comics. Rucka entirely wishing away the prior WW run shouldn't have happened. edit: Okay sure Superman Reborn. That quasi reboot was dumb too. People were enjoying Rebirth Superman with the continuity traveler backstory just fine till that point. Sure, you had to acknowledge Convergance having happened, but their story was neat. Having some vague mix-up of stuff instead wasn't making things simpler. Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Jun 18, 2019 |
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Jun 18, 2019 06:45
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Rucka didn't wish away the Superbro/Wonder Woman bangathon. In WW#9, he directly referenced the fact that his WW still hella banged that guy. The ultimate culprit who did away with the SuperWonder banging was Tomasi himself (with help from Jurgens), through the Reborn storyline which made it so that Clark and Lois had always been together all this time. It's not that complicated y'all 
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Jun 18, 2019 06:57
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But he was a Superman that was with a Lois the whole time. That they weren't the universe/timeline's native L+C shouldn't have really mattered. You could just stick them with the N52 memories and never bring the topic up (edit: until Superman's confession booth page in Heroes In Crisis or something.) The true loss was the retconning of Superman's beard. Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Jun 18, 2019 |
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Jun 18, 2019 06:59
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I dunno I like Morrison and Pak's Superman and I like the idea that he eventually grew into an older, wiser dad - shame Bendis came in and has been Bendising the whole situation to the point where I have no interest in following the character whatsoever and just want him off ASAP so someone else can come in and salvage what's left. The Post Crisis refugee stuff was just way too convoluted an explanation to the character and I don't know why they didn't just force a timeskip that aged Superman into being married to Lois and having a son instead of some mean spirited killing him off in a lousy way to deliberately replace him with a character that had a complicated backstory that required you to read a bunch of mediocre stuff like Convergence in order to understand it. Considering Rebirth Green Arrow managed to take New 52 GA and reintroduce a lot of classic elements that worked really well in a way that didn't need to force dimension hopping or stupid retcons I don't know why others couldn't have taken the same approach to Rebirthing their characters instead.
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Jun 18, 2019 09:00
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Teenage Fansub posted:Yeah. It's DKR world. Also/formerly known as Earth-31. Also, Clark Kent joining the military is a decent plot. In any decade it makes sense that a young man from the rural Midwest, raised to respect Apple Pie American values above all else, would join the military - especially after the traumatic realizations that he is not normal at all - not even human - that in fact that he's incredibly dangerous. The military could easily be appealing as a place to build a routine, an identity, a new life, a place to belong, a place to get orders and guidance from tough older men, feel closer to his adoptive family/country, etc. You'd just have to follow through on the fact that, for Clark and everyone else, joining the military to solve these problems is ethically, practically, and psychologically ill-conceived. It should end with Clark forging a new plan for his life in Metropolis centered around his values, not those of American empire. It's a failed experiment in Clark's attempts at being a hero, and its failure inspires the superhero who's willfully independent of the state. Clark joining the military is Superman: Year Negative One. Frank Miller, of course, will not be doing it this way Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Jun 18, 2019 |
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Jun 18, 2019 19:47
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It just sounds like it has nothing to do with Clark’s values and everything to do with an aggrieved sense of entitlement. Superman is sick of playing nice and not getting anything for it, so he’s going to go stomp the poo poo out of somebody. It’s terrible but at least it’s true to Miller’s understanding of Superman as a weak-willed simp who is just waiting for someone to tell him who to beat up.
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Jun 18, 2019 20:08
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Civilized Fishbot posted:Also/formerly known as Earth-31. Yeah, something like that would involve Clark being deployed on the front lines and getting discharged as a result of not following orders and protecting a family caught in the crossfire against US forces as the climax. This may involve military deployment of a meta(s) that Clark stops while trying to maintain cover because it was basically let loose either with no regards for civilians or just plain berserk
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Jun 18, 2019 20:10
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Xelkelvos posted:Yeah, something like that would involve Clark being deployed on the front lines and getting discharged as a result of not following orders and protecting a family caught in the crossfire against US forces as the climax. This may involve military deployment of a meta(s) that Clark stops while trying to maintain cover because it was basically let loose either with no regards for civilians or just plain berserk Yes! And consider that Clark is constantly aware of basically all movement within a mile's radius of him, meaning he senses the death and pain of everyone near him, and consider how horrified/stressed he'd be during a shootout or on a battlefield (especially if a meta was loving everyone up). He'd have to constantly deploy his powers to give the impression that he was following orders while actually saving lives, which is a neat premise for a Superman story that isn't about punching his enemies into non-lethal submission Clark joining the military should be like in various batman comics where Bruce grabs a gun to just shoot a criminal, and realizes that he just can't work that way. It underlines that the Superman and Batman personas, as bizarre and seemingly arbitrary as they are, have been constructed through experimentation with what works and what doesn't (experiments conducted by both the characters and the writers) Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Jun 18, 2019 |
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Jun 18, 2019 20:20
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Civilized Fishbot posted:Also/formerly known as Earth-31. Ok, yeah, this would be a really really good story, so I'll concede that the idea has potential. Edit: It sort of makes me think of the subplot in the early issues of Chip Zdarsky's Spider-Man: Life Story, where Peter has to grapple with other heroes going to Vietnam vs. his own ambivalence about the war. It makes very literal and upfront a lot of subtext about violence and power that are there in the original comics.
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Jun 18, 2019 21:21
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Archyduchess posted:Edit: It sort of makes me think of the subplot in the early issues of Chip Zdarsky's Spider-Man: Life Story, where Peter has to grapple with other heroes going to Vietnam vs. his own ambivalence about the war. It makes very literal and upfront a lot of subtext about violence and power that are there in the original comics. oh hell yeah, that sounds perfect
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Jun 18, 2019 21:27
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Splint Chesthair posted:It just sounds like it has nothing to do with Clark’s values and everything to do with an aggrieved sense of entitlement. Superman is sick of playing nice and not getting anything for it, so he’s going to go stomp the poo poo out of somebody.
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Jun 18, 2019 21:50
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BrianWilly posted:It's not that complicated y'all I appreciate the sarcasm because these retcons on top of retcons riding a reboot are keeping me from spending any money on a DC book without first verifying that it’s an actual story and not another round of continuity maintenance disguised as a story.
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Jun 18, 2019 22:24
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Is Clark Kent going to literally kill Bin Laden in this? My money is on a stand in.
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Jun 18, 2019 22:58
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Vince MechMahon posted:Is Clark Kent going to literally kill Bin Laden in this? My money is on a stand in. That's very 2000s of you. This is 2019 and Miller has calmed from his post-9/11 frothing bigotry. Superman's going to be taking the Russians down, restoring the integrity of elections in Afghanistan, working with - and eventually joining - a new group of heroes called the Mujahdeen Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Jun 18, 2019 |
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Jun 18, 2019 23:51
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Edge & Christian posted:Based on the (really weird and not very good) preview pages, Teenage Clark isn't entitled or unsure of himself, he's the sort of person who sticks up for nerds and outcasts and tries to beg off attention for doing so in his high school. He's also the sort of anti-bully quiet type who ties up classmates who are sexual predators and leaves them naked in the girls' locker room and also throws bullies up into trees, so it's definitely a Miller Take on the character. I wasn’t aware of any preview pages, so I retract what I said before. I was going off nothing more than that quote about Clark as a SEAL from earlier. Still doesn’t sound like my cup of tea, oh well.
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Jun 19, 2019 03:05
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Splint Chesthair posted:I wasn’t aware of any preview pages, so I retract what I said before. I was going off nothing more than that quote about Clark as a SEAL from earlier. Still doesn’t sound like my cup of tea, oh well. Like I said, I'm not convinced this preview (or the whole thing) is going to be any good, nor I am not making any attempt to defend Miller's post-DK2 output, but he's not quite the caricature people are fond of pushing.
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Jun 19, 2019 03:29
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I really can't stand the look of John Romita Jr's art for some reason.
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Jun 19, 2019 03:36
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why do you hate bricks fighting
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Jun 19, 2019 06:29
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I liked JRjr’s art in DK the Last Crusade. Everything else has been fairly rubbish. These preview pages are definitely not Last Crusade level.
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Jun 19, 2019 08:19
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I hate the direction King went with in Batman. God dannit
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Jun 19, 2019 19:44
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