REVIEW: STARMAN #38 (Four-Color Critiques)
matthew, j, springer
Our ratings system:
! = Crap.
! ! = Crap that doesn't stink.
! ! ! = Pretty good.
! ! ! ! = Great.
! ! ! ! ! = The second coming of Kirby and Lee.
STARMAN #38
". . .La Fraternite De Justice Et Liberte!"
Writer: James Robinson
Penciller: Dusty Abell
Inks: Dexter Vines/Norman Lee
Editor: Archie Goodwin
Rating: ! !
SPOILERS AHEAD! IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THIS ISSUE YET, DON'T READ THIS REVIEW!
THEY'RE VERY BIG SPOILERS!
Much like FANTASTIC FOUR #1, STARMAN #38 is a recently released comic
expected to raise much controversy that is set in France. What is it with the
French this week? First Lobdell's weird creatures rising from beneath the
streets of Paris, now Robinson decides to massacre the new Justice League of
Europe there, giving the job to a smart, almost-powerless woman with a knife
and a gun. Great.
Perhaps "controversy" is too weak a word to describe the expected
reaction to this issue. "Horror" and "disgust" might be more appropriate
terms. As you may have discovered already from the heavy fan debates leading
up to this issue, Robinson has the Mist killing Blue Devil, Amazing Man, and
Crimson Fox as they protect valuable diamonds in the heart of Paris. Yet the
reactions of disgust and horror to STARMAN #38 should not arise merely because
characters die between its covers. Death in comics is not in and of itself a
bad thing. Properly handled, it can be a powerful reminder of the mortality
of these larger-than-life figures we call "superheroes." It can also pay off
with some incredible stories. Unfortunately, the story told in STARMAN #38 is
neither powerful nor well-told.
This is an issue that will live in infamy for quite some time, not
just for the deaths of three great characters but for the piss-poor writing
offered by Robinson. Even if you had no idea that Robinson was going on a
murder spree in the DCU before you read this issue, by page four it would be
all too easy to predict the final outcome of the story. After Robinson tips
his hand too early, he forces the reader to sit through page after page of
weak character interactions between heroes that both he and the reader know
will DIE before the end of this comic book. Instead of bringing the reader
closer to these characters before they bite the bullet, Robinson somehow
succeeds in spending the entire issue CHEAPENING their deaths through his
awkward dialogue and plotting. The story is full of crass ploys to generate
interest and sympathy, each one failing so miserably that they would be
laughable if they weren't so clearly cruel and mean-spirited.
On top of all that, the deaths themselves are unbelievably executed
and entirely unmotivated. When did the Mist gain the experience and craft
necessary to kill three veteran heroes in a matter of minutes? How is it that
she is such a clever mimic that she can trick four of Ice Maiden's teammates
that she IS Ice Maiden for what seems like a week at least? And WHY is she
doing all of this, other than the fact that she's psycho? If Robinson needed
only to prove that the Mist is really really really crazy, seeing that
pacifier next to the gun on page two did the trick for me.
Two things are obvious about STARMAN #38. First, it's clear that
Robinson is engaging in a desperate and heavy-handed attempt to transform the
Mist into an instant megavillain. Hell, I've always thought that just killing
some innocent people did the trick, but if he wants to kill really cool
characters that a number of fans care about instead, I guess that works too.
More than that, it's also apparent that Robinson is flexing his ego-fueled
writer's muscles way too far here. He's overestimating the extent to which
most readers trust his judgment in making story decisions. It's safe to
predict that this issue will lose him a lot of readers, as it should. Perhaps
it will teach him to practice a bit more restraint in crafting plots. He'll
learn for sure that if he's gonna kill any well-known character, he better
have a damn good reason and a damn good story to tell. Otherwise, it's just
creative masturbation.
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**************************************************************************
matthew, j, springer
All right--let's get it on.
[Posted and E-mailed]
SPOILER SPACE
In article <19971106063...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
prest...@aol.com (Prestorjon) wrote:
>>Death in comics is not in and of itself a
>>bad thing. Properly handled, it can be a powerful reminder of the mortality
>>of these larger-than-life figures we call "superheroes."
>
>
>
>Bullshit. People weren't upset about this issue becuase they felt it wasn't
> going to be handled well. They were upset about it because super-heroes are
> going to bite the bullet. Lets face it the vast majority of comic book
> readers are whiney babies when it comes to a character actually getting a
> lasting change, and death is the most lasting change of all. People hate it
> when a character dies, not ebcasue the story isn't well handled, but because
> they want to see more of that character. How else can you explain that
theres
> about only a dozen characters in the history of super-hero comics who have
> died and STAYED DEAD.
I never said at all in my review that people were upset about this issue
because they felt it wasn't going to be handled well. The above statement is
what I BELIEVE, not what I'm inferring onto others. I know full well why many
people were upset about this issue before it hit the stands--because
characters were going to DIE. That's up to them. Personally, I tried to wait
until the issue came out to see how Robinson handled it. When he handled it
in a shitty way ("shitty" meaning WRITTEN VERY BADLY), then I wrote the
negative review. It has nothing to do with my feelings on death. Hell, if
you can get a great story out of it, kill every fucking DCU hero there is.
>>werful nor well-told.
>> This is an issue that will live in infamy for quite some time, not
>>just for the deaths of three great characters but for the piss-poor writing
>>offered by Robinson. Even if you had no idea that Robinson was going on a
>>murder spree in the DCU
>
>Three crappy heroes who end up taking the long dirt nap doesn't exactly
qualify
> as a "murder spree"
Whatever. It sure as hell does to me. Killing three decent characters in a
SHITTILY-WRITTEN ISSUE for NO APPARENT REASON is a "murder spree" to me.
>> before you read this issue, by page four it would be
>>all too easy to predict the final outcome of the story.
>
>By page 1 it should be all too easy since Mist says flat out that she killed
> some heroes, and the cover has a picture of the JLA. Curse that James
> Robinson for telling a story that wasn't strictly linear.
> Get over it bunk, its a common literary tool.
Well, let's take this apart, Professor. What are the two ways in which a
death in comics can have impact? In my humble opinion, they are:
1) if the death is a surprise, or
2) if the death happens to a character we care about, or
3) if the death is portrayed tragically.
Yeah, it's three not two; get over it. By page one of the comic, the death is
no longer a surprise. There goes number one! By page twelve the characters
are made worthless by Robinson's shitty dialogue. There goes number two! By
the end the issue is a waste of paper. There goes number three! And out the
fucking window go your "literary tools"...
>>After Robinson tips
>>his hand too early, he forces the reader to sit through page after page of
>>weak character interactions between heroes that both he and the reader know
>>will DIE before the end of this comic book.
>
>Hmmmm I don't know how the characterization can be weak considering that
> there's a lot more of it in this one issue than there was in the whole first
> year of Grant Morrisons JLA.
> And yeah we know they'll die in the end, so what! The journeys often
more
> important than the destination. Why read the book at all if you just care
> WHAT happens. Why not just read a plot synopsis, plenty of people can
provide
> them to you.
But it's BAD characterization, in fact not characterization at all. The
dialogue is stilted and forced. Crimson Fox and Amazing Man flirting...who
cares?! The Crimson Fox I remember would have had no problem telling Amazing
Man she wanted him--she's an openly flirtatious French woman, not a mewling
high school girl. Hell, all of the characters talked the same, except for
those stupid accent inflections added by Robinson to the Fox's dialogue! I
understand how the journey can often be more important than the destination.
You know what? Through most of the journey of Starman #38, I sat in
the back of Robinson's car and whined, "Are we there yet?" becuase the journey
IMHO SUCKED. I've never said that I care just about "what happens"; when the
character moments in the book fail and the plot is also contrived, to me
that's a shitty book. It's simple.
>>The story is full of crass ploys to generate
>>interest and sympathy,
>
>I don't think theres's any attempts to gain sympathy. The talk between the
> heroes is colleagues talking amongst themselves, not some conived reason to
> gain sympathy.
For me, having the characters talk was a way of attempting to make the
characters familiar to the readers. Robinson clearly wanted the reader to get
to know these characters so that when he killed them, there would be more
impact. If he were killing Superman, maybe such tools would be unnecessary;
he's a big character. But since he pulled some minor heroes off the shelf for
target practice for his Mist, he needed to warm them up to the audience before
he killed them off.
>>hey would be
>>laughable if they weren't so clearly cruel and mean-spirited.
>
>As for this comment, it clearly reveals your bias. You're one of those folks
> who whines about the death of any character who has ever had an even mildly
> interesting story told about them. The idea that somehow James Robinson is
> sitting back laughing maniacly as he tortures the poor readers of the DCU is
> laughable and only shows how irrational people feel on the issue of heroes
> deaths.
My review may have been a great many things, but it was not BIASED against
character death AT ALL, no matter how you may interpret it. I am biased
against what I believe to be a poorly-told tale. This poorly-told tale is all
the more sad because it features the deaths of several characters. Robinson's
awkward attempts to bring the characters closer to readers' hearts are cruel
and mean-spirited because a) they do not work, and b) they are there only
because he is killing those characters.
Robinson isn't sitting back "laughing maniacally." He's sitting
somewhere believing he's crafted a gripping and powerful tale of tragic death
at the hands of his new bad-ass supervillain. I'm saying he's wrong to think
that. I"m not whining, complaining about the deaths, or being BIASED; I'm
writing a negative review of a bad comic book. What makes this bad comic book
worse than other bad comic books is that in it, a few characters die. They
recieve poorly-written deaths. They deserved better. Again, Robinson can
kill whoever he wants, so long as it's well-written. This was not
well-written.
> > On top of all that, the deaths themselves are unbelievably executed
>>and entirely unmotivated.
>
>Actually they're entirely well motivated. The Mist is a psychotic bitch who
is
> goign to use the JLEs deaths as "calling card" in the super-hero community
to
> show how much of a bad-ass she is. Its also practice for when she gets
> together with Jack again.
> As for being unbeleivable... Well I have to agree with you about Amazing
> man. That one did stink (pretty much the only bad thing about the issue,
> other than the reaction Blue Devil and Amazing Man have to their freinds
> getting killed) but the others were okay (although where Mist got a fog that
> can make you bleed is a good question)
I think what happened with the fog is that she slit Crimson Fox's throat then
generated the mist to keep the Fox from noticing what had happened. At least,
that's what I got from it.
To me, the Mist could have crafted her "calling card" and practiced
for Jack in a hundred better ways. In my opinion, the "Mist is just a bad-ass
psycho" motivation is piss poor, because it gives us no reason to hate her,
which is clearly the exact opposite of Robinson's desired effect. So she's a
psychopath...so what?! Lots of people are psychopaths. They're mentally ill.
I can't hate the mentally ill; it's out of their control. Is it some
indirect revenge at Jack? Hardly. It's just random murders. Big deal.
Thugs in issues of BATMAN who get captured in three panels have done worse.
>>When did the Mist gain the experience and craft
>>necessary to kill three veteran heroes in a matter of minutes?
>
>Actually Amazing Man isn't anywhere near veteran status. He was only in the
> super-hero game for a few months when EJ broke up. Crimson Fox might be
> considered a veteran but she's always been real lightweight.
Then maybe Robinson should have set them up more thoroughly as rookies as
opposed to setting them up as second-tier heroes trying to make a splash as
the JLE. The story of rookie heroes murdered by a rookie villain to me holds
more promise than just this murder story we have.
Matt
P.S. The flaming tones and harsh language and name-calling in this post were
hardly necessary. Like everyone here, I love writing and discussing comics; I
hate fighting about them. I've matched your rhetoric at points, but I'd be
thrilled if this discussion toned down on the attacks a bit. It's no fun to
be angry and fight. Passionate discussion I can handle; cheap shots suck.
Prestorjon
>Death in comics is not in and of itself a
>bad thing. Properly handled, it can be a powerful reminder of the mortality
>of these larger-than-life figures we call "superheroes."
Bullshit. People weren't upset about this issue becuase they felt it wasn't
going to be handled well. They were upset about it because super-heroes are
going to bite the bullet. Lets face it the vast majority of comic book
readers are whiney babies when it comes to a character actually getting a
lasting change, and death is the most lasting change of all. People hate it
when a character dies, not ebcasue the story isn't well handled, but because
they want to see more of that character. How else can you explain that theres
about only a dozen characters in the history of super-hero comics who have
died and STAYED DEAD.
>werful nor well-told.
> This is an issue that will live in infamy for quite some time, not
>just for the deaths of three great characters but for the piss-poor writing
>offered by Robinson. Even if you had no idea that Robinson was going on a
>murder spree in the DCU
Three crappy heroes who end up taking the long dirt nap doesn't exactly qualify
as a "murder spree"
> before you read this issue, by page four it would be
>all too easy to predict the final outcome of the story.
By page 1 it should be all too easy since Mist says flat out that she killed
some heroes, and the cover has a picture of the JLA. Curse that James
Robinson for telling a story that wasn't strictly linear.
Get over it bunk, its a common literary tool.
>After Robinson tips
>his hand too early, he forces the reader to sit through page after page of
>weak character interactions between heroes that both he and the reader know
>will DIE before the end of this comic book.
Hmmmm I don't know how the characterization can be weak considering that
there's a lot more of it in this one issue than there was in the whole first
year of Grant Morrisons JLA.
And yeah we know they'll die in the end, so what! The journeys often more
important than the destination. Why read the book at all if you just care
WHAT happens. Why not just read a plot synopsis, plenty of people can provide
them to you.
>The story is full of crass ploys to generate
>interest and sympathy,
I don't think theres's any attempts to gain sympathy. The talk between the
heroes is colleagues talking amongst themselves, not some conived reason to
gain sympathy.
>hey would be
>laughable if they weren't so clearly cruel and mean-spirited.
As for this comment, it clearly reveals your bias. You're one of those folks
who whines about the death of any character who has ever had an even mildly
interesting story told about them. The idea that somehow James Robinson is
sitting back laughing maniacly as he tortures the poor readers of the DCU is
laughable and only shows how irrational people feel on the issue of heroes
deaths.
> On top of all that, the deaths themselves are unbelievably executed
>and entirely unmotivated.
Actually they're entirely well motivated. The Mist is a psychotic bitch who is
goign to use the JLEs deaths as "calling card" in the super-hero community to
show how much of a bad-ass she is. Its also practice for when she gets
together with Jack again.
As for being unbeleivable... Well I have to agree with you about Amazing
man. That one did stink (pretty much the only bad thing about the issue,
other than the reaction Blue Devil and Amazing Man have to their freinds
getting killed) but the others were okay (although where Mist got a fog that
can make you bleed is a good question)
>When did the Mist gain the experience and craft
>necessary to kill three veteran heroes in a matter of minutes?
Actually Amazing Man isn't anywhere near veteran status. He was only in the
super-hero game for a few months when EJ broke up. Crimson Fox might be
considered a veteran but she's always been real lightweight.
>How is it that
>she is such a clever mimic that she can trick four of Ice Maiden's teammates
>that she IS Ice Maiden for what seems like a week at least?
She doesn't have to be. They didn't know Icemaiden very well. (I think Blue
Devils the only one who ever worked with her before and then only for a short
time)
---------------------------------------------------
"Have you ever made a just man?"
"Oh I have made three." answered God
"But two of them are dead- and the third
Listen! Listen!
You can hear the third of his defeat."
-Stephen Crane
ChandaK562
SPOILER SPACE
Did Crimson Fox actually have a French accent in this comic? I haven't been
able to get to the comic store yet to get it and see.
Cullers
mjs...@lulu.acns.nwu.edu (matthew, j, springer) wrote:
<serious snippage>
>P.S. The flaming tones and harsh language and name-calling in this post were
>hardly necessary. Like everyone here, I love writing and discussing comics; I
>hate fighting about them. I've matched your rhetoric at points, but I'd be
>thrilled if this discussion toned down on the attacks a bit. It's no fun to
>be angry and fight. Passionate discussion I can handle; cheap shots suck.
Ummm, not to interject here, but this is a bit hypocritical, since both
of you were using flaming tones and harsh language throughout the posts.
It's one thing to stand behind a position that refuses to stoop to
name-calling, cussing, etc. but it is another to actually uphold it.
Cullers
JASS...@worldnet.att.net
Bill Svitavsky
matthew, j, springer (mjs...@lulu.acns.nwu.edu) wrote:
: Perhaps "controversy" is too weak a word to describe the expected
: reaction to this issue. "Horror" and "disgust" might be more appropriate
: terms. As you may have discovered already from the heavy fan debates leading
: up to this issue, Robinson has the Mist killing Blue Devil, Amazing Man, and
: Crimson Fox as they protect valuable diamonds in the heart of Paris. Yet the
: reactions of disgust and horror to STARMAN #38 should not arise merely because
: characters die between its covers. Death in comics is not in and of itself a
: bad thing. Properly handled, it can be a powerful reminder of the mortality
: of these larger-than-life figures we call "superheroes." It can also pay off
: with some incredible stories. Unfortunately, the story told in STARMAN #38 is
: neither powerful nor well-told.
: This is an issue that will live in infamy for quite some time, not
: just for the deaths of three great characters but for the piss-poor writing
: offered by Robinson. Even if you had no idea that Robinson was going on a
: murder spree in the DCU before you read this issue, by page four it would be
: all too easy to predict the final outcome of the story. After Robinson tips
: his hand too early, he forces the reader to sit through page after page of
: weak character interactions between heroes that both he and the reader know
: will DIE before the end of this comic book.
It's unfortunate that so many people have tried to ground their objections to
Robinson's writing in the quality of his writing. As with people's objections
to Grant Morrison, I suspect the problem (for such critics)is that Robinson
writes *differently* from other writers, using the conventions of superhero
stories as a point of departure rather than as a formula for cranking out
stories.
That being said, I'll agree that the deaths in this issue seemed a bit
gratuitous - Robinson seems to have borrowed the patented Mark Waid approach
of establishing a villain's credibility by killing off existing characters. It
works, for the purposes of a single story, but it does tend to pose certain
problems in a shared universe. One of the biggest difficulties is that these
slaughters tend to be temporary in many cases - just look how the Creeper came
back last month after the slaughter in Eclipso. If characters have a lot of
potential, and die poorly, people end up wanting them back, and more often
writers oblige.
Are people really devastated by the loss of Crimson Fox and Amazing Man? I'm
not. While the DC Universe badly needs more international heroes and memorable
heroines, Fox never particularly interested me. Her powers weren't interesting,
her costume was ugly, and her personality was rarely more than adequate for a
supporting character in a group book. Roy Thomas's original Amazing Man was a
good concept for a hero, a useful device for exploring racial issues in a
Golden Age context, and an interesting character. His descendent never seemed
to establish much identity of his own; he looked like the original, mentioned
the original constantly, and despite a confusing overhaul of his powers, never
really did anything interesting on his own.
As for Blue Devil, I'm not sure that he *is* dead. Yes, he was skeletalized by
the holy water, but he was still talking in the last panel we saw him in. Then
there was a big explosion. There's a reason for the cliche "If you don't see
the body, they're not dead." Besides, the good humored BD I remember was
pretty thoroughly destroyed by Underworld Unleashed, and had been all but
forgotten before that.
Elayne Wechsler-Chaput
Prestorjon (prest...@aol.com) wrote:
: People weren't upset about this issue becuase they felt it wasn't
: going to be handled well. They were upset about it because super-heroes are
: going to bite the bullet. Lets face it the vast majority of comic book
: readers are whiney babies when it comes to a character actually getting
: a lasting change, and death is the most lasting change of all.
Many feel killing characters isn't inducing change, but that, rather, it's
a copout.
: People hate it
: when a character dies, not ebcasue the story isn't well handled...
I wasn't aware you had a summer home in everyone else's head.
In my fantasy literature, I detest people dying. Part of the appeal of
fantasy is for heroic figures to triumph, to grow and change without
succumbing. You want to subvert that appeal, fine, but don't expect me to
like it.
: Three crappy heroes who end up taking the long dirt nap doesn't exactly qualify
: as a "murder spree"
Now who's making a value judgement? Who are you to say what heroes are
and aren't crappy? Characters are only as good or bad as whoever is
writing them.
- Elayne
--
"Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both
unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort.
If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat
something sweet and the feeling will pass." - Fran Lebowitz
Drew Zeigler
> Bullshit. People weren't upset about this issue becuase they felt it wasn't
> going to be handled well. They were upset about it because super-heroes are
> going to bite the bullet. Lets face it the vast majority of comic book
> readers are whiney babies when it comes to a character actually getting a
> lasting change, and death is the most lasting change of all. People hate it
> when a character dies, not ebcasue the story isn't well handled, but because
> they want to see more of that character. How else can you explain that
>theres
> about only a dozen characters in the history of super-hero comics who have
> died and STAYED DEAD.
Wrong. I think death can be used in a story very powerfully. But, the
way Robinson used it just cheapens it. He used it for shock value, to show
how bad-ass the Mist is. And, in the process, told a really crappy story
with no heart.
(snip)
> As for this comment, it clearly reveals your bias. You're one of those folks
> who whines about the death of any character who has ever had an even mildly
> interesting story told about them. The idea that somehow James Robinson is
> sitting back laughing maniacly as he tortures the poor readers of the DCU is
> laughable and only shows how irrational people feel on the issue of heroes
> deaths.
I can't speak for Matthew, but I'm not one of those whiny folks. But, I
think its stupid that Robinson used three characters who had a lot of
story potential left in them for cannon fodder. I don't think he's
laughing maniacly for the reasons you state. At this point, I do begin to
wonder however if his ego isn't getting a bit out of control. This story
seems to me to be a classic example of a talented comic creator gone out
of control. It seems he's not so much interested in crafting a quality
story as in showing how bad-ass he and his creation, the Mist, are. At
the very least, I think perhaps he's stretching himself a bit thin by
writing too many titles while the book that made his name suffers.
I've pretty much disagreed with all of the complaints people have had
about the slipping quality of Starman up until this point. But, this book
pissed me off so much, I'm wondering how much longer I'll be buying it.
And Robinson has gone from 'buy anything he writes' to 'wait and see' on
my pull list.
(snip)
Prestorjon
>I never said at all in my review that people were upset about this issue
>because they felt it wasn't going to be handled well.
I didn't say you did. But most people had this issue prejudged for MONTHS
before it came out as soon as rumors about the plot started getting out. In
my mind that constitutes people being upset that characters aren't going to
die, not that the death wasn't going to be handled well.
Its one of my pet peeves. People whine all the time about when a
character dies. Truth is I don't think that there are any real good ways to
portray a characters death that will satisfy the audience. They want these
characters to go on and on forever. I mean there are people who still want
Barry Allan to come back for Crissakes! He died about the purest death in the
DCU and they want to spoil that (not to mention all the great characterization
of Wally in the intervening 12 years) jsut to have Barry back!
There are damn few fans out there who can accept the death of a character.
I liked Mark Shaw. I liked him a lot, and I was shocked and sad to see him
die in Eclipso #13 but I don't want him to come back (and in fact I'll argue
to the death with anyone who says that that was really him in that crappy ZH
Manhunter appearance).
> Personally, I tried to wait
>until the issue came out to see how Robinson handled it.
Well thats nice, but considering you gave it a poor review when it was actually
pretty well done I'd have to expect you were a little biased (either that or
you don't know quality from a whole in the wall)
>When he handled it
>in a shitty way ("shitty" meaning WRITTEN VERY BADLY)
You have an interesting definition of "shitty". This was a pretty well written
issue. Sure it could have been better, but what can't? It wasn't a
masterpeice of comics literature but it was still a solid issue of Starmna
(except for the stupid gimmick Mist used to kille Amazing Man, and the stilted
Rage of AM and Blue Devil)
>Hell, if
>you can get a great story out of it, kill every fucking DCU hero there is.
I think thats what Alan Moore planned for Twilight.
>Killing three decent characters
Come on. I was one of the folks who defended Fox during her initial JLE run
and even I wouldn't say she's a "decent character". She was the weakest of
all the JLE members (character wise) and only got mangled a bit more when
Gerard Jones took over. BLue Devil hasn't been a decent character since his
series got canceled. As for Amazing Man... well he;s only a decent character
by virtue of the fact that AM sr was an intersting character and this kid is a
carbon copy of his gran-dad.
>for NO APPARENT REASON is a "murder spree" to me.
Whoa. No IMMEDIATE reason does not (necesarily) translate to "no apparent
reason". I think the reason is clear. 1) Mist wants practice killing heroes
before she takes on Jack (who to her is THE hero) and 2)She wanted this as a
acalling card in the super community to show how much of a badass she is (and
no shooting bank gaurds or something like that doesn't work cause everybody
and his brother does crimes like that. How many villains actually off a
hero?)
>Well, let's take this apart, Professor. What are the two ways in which a
>death in comics can have impact? In my humble opinion, they are:
>
>1) if the death is a surprise, or
>
>2) if the death happens to a character we care about, or
>
>3) if the death is portrayed tragically.
You forgot one my student:
4) if the death has meaning.
also you might want to make a distinction between four and
5) if it advances the plot
Surprise deaths are worth something but usually they're just used for shock
value. Wehn it works well as real literary tool is when its used as it was in
The Shining. When you've got a character who you think is gonna do something
but then they end up dying before they can do it.
I think the JLEs deaths qualify for 2, and 5. They were characters well known
enough to have meaning for us, and I think their deaths DO advance the plot.
(of the series, not the issue)
and maybe you want to tack on a 6) if its well told.
After all you yourself said that if it would make a good story they shoudl kill
the entire DCU.
>There goes number one! By page twelve the characters
>are made worthless by Robinson's shitty dialogue.
Thats your opinion. I don't know what you consider good dialogue but this was
it by almost any conventional definition. It was bantery enough to be
freindly but also appropriate to the situation (they didn't sit around
discussing toy race cars, or old Humphrey Bogart movies like many Robinson
characters are likely to do in the middle of an adventure). its also
emblematic of Robinsons style while also being true to the characters. I
don't know what more you can ask for.
> There goes number two! By
>the end the issue is a waste of paper.
see this is one of my problem with your review (and maybe its just your style
to offer opinion with no real examples). your entire review can basically be
summed up as
"art stinks
plot shitty
dialogue shitty"
with no real examples or corroboration. I mean if you're gonna argue like that
why bother. Its just you standing there saying "ITS SHITTY" and me standing
here saying "No its not"
>And out the
>fucking window go your "literary tools"...
Hmmm maybe you need to read a bit more so you can realize about stuff like
foreshadowing and flashbacks, and non-linear storytelling.
>But it's BAD characterization, in fact not characterization at all.
Of course its characterization. In fact Amazing Man is true to all the bad
characterization he's gotten in the past. If nothing else Robinson is being
true to the source material.
>The
>dialogue is stilted and forced.
Not really (except for AM and BDs indignation at the Mists actions)
>The Crimson Fox I remember would have had no problem telling Amazing
>Man she wanted him--she's an openly flirtatious French woman, not a mewling
>high school girl.
Actually as I recall one of them was a pretty big flirt and the other was more
button down (I confess I forget which was which)
>Hell, all of the characters talked the same, except for
>those stupid accent inflections added by Robinson to the Fox's dialogue!
And they don't talk all the same elsewhere!? Its a damn rare writer who can
create different speach patterns for different characters (without relying on
accents)
> I've never said that I care just about "what happens";
Actually you basically did. you said that we find out in the very begining
what happens so why sjpuld we bother reading the book.
>For me, having the characters talk was a way of attempting to make the
>characters familiar to the readers.
I think you're wrong (except insomuch as any geust star has to be introduced in
a book). I agree if thats what you thought the dialogue wass for then it
should have been them standing around giving long winded speaches about their
lives and powers (now THAT would have been stilted dialogue)
>But since he pulled some minor heroes off the shelf for
>target practice for his Mist, he needed to warm them up to the audience
>before
>he killed them off.
I don't think Robinson gives much of a shit. He obviously expects his audience
to be a bit more aware than your average comic reader. I mean we're supposed
to know who Red Bee is for christ sakes. He also peppers his dialogue with
cultural references that would be impossible to take the time to explain.
Obviously he needs to establish that they;re existing heroes and all had a
connection to the JLA, but beyond that he expect us to know who they are.
>My review may have been a great many things, but it was not BIASED against
>character death AT ALL, no matter how you may interpret it.
Well considering that the issue was fairly well done and you said it was
"shitty" I have to figure either one of two things either a) you were biased
(which i can live with although people should fess up or shut up about biases)
or b) you have a piss poor understanding of how a comic should be writen (in
which case you probably shouldn't be wasting your time writing reviews).
personally I hope its the former cause thats only an issue with this
particular case, while the latter would invalidate any review you did.
> Robinson isn't sitting back "laughing maniacally." He's sitting
>somewhere believing he's crafted a gripping and powerful tale of tragic death
>
>at the hands of his new bad-ass supervillain.
Hmmm I don't think he ebelives that at all. I think (or at least hope) he
belives he's crafted a well told tale about a villain who kills a couple of
heroes. I don't think there was anything particularly tragic about their
death and I don't think it was particularly "gripping" but it was a well told
tale which all too many people are going to bad motuh simply because it has
heroes dying in it.
>I think what happened with the fog is that she slit Crimson Fox's throat
Yeah I just realized that. That was pretty confusing. I think also the fog
numbed Fox so she wouldn't notice.
>To me, the Mist could have crafted her "calling card" and practiced
>for Jack in a hundred better ways
Like how? I don't think its enough for her to kill faceless civilians. First
why should we care. Secondly it doesn't distinguish her from all the other
villains. I mean everyone kills civilians. The Angler killed civilians when
he was still alive. But only guys like Joker or Deathstroke kill heroes.
MIst has joined the small group of villains who've actually managed to off a
super-hero.
>In my opinion, the "Mist is just a bad-ass
>psycho" motivation is piss poor, because it gives us no reason to hate her,
NO reason to hate her? She's killing people. Even if what you say is true it
gives even more reason for this story to happen so that we do have cause to
hate her.
>So she's a
>psychopath...so what?! Lots of people are psychopaths. They're mentally
>ill.
I didn't say she was mentally ill. I was using psychopath in the non-clinical
sense. I don't think she's actually mentally ill (all though she's certainly
pretty screwed up). Anyway I find it real easy to hate the mentally ill when
they're evil scumbags. I mean after all Hitler was probably mentally ill but
IO still hate him.
>Hardly. It's just random murders.
Only random in that any heroes she could kill would have served her purpose.
>Big deal.
>Thugs in issues of BATMAN who get captured in three panels have done worse.
Sorry but factually you're wrong. Very few villains in Batman have killed a
super-hero.
>. I've matched your rhetoric at points
Actually you haven't. I've boruhgt up examples but basically all that your
replies consist of is saying "It was shitty" or "it was piss poor" or "it
was abd story" thats not matching anything.
Prestorjon
<<Wrong. I think death can be used in a story very powerfully. But, the
way Robinson used it just cheapens it. He used it for shock value, to show
how bad-ass the Mist is. And, in the process, told a really crappy story
with no heart.>>
Wrong. There was no shock value intended (if there was Robinson would have hid
their deaths until the last moment. He didn't he came right out and stated on
page one that they died). Their deaths were meant to illustrate how bad Mist
is and to move the story along. In the process he told a pretty good story.
>I can't speak for Matthew, but I'm not one of those whiny folks. But, I
>think its stupid that Robinson used three characters who had a lot of
>story potential left in them for cannon fodder.
Don't you see. THis indicates you are one of those folks who can't stand
death. Who would you have had him use? These characters may have had story
ideas left in them but certainly didn't have "a lot".
>This story
>seems to me to be a classic example of a talented comic creator gone out
>of control.
Why because he tries to do something different? Wether you liked it or not you
can't really say Robinson was arrogant. He killed off a couple of lower tier
heroes. Thats certainly a lot less arrogant than stuff that Grant Morrison is
doing over in JLA (killing of longtime Leaguers for no real reason, depicting
heaven,) or what John Byrne did in Genesis. I mean thats arrogant. What
Robinson did, wether you think it was poorly executed or not doesn't really
qualify as arrogant. (If he had had the Mist go up against Batman and beat
him I'd agree with you, but she didn't)
>It seems he's not so much interested in crafting a quality
>story as in showing how bad-ass he and his creation, the Mist, are.
Sorry but you're just wrong. If he wanted to do that he would have had her go
up against MUCH more high profile heroes. He chose guys who were obscure
enough that Mist might actually have chance at beating them.
Now I would agree that Robinson seems interested in proving how much of a
bad ass one of his characters is but that character would be the Shade (Dr
Fate can't beat him? Come on!) not the Mist. The fact that Mist hasn't
appeared in any comics for something like a year would argue against his
trying to pump her up. If he was trying to do that he would feature her
prominently in the books and have her goign up against big villains and heroes
(like he did with the Shade) and never losing.
matthew, j, springer
In article <dzeigler-061...@btr-la2-16.ix.netcom.com>,
dzei...@ix.netcom.com (Drew Zeigler) wrote:
>I've pretty much disagreed with all of the complaints people have had
>about the slipping quality of Starman up until this point. But, this book
>pissed me off so much, I'm wondering how much longer I'll be buying it.
>And Robinson has gone from 'buy anything he writes' to 'wait and see' on
>my pull list.
here's an interesting question--how many of you out there are planning on
dropping Starman as a result of this issue? I've seen a few people mention it
but I'd be curious as to just how many are doing it. I'm not, because I'm
hoping that Robinson will pick up the ball again once his script for that
Freddy and Jason horror fiasco is done. But I can understand those who are,
and I'd be curious as to how many of them are out there.
So are you ripping the coin from Robinson's pocket in protest? Let us
know.
Matt
Prestorjon
<<Did Crimson Fox actually have a French accent in this comic? I haven't been
able to get to the comic store yet to get it and see.>>
Yeah. At least as much of an accent as she's had anywhere else.
matthew, j, springer
In article <63sl0q$p...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>,
Cullers <JASS...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>mjs...@lulu.acns.nwu.edu (matthew, j, springer) wrote:
>
><serious snippage>
>
>>hardly necessary. Like everyone here, I love writing and discussing comics;
I
>>hate fighting about them. I've matched your rhetoric at points, but I'd be
>>thrilled if this discussion toned down on the attacks a bit. It's no fun to
>>be angry and fight. Passionate discussion I can handle; cheap shots suck.
>
>of you were using flaming tones and harsh language throughout the posts.
>It's one thing to stand behind a position that refuses to stoop to
>name-calling, cussing, etc. but it is another to actually uphold it.
I figured I'd get called on this. It's hard not to match very incendiary
language that's fired at you for no cause. When I'm flamed, I flame back a
bit. I feel I'm still making logical points, and that those points are valid.
If anyone was bothered or anything, I'm sorry. Back to the normally scheduled
discussion.
Matt
matthew, j, springer
In article <63slvc$m0b$1...@news1.bu.edu>,
bsvi...@bu.edu (Bill Svitavsky) wrote:
>It's unfortunate that so many people have tried to ground their objections to
>Robinson's writing in the quality of his writing. As with people's objections
>to Grant Morrison, I suspect the problem (for such critics)is that Robinson
>writes *differently* from other writers, using the conventions of superhero
>stories as a point of departure rather than as a formula for cranking out
>stories.
I don't feel that's it for me AT ALL. I've LOVED lots of what Robinson has
done in "Starman." For that matter, I also enjoy Morrison's work on JLA,
though it is getting a bit trippy lately... :)
I felt this issue wasn't just different from other writers; it was
below the quality standards of other writers. In the past, I've given
Robinson all the leeway he's needed to depart from superhero stories, because
his writing has been damn good. I still respect and really admire a lot of
his past work. But this issue does not live up to even his own high
standards. It's a big slip-up. I hope he gets back on track (and for that
reason, even though this issue was bad I'm staying with the title) but he
really derailed this issue.
>That being said, I'll agree that the deaths in this issue seemed a bit
>gratuitous - Robinson seems to have borrowed the patented Mark Waid approach
>of establishing a villain's credibility by killing off existing characters.
It
>works, for the purposes of a single story, but it does tend to pose certain
>problems in a shared universe. One of the biggest difficulties is that these
>slaughters tend to be temporary in many cases - just look how the Creeper
came
>back last month after the slaughter in Eclipso. If characters have a lot of
>potential, and die poorly, people end up wanting them back, and more often
>writers oblige.
Agreed. Someone else mentioned this in another post (I forget who, sorry),
that the story in Starman #38 BEGS to be retconned into oblivion. It wouldn't
surprise me if it were done within the next five years.
>Are people really devastated by the loss of Crimson Fox and Amazing Man? I'm
>not. While the DC Universe badly needs more international heroes and
memorable
>heroines, Fox never particularly interested me. Her powers weren't
interesting,
>her costume was ugly, and her personality was rarely more than adequate for a
>supporting character in a group book. Roy Thomas's original Amazing Man was a
>good concept for a hero, a useful device for exploring racial issues in a
>Golden Age context, and an interesting character. His descendent never seemed
>to establish much identity of his own; he looked like the original, mentioned
>the original constantly, and despite a confusing overhaul of his powers,
never
>really did anything interesting on his own.
Here's a big problem I have with some arguments in favor of this issue, the
"well, these characters weren't great anyway, so who cares" argument. To a
certain extent, each creation of a creative mind has certain rights. They
have the right to be fully and creatively used by their writer, and if they
aren't, they have the right to at the very least be treated poorly in a great
story.
If you (or others) see Blue Devil, Crimson Fox, and Amazing Man as
weak, boring, or uninteresting characters possibly deserving of death, then
I'd reply in two ways:
1) That's a value judgment anyway, so it really doesn't hold much water; and
2) The fact that you feel that way only proves that these characters deserve
to remain alive, because they haven't been explored to their full potential.
Boring characters are rarely the fault of the characters themselves; they're
the fault of the writers that have handled them. Don't blame Amazing Man for
being boring; blame the writers who've used him poorly (again in your opinion)
then blame all the following writers who saw him used poorly and failed to
recognize his potential. Personally, the fact that these three characters
were good characters or uninteresting is far less important than the fact that
all three of them still had lots of story potential in the right hands. They
weren't bothering anyone in their previous state of unuse. And unuse doesn't
automatically equal weakness in a character. They deserved another chance or
two for some great writing (and a better death for that matter, but that's
another argument).
Elayne Wechsler-Chaput
Prestorjon (prest...@aol.com) wrote:
: >Many feel killing characters isn't inducing change, but that, rather, it's
: >a copout.
: And they'd be wrong.
Jon, they're opinions, not facts; they don't carry a "right or wrong" to
them. I think killing heroic characters is usually a copout, when a
writer can't think of anything else to do. That's my opinion. It cannot
be proven factually wrong.
: Sorry but it just makes me sick when i see someone trying
: to do something with some characters...
Killing them ain't "doing something," it's shuffling them away so *others*
can't "do something" creative with them. It's the opposite of creativity
to me.
I'm sorry, I'm of the Priest School-- "Put 'em on a bus."
: The fact is that the heroes we read about are in a dangerous business
: and a little death is to be expected.
And, by that token, too much death is overkill (pun intended). It's
become the norm rather than the exception. To me that indicates an utter
lack of imagination, and moreover a mentality that says "I'm going to off
these characters so nobody ELSE can play with them either."
Yes, the threat of death is real. That's why it's so catharctic to us as
readers when our heroes TRIUMPH OVER that threat, rather than allow
themselves to be defeated by it. That's the essence of fantasy comics.
: Frankly IMHO it cheapens a book when these
: guys go into battle day after day and never get anything more than a ripped
: uniform (who replaces those things anyway).
Oh, agreed. I don't want there to be absence of consequences. I just
don't believe those consequences need be *death* all the time. I prefer
things like transcendance, maturity, growth, wisdom, stuff like that.
: >I wasn't aware you had a summer home in everyone else's head.
: Sorry, if it sounded that way...
It really did, at least to me. Apology more than accepted.
: what I've seen in my years online folks get up in arms about ANY established
: character dying, no matter who the writer is.
Well, in my case specifically it's heroic death. Heroic death isn't my
favorite kind of fantasy to read. Villainous death I don't mind.
: >In my fantasy literature, I detest people dying. Part of the appeal of
: >fantasy is for heroic figures to triumph, to grow and change without
: >succumbing
: Don't take this the worng way but maybe you're reading the wrong stuff, if you
: don;t want to see poeple die. I mean after all this is an ACTION medium.
I prefer to think of it as a fantasy medium which contains action
elements. In a fantasy medium, triumph over adversity is one of the key
themes. Triumph sometimes involves sacrifice, and of course death is the
ultimate sacrifice, but I prefer "happily ever after." So sue me. :)
Mark F. Hudson
>Are people really devastated by the loss of Crimson Fox and Amazing Man? I'm
>not. While the DC Universe badly needs more international heroes and memorable
>heroines, Fox never particularly interested me. Her powers weren't interesting,
>her costume was ugly, and her personality was rarely more than adequate for a
>supporting character in a group book. Roy Thomas's original Amazing Man was a
>good concept for a hero, a useful device for exploring racial issues in a
>Golden Age context, and an interesting character. His descendent never seemed
>to establish much identity of his own; he looked like the original, mentioned
>the original constantly, and despite a confusing overhaul of his powers, never
>really did anything interesting on his own.
>
>As for Blue Devil, I'm not sure that he *is* dead. Yes, he was skeletalized by
>the holy water, but he was still talking in the last panel we saw him in. Then
>there was a big explosion. There's a reason for the cliche "If you don't see
>the body, they're not dead." Besides, the good humored BD I remember was
>pretty thoroughly destroyed by Underworld Unleashed, and had been all but
>forgotten before that.
I'm not really broken up by any of the deaths in this issue either.
Crimson Fox was never much of character to me, and Amazing Man has the
unfortunate luck to be associated with an unpopular period of Justice
League history (kinda like Steel not too long ago, I guess). And you're
right, the no body/no death rule kicks in around this point as well, since
I honestly doubt we'll be seeing the effects of these characters' deaths
here or elsewhere.
Regarding the Blue Devil, well, this Blue Devil is so far divorced from the
Mishkin/Cohn/Cullins character I enjoyed as a kid that I really don't care.
Maybe this is just the cue someone needs to revive the character properly.
This was a gratuitious, callous and violent comic. And I think that was the
point.
Mark H
--
Check out the fully illustrated, wildly unofficial
Marvel Comics Star Wars Roleplaying Game Page at:
Prestorjon
>Many feel killing characters isn't inducing change, but that, rather, it's
>a copout.
And they'd be wrong. Sorry but it just makes me sick when i see someone trying
to do something with some characters and the fans start whining about how this
"horrible" writer (and usually the folks doing this are among the more
talented writers in the biz) are "ruining" a "great" character. I mean if
Stan Lee came back to write a book and wanted to kill of say... Ringmaster
you'd bet there'd be people there saying what a crappy writer Lee is and how
killing a great character like Ringmaster is a sin (okay I'm exagerating but
you get my point.)
The fact is that the heroes we read about are in a dangerous business and
a little death is to be expected. Frankly IMHO it cheapens a book when these
guys go into battle day after day and never get anything more than a ripped
uniform (who replaces those things anyway). Sure Wally West got crippled in
the last two issues of Flash but then he got up and walked using a speed force
suit in the same issue. Thats a cop out.
>I wasn't aware you had a summer home in everyone else's head.
Sorry, if it sounded that way, but I'm just talking about my observations. In
what I've seen in my years online folks get up in arms about ANY established
character dying, no matter who the writer is. Usually they're dead set
against it before the comic even comes out, and are talking about how horrible
it is that so and so dying. The only times when fans seem to accept it is
when its written by the person who originally created the character, in the
series where he was originally created (Joto being a notable exception) People
would probably except it if Dan Raspler killed Hard Drive over in Young Heroes
In Love. But if Raspler killed say.... Blue Jay (or is he dead allready) in
the same comic they'd probably be calling for Rasplers head on a pike.
>In my fantasy literature, I detest people dying. Part of the appeal of
>fantasy is for heroic figures to triumph, to grow and change without
>succumbing
Don't take this the worng way but maybe you're reading the wrong stuff, if you
don;t want to see poeple die. I mean after all this is an ACTION medium.
People should get hurt, occaisionally people should die. I don't find
anything heroic about figures who AREN'T under any circumstances going to get
hurt. I think detah itself can be heroic, can be a triumph. But more
importantly it can be great drama. I mean thats what I'm after here, great
drama (or comedy or whatever the books suppsoed to be, but Starmans an
action-drama book so...). Sure there's room for escapist literature in the
genre and in the medium (in fact there's a lot of room for it) but there's
also plenty of room for good dramatic books. I mean take al look at the issue
of Astro City where the Confessor dies. Maybe you'd hate it becasue it
contains a hero "succumbing" as you put it (whatever the hell thats supposed
to mean) but his death was triumphant. it was heroic, it was good, and it
wasn't a cop out. It moved the plot along and it provided inspiration for
characters in the story. It was a great damn issue and the central plot
developement was the death of a hero that Busiek had just spent months
building up.
>You want to subvert that appeal, fine, but don't expect me to
>like it.
I'm not tryign to subvert anything. You want escapist fantasy then fine. I
want good comics, and good comics can sometimes include death. You're looking
at this from only one side. You see me trying to "subvert" your enjoyment of
comics as a whole by saying that there might be a time in some comics that
death is a good thing. What you don't (apparently) see is yourself (or at
least those who, like you, don't appreciate death in comics) trying to subvert
MY enjoyment of good comics by saying that no comics anywhere should have
death in them.
>Characters are only as good or bad as whoever is
>writing them.
Giffen could barely make Fox work at the height of his creative run on JLE.
IVan Velez, Dan Vado, and Robert L Washington III couldn't make Amazing Man
work in any of the books he appeared in. As for Blue Devil... well the fact
that he languished in comics limbo for so long and then made a piss poor come
back speaks volumes.
TTROY1
Well i for one although the issue in question was sub par.... the series
as a whole is still head and shoulders above the rest of the stuff out
there.....i am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.... the series
still has a lot of life left in it... they can't all be shining
jewels.... but the shiny bubel that we do have with this book....
is still better than most of the tin in the rest of comics right now.
Peter Meilinger
Prestorjon <prest...@aol.com> wrote:
> <<Wrong. I think death can be used in a story very powerfully. But, the
> way Robinson used it just cheapens it. He used it for shock value, to show
> how bad-ass the Mist is. And, in the process, told a really crappy story
> with no heart.>>
> Wrong. There was no shock value intended (if there was Robinson would have hid
> their deaths until the last moment. He didn't he came right out and stated on
> page one that they died). Their deaths were meant to illustrate how bad Mist
> is and to move the story along. In the process he told a pretty good story.
Buncha points. One, I don't like it when writers have a character kill
just to show how bad-ass they are. It might or might not make for a good
story but it's usually indicative of lazy storytelling. Two, if super-
heroes are going to die their deaths should mean something. The medium
is heroic fiction - heroes don't die stupid deaths.
Now, several reasons I think this was a bad story. I notice you've taken
several people to task for saying this is a bad story without giving
reasons. Fair enough. But guess what? You have to justify your assertion
that it's a good story too.
1) The Mist impersonates Ice Maiden for God knows how long. This isn't
completely implausible in a superhero comic, but it's part of a pattern
I'll get to later.
2) Ice Maiden accepts whatever anonymous tip the Mist gave her without
question. I'd like some details about what kind of threat she couldn't
tell the others about please.
3) Everyone accepts Ice Maiden's choice of room assignments? Why?
Why not is somewhat acceptable as an answer, but consider: since
he rejoined the League Blue Devil has been a real asshole, questioning
everyone about everything. Would he really just let IM order him
around like that? Also, Ice Maiden is about the least experienced
hero there, from what I understand. Why would everyone bow to her
judgement?
4) Crimson Fox's death. What the hell happened there?! I literally
can't tell. Was the mist poisoned or corrosive? Did the Mist slit her
throat somehow? Either way I'd like an explanation of how the Fox
was surprised. Please note I'm willing to grant surprising her as a
possibility, but I really don't know what went on there. That sequence
was just badly told, by both the writer and the artist.
5) Amazing Man's death. Someone explain to me how the Mist coated the
walls with glass or whatever the hell she did without anyone else
finding out. Please? Another implausibility I'll say more about later.
And tell me why AM just stood there while the Mist pulled out her gun
and made her little speech. Again, something of a genre staple but
still annoying. Also how come he didn't hear Fox's screaming and
run to her aid, thereby leaving the room IM had prepared for him?
6) Blue Devil's death. Like AM, how come he didn't hear the two
fights in time to help? If I recall correctly, he's got hearing
amplifiers in that suit of his. I'd think he'd have them turned on
while waiting for a supervillain attack, don't you? Now the sprinklers
filled with Holy Water I liked - brilliant, though again I have to wonder
how she managed to pull it off. But let's look at how that played out:
BD blows a few holes in the wall out of anger (very in character) and
sets off the sprinklers. No sweat so far. But then what does he do?
Why, he just stands there and waits to dissolve. The Blue Devil I used
to read about might have thought to, I don't know, BLOW A HOLE IN THE
WALL AND ROCKET HIS ASS TO SAFETY!! Just a thought.
Am I nitpicking? Maybe, maybe not. But if you're going to do something
as drastic as killing superheroes you have to expect your stories to
be held to a higher standard than normally. Bigger stakes and all that.
The one thing that really annoyed me is how EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of the
Mist's plan worked out perfectly. Let's take a look at everything that
had to happen just right:
Ice Maiden had to accept her diversion without question
She had to be able to impersonate Ice Maiden perfectly
She had to be able to coat an entire room in glass and then paint
over it and empty the sprinkler system for the entire building and
replace it with Holy Water
The other heroes had to accept her choices for room assignments without
question
She had to kill the Fox in what looked like a very painful fashion
without alerting anyone
Amazing Man had to be so slow on the uptake that he'd remain in his
vulnerable glass form long enough for her to kill him. She didn't even
pull out the gun until he'd turned to glass!
Blue Devil had to just sit there underneath the holy water and wait to
die, rather than effect a fairly easy escape or for that matter shoot
her and take her with him
I just don't buy it. Everything had to work perfectly - that just doesn't
happen. But Robinson wanted to prove the Mist is a bad-ass so he just
kept on piling up implausibilites. That's bad storytelling.
Pete
Jim Smith
matthew, j, springer wrote:
> here's an interesting question--how many of you out there are planning on
> dropping Starman as a result of this issue?
As far as I can tell, Robinsons's last six months of stories in STARMAN
have been *so* offensive to racdu that he must be doing everything short
of having the JSA club baby seals with dead puppies.
And yet, people continue to read (and kvetch) about STARMAN.
This is probably for the best anyway--if everyone who hates STARMAN
right now dropped it, racdu would probably have virtually no traffic.
(Oh, wait, I forgot about the Holy Crusdae to Stop Pat O'Neill. There
will *always* be *some* traffic on racdu.)
What bothers me is that I thought everyone *loved* STARMAN...right up
until the moment I bought an issue (#29). The Jim Law of Comics seems
to have hit this book like a potato gun.
mich...@hotmail.com
>
> here's an interesting question--how many of you out there are planning on
> dropping Starman as a result of this issue? I've seen a few people mention it
> but I'd be curious as to just how many are doing it. I'm not, because I'm
> hoping that Robinson will pick up the ball again once his script for that
> Freddy and Jason horror fiasco is done. But I can understand those who are,
> and I'd be curious as to how many of them are out there.
> So are you ripping the coin from Robinson's pocket in protest? Let us
> know.
>
> Matt
Well, this was MY last issue. Not as any form of protest,
though. I've just come to the conclusion that Starman, despite
everything I've been hearing about it, simply isn't very good. I started
with #29, the "Start with this issue if you've never read Starman before
but want to give it a shot" issue, enjoyed that in a vague kind of way,
and have been growing progressively less impressed with each successive
issue. This was the last straw. Frankly, I've been looking forward to
this issue; I have no affection whatsoever for the characters (except
Firestorm), and thought that it could be an excellent story. It wasn't.
At all. I'm sure that the idea was to show the reader just how evil The
Mist is, how dangerouns and clever. Instead, I came away with the
impression that JLFrance was composed of a bunch of bumbling idiots. I
wasn't impressed. (Except for the bit about her coating an entire room
with "liquid glass", or whatever the hell it was, without anyone noticing
her or the honking big tank she must have been lugging around with
her....) Would she have been able to pull this kind of nonsense with the
JLA? Well sure, Kyle, but the others? Batman would have clocked her the
minute she walked through the door! No, this just seemed like a lazy,
sloppy story to me, one that I don't intend to spend any further cash on.
It's that simple.
Michael
"You know how dumb the average guy is? Well, by definition, half of 'em
are even dumber than that!" J.R. "Bob" Dobbs
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
PERRYDER
Spoiler Space
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I'm just glad they didn't kill any Chinese Super-Heroes (waitasec, are there
any?).
Anyway, I hope Amazing Man gets reassembled and that Metamorpho emerges without
the stupid crystal body armor, and talking like the beatnik/Austin Powers that
I grew up reading.
The big debate is about the worth of a character to the individual reader.
Everybody is entitled to make a personal judgement about their favorite
long-john wearer. In "imaginary stories" like Kingdom Come (it's a surprise
they haven't made a porn parody of that), nobody really argued about the
deaths, because it wasn't current continuity.
Grant Morrison's (I still haven't gotten into the new JLA) Animal Man story
about the truth about the DCU tells us that the characters are alive as long
as we still read the stories.
Though this is not a Marvel newsgroup, I have to say this; If the internet was
as accessible in the past as it is now, what kind of debate would there be
over the many supervillain deaths caused by the Scourge?? I, for one, can
think of many more evil deeds for Dr. Faustis to implement. He didn't have to
be included in the Marvel housecleaning. I like the guy, but I'm sure others
could care less.
In closing, there have been many strange things in comics to defy hero deaths.
Jean Grey's coccoon in Jamaica Bay, the many "deaths" of Superman, and
currently Moon Knight. One thing we can do is to make our opinions known and
our own.
Perry "Hey! I didn't curse!" Der
ps. I liked the dialogue about the treatment of blacks in Paris. It's a lot
better than, "Gee, fox, I have this feeling like death is touching my
shoulder". It illustrates the unexpectedness of "death" better than your
average horror movie.
matthew, j, springer
BOO0O-YAH! Round two commences...DING DING DING DING DING!
[POSTED AND E-MAILED]
In article <19971106171...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
prest...@aol.com (Prestorjon) wrote:
>> Personally, I tried to wait
>>until the issue came out to see how Robinson handled it.
>
>Well thats nice, but considering you gave it a poor review when it was
actually
> pretty well done I'd have to expect you were a little biased (either that or
> you don't know quality from a whole in the wall)
Please accept the latter. Since I know I wasn't biased, I must not know
quality from a hole in the wall. And for so long, I've wondered why my
reviews all suck--it's because I don't know anything about good comics versus
bad comics! How stupid and foolish I have been.
>>When he handled it
>>in a shitty way ("shitty" meaning WRITTEN VERY BADLY)
>
>You have an interesting definition of "shitty". This was a pretty well
written
> issue. Sure it could have been better, but what can't? It wasn't a
> masterpeice of comics literature but it was still a solid issue of Starmna
> (except for the stupid gimmick Mist used to kille Amazing Man, and the
stilted
> Rage of AM and Blue Devil)
I absolutely disagree. It was a convoluted issue. I think it was poorly
written. I think the dialogue was stilted and the characters unconvincing.
For example, can you explain to me the motivation for Crimson Fox asking
Amazing Man out just pages before they're both going to die? Robinson doesn't
even have the story sense to give the heroes something heroic to do before
they're offed; he just lets them stand around chatting, filling their mouths
with sub-par dialogue that advances neither plot nor character, until some
babe in a sports bra shows up and kills them. In my opinion, it was not a
good issue of Starman; it was a bad issue of the title and a crappy comic book
in general.
>>Hell, if
>>you can get a great story out of it, kill every fucking DCU hero there is.
>
>I think thats what Alan Moore planned for Twilight.
Which would have been one of the greatest stories ever, IMHO...
>>Killing three decent characters
>
>Come on. I was one of the folks who defended Fox during her initial JLE run
> and even I wouldn't say she's a "decent character". She was the weakest of
> all the JLE members (character wise) and only got mangled a bit more when
> Gerard Jones took over. BLue Devil hasn't been a decent character since his
> series got canceled. As for Amazing Man... well he;s only a decent
character
> by virtue of the fact that AM sr was an intersting character and this kid is
a
> carbon copy of his gran-dad.
As I've mentioned in other posts, I see this as the writer's fault, not the
character's. Characters in and of themselves are not bad; writers are. I
can't even think of one single fictional character who would not become
interesting and exciting to me with the right writer telling his/her tales.
Any arguments that follow the "these characters aren't that good, so they can
die" line of reasoning are to me invalid.
>>for NO APPARENT REASON is a "murder spree" to me.
>
>Whoa. No IMMEDIATE reason does not (necesarily) translate to "no apparent
> reason". I think the reason is clear. 1) Mist wants practice killing
heroes
> before she takes on Jack (who to her is THE hero) and 2)She wanted this as a
> acalling card in the super community to show how much of a badass she is
(and
> no shooting bank gaurds or something like that doesn't work cause everybody
> and his brother does crimes like that. How many villains actually off a
> hero?)
Fair enough. She had a few reasons to kill the heroes. But in my opinion,
these reasons are not well-developed in the story, nor are they sufficient
enough to justify the act. As I've said before, so she's a killer who needs
practice. Why not kill strangers? Why heroes? As for the "needing heroes to
kill for a calling card" argument, that makes some sense. But geez, the way
she did it, she may as well have been killing bank guards. I'm no more a
super-villain than Milton Berle, and I could have done what she did. To me,
she's proven nothing in killing these heroes other than the fact that her
creator did a bad job writing this issue.
>>Well, let's take this apart, Professor. What are the two ways in which a
>>death in comics can have impact? In my humble opinion, they are:
>>
>>1) if the death is a surprise, or
>>
>>2) if the death happens to a character we care about, or
[snip]
>also you might want to make a distinction between four and
>5) if it advances the plot
[snip]
>I think the JLEs deaths qualify for 2, and 5. They were characters well
known
> enough to have meaning for us, and I think their deaths DO advance the plot.
> (of the series, not the issue)
>
>and maybe you want to tack on a 6) if its well told.
>
>After all you yourself said that if it would make a good story they shoudl
kill
> the entire DCU.
First off, I don't think it's been well told. That's the point of this
discussion. :)
Second, I'll give you two. I did care enough about these characters
to be upset that the story of their deaths was poorly told. But point five is
crap. These deaths are just plot devices?! How cold and heartless. I've
never known Robinson to be anything but a warm and affectionate writer, but
seeing these three corpses as plot points to support the Mist's villainy
changes my view on his work and only makes me hate this issue more.
>>There goes number one! By page twelve the characters
>>are made worthless by Robinson's shitty dialogue.
>
>Thats your opinion. I don't know what you consider good dialogue but this
was
> it by almost any conventional definition. It was bantery enough to be
> freindly but also appropriate to the situation (they didn't sit around
> discussing toy race cars, or old Humphrey Bogart movies like many Robinson
> characters are likely to do in the middle of an adventure). its also
> emblematic of Robinsons style while also being true to the characters. I
> don't know what more you can ask for.
Here are my specific problems with the dialogue, to direct the argument a bit:
1) The Blue Devil/Firestorm scene, pages 8-9
Exhibit A of Robinson using the dialogue to cheaply attempt to
generate sympathy for the characters. He even throws in a reference to the
exact sort of tactics he'll be using in killing these characters: "Nowadays
you fly off for a moment, you come back and two or three of your buddies are
dead in that time." Right, James. Thanks to hacks like you, they're dead. A
cheap shot in the dialogue that makes me wince every time I read it. And the
ending line for this exchange "...I have some high hopes." Again, why use
this kind of language when these characters are gonna be corpses in a few
pages anyway? The dialogue is such an obvious set up for the deaths that it's
hard even to accept these characters saying these lines; it's almost like
they're reading from some script that was provided because they'll be dead
soon.
2) The Crimson Fox/Amazing Man scene, pages 9-11
Exhibit B. As if it weren't enough that Robinson expects us to warm
up to these characters so that he can cut them down and get some cheap shock
and sorrow and anger at the Mist, James also has to create this impromptu love
affair so that Amazing Man can react with horror when he finds Crimson Fox
dead later in the issue. Hell, I'd be shocked if I found anyone's dead body,
but giving Amazing Man the extra anger of losing a hot date to the Mist as
well as a colleague gives things a special extra PUNCH. Flip ahead to Amazing
Man's speech about Paris as a refuge for black Americans. I find it hard to
read this speech knowing (as the comic expects us to) that this character will
die soon. Doing so makes me feel dirty. It's nearly a racist tactic as well
as poor writing. Robinson seems to be saying, "Boy, Amazing Man; you thought
you'd find acceptance here in Paris because you're black, eh? Not if you're
DEAD, you won't!" What purpose does this speech serve in developing this
character? NONE.
These are my two biggest problems with the dialogue, and since they
constitute the core of the issue, I think I'm justified in saying that the
dialogue stinks in my opinion.
>> There goes number two! By
>>the end the issue is a waste of paper.
>
>see this is one of my problem with your review (and maybe its just your style
> to offer opinion with no real examples). your entire review can basically
be
> summed up as
>
>"art stinks
>plot shitty
>dialogue shitty"
>
>with no real examples or corroboration. I mean if you're gonna argue like
that
> why bother. Its just you standing there saying "ITS SHITTY" and me standing
> here saying "No its not"
This I can understand. I tried to offer as many examples as I could. But
it's constructive to know that I need more. Unfortunately, since I try to
review many books a week, I try not to write more than 500-700 words on each
issue. I never said that the "art stinks"; in fact, I liked the art a lot. I
supported my "plot shitty" statement with the fact that I felt the Mist's
actions weren't motivated enough by Robinson (by that I mean, the "Mist is
just a whacked-out psycho" motivation doesn't cut it for me). I tried to
support my "dialogue shitty" views by explaining that I felt many of the
exchanges between the JLE members were contrived. I've tried to expand on
this above. My point in writing these reviews is first to get my opinions out
for others to read, and then second to generate a discussion. Once the
discussion starts, then the specifics come out. There's little point in
discussion if I write 2000 words detailing my every point. So part of my
vagueness (though I don't really think I'm vague, just not as thorough as
space will permit) is due to time constraints, part is due to space
considerations, and part is due to my desire to stimulate debate, not end it.
>>And out the
>>fucking window go your "literary tools"...
>
>Hmmm maybe you need to read a bit more so you can realize about stuff like
> foreshadowing and flashbacks, and non-linear storytelling.
I know what flashbacks and foreshadowing are. In my opinion, their use in
this issue is worthless. Oh, Firestorm FORESHADOWS the death of his friends
with a line of dialogue. How CLEVER. To me, it's mean-spirited when Robinson
knows what's going to happen in the issue and makes sure the reader knows too.
>>But it's BAD characterization, in fact not characterization at all.
>
>Of course its characterization. In fact Amazing Man is true to all the bad
> characterization he's gotten in the past. If nothing else Robinson is being
> true to the source material.
To me, all these characters spoke in that classic Robinson sarcastic,
self-exploratory style. I found not several voices coming out of their
mouths, but one single voice, which happened to speak with an accent when the
Crimson Fox was talking. In my opinion, that's no characterization; that's
bad writing.
>>The
>>dialogue is stilted and forced.
>
>Not really (except for AM and BDs indignation at the Mists actions)
I think it is stilted and forced. See above.
>>The Crimson Fox I remember would have had no problem telling Amazing
>>Man she wanted him--she's an openly flirtatious French woman, not a mewling
>>high school girl.
>
>Actually as I recall one of them was a pretty big flirt and the other was
more
> button down (I confess I forget which was which)
You're right on this--I retract my previous opinions. I agree.
>>Hell, all of the characters talked the same, except for
>>those stupid accent inflections added by Robinson to the Fox's dialogue!
>
>And they don't talk all the same elsewhere!? Its a damn rare writer who can
> create different speach patterns for different characters (without relying
on
> accents)
I'm not talking "speech patterns" here; I'm talking about how dialogue is an
expression of what a character thinks and feels. To me, all of these
characters thought and felt the same. None of the dialogue was unique to the
characters. In the past, Robinson has created believable dialogue based on
believable characters. In this issue, I think he fails. All the characters
spoke the same way, brief lines followed by an inevitable soliliquy about
superheroics.
>>For me, having the characters talk was a way of attempting to make the
>>characters familiar to the readers.
>
>I think you're wrong (except insomuch as any geust star has to be introduced
in
> a book). I agree if thats what you thought the dialogue wass for then it
> should have been them standing around giving long winded speaches about
their
> lives and powers (now THAT would have been stilted dialogue)
What about those long-winded speeches about their lives and powers that
Robinson gives Amazing Man, Firestorm, and Crimson Fox? Maybe you read a
different issue, but I thought THAT was stilted dialogue. And that's what
made me think that the dialogue served the singular purpose of bringing the
characters closer to the reader so Robinson could have the Mist off them for
shock and anger value.
>>My review may have been a great many things, but it was not BIASED against
>>character death AT ALL, no matter how you may interpret it.
>
>Well considering that the issue was fairly well done and you said it was
> "shitty" I have to figure either one of two things either a) you were biased
> (which i can live with although people should fess up or shut up about
biases)
> or b) you have a piss poor understanding of how a comic should be writen (in
> which case you probably shouldn't be wasting your time writing reviews).
> personally I hope its the former cause thats only an issue with this
> particular case, while the latter would invalidate any review you did.
And here's where I give up on this thread. I had hoped to generate
discussion; all I've done is uncovered one of those classic idiots who
believes anyone whose opinions disagree with his has a "piss-poor
understanding of how a comic should be written."
Hey, if it helps you understand where I'm coming from, then you know
what? I DO have a piss-poor understanding of how a comic should be written.
Me, I think I have a pretty good understanding, myself.
>>. I've matched your rhetoric at points
>
>Actually you haven't. I've boruhgt up examples but basically all that your
> replies consist of is saying "It was shitty" or "it was piss poor" or "it
> was abd story" thats not matching anything.
Actually, I thought my examples were clear. If they weren't, I apologize.
What I am most upset about in dealing with this thread is the utter disrespect
with which my writing and opinions have been treated by you. I write the
review and return to the group to find someone attacking my words, so I attack
back a bit, trying to diffuse the situation. The situation didn't have to
begin in the first place.
I get angry when people tell me I'm stupid, have "piss-poor
understanding" or that I wouldn't know a good comic from a hole in the wall.
I've written from that anger a bit in these posts. But what it boils down to
is that you've regarded my writing from the beginning as though it were shit
because it disagrees with your opinions and because you've assumed that I
have these preconcieved notions on character death which I absolutely do not
no matter how you try to twist my words. It makes me sick. Dealing with
people like you makes me want to throw this computer out the window and take
up farming.
Matt
John J Troutman
matthew, j, springer wrote:
>
> here's an interesting question--how many of you out there are planning on
> dropping Starman as a result of this issue? I've seen a few people mention it
> but I'd be curious as to just how many are doing it. I'm not, because I'm
> hoping that Robinson will pick up the ball again once his script for that
> Freddy and Jason horror fiasco is done. But I can understand those who are,
> and I'd be curious as to how many of them are out there.
> So are you ripping the coin from Robinson's pocket in protest? Let us
> know.
>
> Matt
Nope. One sub-par issue does not a cancellation make, even an issue as
poor as this one. I think STARMAN #38 was just a fluke, though. #37 was
excellent, and I have high hopes for the Starman/Shazam crossover.
It is weird, though, how a writer can be so sympathetic towards a group
of characters that get unfairly massacared (the JSA), but then proceed
to launch a bloodbath of his own. Unless Dan Jurgens created all the JLE
characters and STARMAN #38 is just some bizarre exercise in revenge...
Jeff Troutman
David Crowe
Jim Smith <jams...@risc.usi.edu> wrote:
: matthew, j, springer wrote:
: > here's an interesting question--how many of you out there are planning on
: > dropping Starman as a result of this issue?
: As far as I can tell, Robinsons's last six months of stories in STARMAN
: have been *so* offensive to racdu that he must be doing everything short
: of having the JSA club baby seals with dead puppies.
: And yet, people continue to read (and kvetch) about STARMAN.
: This is probably for the best anyway--if everyone who hates STARMAN
: right now dropped it, racdu would probably have virtually no traffic.
: (Oh, wait, I forgot about the Holy Crusdae to Stop Pat O'Neill. There
: will *always* be *some* traffic on racdu.)
Don't forget about the frequent John Byrne Jihads!
: What bothers me is that I thought everyone *loved* STARMAN...right up
: until the moment I bought an issue (#29). The Jim Law of Comics seems
: to have hit this book like a potato gun.
If it makes you feel better, I never liked Starman.
--
David "No Nickname" Crowe http://www.primenet.com/~jetman
You only read the manual when there's something you can't figure out. -Skuld
matthew, j, springer
[Posted and E-mailed]
In article <espinoza....@cgl.ucsf.edu>,
espi...@cgl.ucsf.edu (Hernan Espinoza) wrote:
>Well, assuming you haven't thrown your computer out the window to take
>up farming (which, BTW, has become rather computer intensive these days)
>Let's talk.
No, my computer's sitting right here, sighing with relief that I didn't throw
her out the window. If I had, I'm sure I would have woken up tomorrow morning
trembling with the jonses from withdrawl. I'm like a junkie on this
internet thing.
> First of all, I didn't like this issue either, because it
>was so utterly trivial *AND*, I thought, compressed. So we agree
>about that. However, to demonstrate that rational dialogue is
>possible, let me disagree a little bit...
Thanks, Hernan. I'm glad that someone stepped in to save me from saying more
dumb angry things than usual. :)
>mjs...@lulu.acns.nwu.edu (matthew, j, springer) writes:
>
>>1) The Blue Devil/Firestorm scene, pages 8-9
>> Exhibit A of Robinson using the dialogue to cheaply attempt to
>>generate sympathy for the characters.
>
> I'm conflicted about this point. On the one hand, it just
>heighten the trivial and tawdry nature of this issue for me. On
>the other hand, I'm glad he at least tried to humanize the characters
>before offing them. On the third hand (don't ask, human), I realize
>that he really didn't have the space to give them a proper treatment
>(it's times like this I realize the real limitations of the standard
>comic format)...
I'd never given this much thought, but you do have an excellent point. If
this weren't a single-issue story, maybe Robinson would have had more creative
freedom to do something with the characters. Then again, the job he did with
the space he did have does demonstrate that maybe two issues of this would
have been twice as bad as one.
You're right; he did try to humanize them. IMHO he failed, but he did
try. Here's a thought I'm having just now: why are these characters so
INACTIVE the whole book? If one were obsessed with negatively demolishing
this issue (as I have been in the past) one might say that it's an even
further cheap shot on Robinson's part; the only character that does anything
but chat is the Mist, and she wins the fight and kills the heroes. But that's
crazy talk, I know.
>> He even throws in a reference to the
>>exact sort of tactics he'll be using in killing these characters: "Nowadays
>>you fly off for a moment, you come back and two or three of your buddies are
>>dead in that time." Right, James. Thanks to hacks like you, they're dead.
A
>>cheap shot in the dialogue that makes me wince every time I read it. And
the
>>ending line for this exchange "...I have some high hopes." Again, why use
>>this kind of language when these characters are gonna be corpses in a few
>>pages anyway?
>
> Dramatic irony (although he didn't have to lay it on so
>thick, sheesh)
Yeah, I guess thick is the right word. Its near-inconsistency from thickness
is what makes it so bad.
[re: Amazing Man]
>> What purpose does this speech serve in developing this
>>character? NONE.
>
> OK, I admit that I didn't read any of the stuff that this
>character has been in before, so I'm coming from a completely naive
>POV. Further, I also admit that I have a chip on my shoulder about this
>belief that some people have that race is not a good character building
>tool...so here's a grain of salt for you. 8-)
>
> Let's see. Here's my reading of the character based solely
>on those two pages. This man has a serious regard for history, while
>at the same time a serious problem with it. He knows what Paris
>represents to black intellectuals, and why. OTOH, he muses about
>what his granddad may have accomplished had he stayed in Paris and why
>he was a hero (It was RIGHT), without realizing that may have been
>why his grandfather _had_ to return. How ironic. This character
>has something to learn, but may be too young and angry to learn it.
>Further evidence of this comes in the following bit where he questions
>the motives of his grandfather's contemporaries (which makes an
>interesting illustration of the myth of superheroes theme that Robinson has
>been exploring all along)
>
> You may say, correctly, that this was all a bit shallow
>treatment (again, to be fair, there are space limitations
>at work here, as well) of these themes, but it's *not* "NONE." IMHO, YMMV.
Great character study, Hernan. It only makes me wish even more that Amazing
Man would be around for a while and would get some use from a decent writer
who could help him realize all this potential. DAMN, Amazing Man acting out
of Paris would make a great comic!
That's true, there is SOME characterization provided, and not "none."
I'll give you that. But I'm still in the "shallow" camp with you, Hernan.
It's still bad characterization. For my money, I'd almost rather have none
than a little bad...
> -Hernan, still conflicted
I feel the conflict within you, Hernan! Join us on the Dark Side! Robinson
is the Devil! Crimson Fox will live forever in our hearts! :)
[note--just a joke and not at all evidence that I hate killing heroes
therefore I hate Robinson, so you flamers back the hell off]
Hernan Espinoza
Well, assuming you haven't thrown your computer out the window to take
up farming (which, BTW, has become rather computer intensive these days)
Let's talk.
First of all, I didn't like this issue either, because it
was so utterly trivial *AND*, I thought, compressed. So we agree
about that. However, to demonstrate that rational dialogue is
possible, let me disagree a little bit...
mjs...@lulu.acns.nwu.edu (matthew, j, springer) writes:
>1) The Blue Devil/Firestorm scene, pages 8-9
> Exhibit A of Robinson using the dialogue to cheaply attempt to
>generate sympathy for the characters.
I'm conflicted about this point. On the one hand, it just
heighten the trivial and tawdry nature of this issue for me. On
the other hand, I'm glad he at least tried to humanize the characters
before offing them. On the third hand (don't ask, human), I realize
that he really didn't have the space to give them a proper treatment
(it's times like this I realize the real limitations of the standard
comic format)...
> He even throws in a reference to the
>exact sort of tactics he'll be using in killing these characters: "Nowadays
>you fly off for a moment, you come back and two or three of your buddies are
>dead in that time." Right, James. Thanks to hacks like you, they're dead. A
>cheap shot in the dialogue that makes me wince every time I read it. And the
>ending line for this exchange "...I have some high hopes." Again, why use
>this kind of language when these characters are gonna be corpses in a few
>pages anyway?
Dramatic irony (although he didn't have to lay it on so
thick, sheesh)
>2) The Crimson Fox/Amazing Man scene, pages 9-11
> Flip ahead to Amazing
>Man's speech about Paris as a refuge for black Americans. I find it hard to
>read this speech knowing (as the comic expects us to) that this character will
>die soon. Doing so makes me feel dirty. It's nearly a racist tactic as well
>as poor writing.
Racist? I assume that you fell Robinson exploited Amazing Man's
race to give his character some pre-kill depth. I felt it was a bit
lazy, but given the space considerations, might as well go for the
obvious. Furthermore, I don't think using his race is any more
or less illegitimate than using Blue Devil's...uh...infernal nature....
but just as lazy.
Robinson seems to be saying, "Boy, Amazing Man; you thought
>you'd find acceptance here in Paris because you're black, eh? Not if you're
>DEAD, you won't!"
LOL! (I'm sorry, this just struck me as funny.)
> What purpose does this speech serve in developing this
>character? NONE.
OK, I admit that I didn't read any of the stuff that this
character has been in before, so I'm coming from a completely naive
POV. Further, I also admit that I have a chip on my shoulder about this
belief that some people have that race is not a good character building
tool...so here's a grain of salt for you. 8-)
Let's see. Here's my reading of the character based solely
on those two pages. This man has a serious regard for history, while
at the same time a serious problem with it. He knows what Paris
represents to black intellectuals, and why. OTOH, he muses about
what his granddad may have accomplished had he stayed in Paris and why
he was a hero (It was RIGHT), without realizing that may have been
why his grandfather _had_ to return. How ironic. This character
has something to learn, but may be too young and angry to learn it.
Further evidence of this comes in the following bit where he questions
the motives of his grandfather's contemporaries (which makes an
interesting illustration of the myth of superheroes theme that Robinson has
been exploring all along)
You may say, correctly, that this was all a bit shallow
treatment (again, to be fair, there are space limitations
at work here, as well) of these themes, but it's *not* "NONE." IMHO, YMMV.
>issue. I never said that the "art stinks"; in fact, I liked the art a lot.
I thought the poses in the Blue Devil/Firestorm dialogue
were just silly (esp Firestorm's), but generally I like the art.
-Hernan, still conflicted
Prestorjon
>It is character-driven, even by characters Robinson
>intends to "kill off"
I don't think its character driven. "character driven" means that the main
point of the story is to watch the developement of the characters, while "plot
driven" means that the point is to watch the plot unfold. THis issue was plot
driven cause the whole point was to show us The Mist killing these heroes, not
to show the heroes reactions to it, or Nashs reaction to it (although both of
those were certainly a part of the story)
>Think about it: despite the
>deaths you abhorred, didn't you think the dialogue was believable (save,
>perhaps, for Fox's, which was marred by the accent she's been saddled with
>from Day One)?
>
>
And the righteous indignation of AM and BD on hearing of their comrades fate.
That range false (even though I liked the dialogue otherwise)
Prestorjon
<<Agreed. Someone else mentioned this in another post (I forget who, sorry),
that the story in Starman #38 BEGS to be retconned into oblivion. It wouldn't
surprise me if it were done within the next five years.>>
I wouldn't be surprised either since TPTB are generally have no balls when it
comes to sticking to their guns.
>2) The fact that you feel that way only proves that these characters deserve
>to remain alive, because they haven't been explored to their full potential.
>
How do you know that? Thats a value judgement anyway. Maybe they have been
explored to their full potential and they just suck.
Prestorjon
<<Well, this was MY last issue. Not as any form of protest,
though. I've just come to the conclusion that Starman, despite
everything I've been hearing about it, simply isn't very good.>>
Man where can I get some of that great weed you're smoking. By almost any
standard you care to name (except straight up action slugfests) Starman is one
of the best super-hero comics around (tied with Astro City for the title of
"best super-hero book")
> Would she have been able to pull this kind of nonsense with the
>JLA?
Thats why she didn't go after the JLA. Thats why she sent Firestorm on a wild
goose chase. Because she knew who she could take out and who she couldn't
Prestorjon
<<Three poor examples are Starman(Will Payton... and
I'll get into that in a moment), Kilowog, and Johnny Quick.>>
Umm Will didn't die. I never read Emerald Disaster or whatever it was called.
I thought Johnny Quick had a lot more potential but I accepted his "death" and
I think tis good cause it sets the stage for Jesse to eventually come into her
own.
>Otherwise, all we're getting is senseless death in order to boost sales
>and Robinson's clout and ego. "Hey, I was allowed to kill three of DC's
>most unpopular characters
This is what I don't get either. The idea that somehow Robinson is strokign
his ego or trying to boost sales (boosting sales is so stupid. If he wanted
to do that he could do it better by having Superman appear in an issue and
live rather than killing three unpopular characters). has anyone thought that
maybe he just felt it would make a cool story?
Prestorjon
>I'm just glad they didn't kill any Chinese Super-Heroes (waitasec, are there
> any?).
The only one I can think of is Gloss from the New Gaurdians. Are Thunder &
(or) Lightning chinese? Also wasn't one of the Blackhawks chinese?
>Grant Morrison's (I still haven't gotten into the new JLA)
I like it somewhat but its definitely not the be all and end all of superhero
comics like everyone seems to think it is.
>Though this is not a Marvel newsgroup, I have to say this; If the internet
>was
> as accessible in the past as it is now, what kind of debate would there be
> over the many supervillain deaths caused by the Scourge?? I, for one, can
> think of many more evil deeds for Dr. Faustis to implement. He didn't have
>to
> be included in the Marvel housecleaning. I like the guy, but I'm sure
>others
> could care less.
Hey I liked Mark Shaw but I was satisfied with his death.
Prestorjon
<<On
the other hand, I'm glad he at least tried to humanize the characters
before offing them. On the third hand (don't ask, human),>>
Oh MY God! A Motie got loose. Quick kill it before it can breed!
Prestorjon
<<Jon, they're opinions, not facts; they don't carry a "right or wrong" to
them. I think killing heroic characters is usually a copout, when a
writer can't think of anything else to do. That's my opinion. It cannot
be proven factually wrong.
>>
Well if you feel that its wrong then thats your perogative but basically yes,
factually you are wrong. I'll accept that many deaths that HAVE BEEN
PORTRAYED have been cop-outs (I don't agree. I think its actually a cop-out
to say that its a cop-out) but not that in literature most deaths are
cop-outs. Sorry I will fight you to the death on this one (no pun intended).
I think one of the very real problems that keep comics from becoming a truly
great literary medium is the fact that we the fans refuse to allow anything
meaningful to happen to our favorite characters.
>Killing them ain't "doing something,"
Of course it's doing something. Its killing them. Thats the ultimate
something (and the ultimate nothing ironically)
> it's shuffling them away so *others*
>can't "do something" creative with them.
No, its using death as a plot device like every other literary medium does.
>It's the opposite of creativity
>to me.
Well then you'd be wrong. Keeping these characters alive forever FOR NO REASON
other than to satisfy fans is the opposite of creativity. It preserving the
status quo at the expense of good storytelling.
>And, by that token, too much death is overkill (pun intended).
Maybe a dozen characters in all of comics history who have died and stayed
dead is hardly "too much"
> It's
>become the norm rather than the exception.
Sorry but factually you're wrong. Most comics do not include any characters
dying other than extras. No one with any character developement is allowed to
die in most books and when they do die the usually come back.
>To me that indicates an utter
>lack of imagination,
Why? Because you personally don't find death an enjoyable plot point? Thats
doesn't indicate a lack of imagination. It just indicates a plot you don't
like. I don't like heroes who joke around all the time (ala spiderman or
static). Does that mean that the creators who create these characters are
unimaginative? Hell no it just means they create characters I personally
don't find very entertaining.
> and moreover a mentality that says "I'm going to off
>these characters so nobody ELSE can play with them either."
Now whos putting themselvwes in peoples minds? Unless you've taken a poll of
creators and found out that most have vindictive reasons for killing off
characters (which is a pretty silly idea at face value) then why don't we
limit the speculation as to the motives of writers. I think what motivates
writers to kill a character is what motivates porbably 90% of the writers out
there (good and bad), they think it'll make a neat story (now maybe they're
wrong but their motives are pure)
>Yes, the threat of death is real. That's why it's so catharctic to us as
>readers when our heroes TRIUMPH OVER that threat,
But its not any triumph if theres no risk. Its like a comment Siskel or Ebert
(I forget which) made about the movie The Last Temptation of Christ. They
said that what all these fundamentalists protesting the film apparently didn't
understand was that if Jesus was not tempted by the flesh then it really
wasn't a triumph for him to ignore it.
Same thing here: IF there's no death then its not really a triumph for them
to avoid it.
>Oh, agreed. I don't want there to be absence of consequences. I just
>don't believe those consequences need be *death* all the time.
I don't know where you're getting this "all the time" nonsense. In the nine or
tent books I read monthly I've probably seen three deaths in the last year
(two of which happened this week). So I don't know what comics you're readin
but if you don't like death and its THAT prevalent maybe you should switch
books.
> I prefer
>things like transcendance, maturity, growth, wisdom, stuff like that.
And death can be a great reason to grow. What better thing to inspire maturity
and growth than the death of a colleague. Its a classic and time honored plot
device. Someone dies and it forces you to re-examine your own life and to
question the nature of things. No better way to acheive growth or
transcendence than through self-exploration.
>I prefer to think of it as a fantasy medium which contains action
>elements.
I think you're a bit misplaced then. Fifteen twenty years ago I'd probably say
you'd be spot on in calling this fantasy (as you clearly mean the term), but
now its mainly an action genre with fantastic elements.
I don't mind you prefering books where people don't die but I do mind the idea
that the books I like should have to conform to what you like.
Prestorjon
<<Please accept the latter. Since I know I wasn't biased, I must not know
quality from a hole in the wall. >>
Okay. Course now that you've admitted that you don't know anything about
quality writing maybe you should stop saying anythign about wether a
particular comic was well written or not.
<<I absolutely disagree. It was a convoluted issue. >>
??????? Are you on crack? Of all the criticism someone could conceivably make
"convoluted" is most certainly not one of them. If anything this issue was
much more stragihtforward and simplistic than most of what Robinson writes.
> I think it was poorly
>written.
Well since you already admitted that you don't lknow anythign about quality
writing I don't think your opinion counts very much does it?
>I think the dialogue was stilted and the characters unconvincing.
Hmmm the dialogue was perfectly suited to the circumstances. It was much less
stilted than most comic book dialogue. The characters were portrayed in ways
largely consistent with their recent characterization.
>For example, can you explain to me the motivation for Crimson Fox asking
>Amazing Man out just pages before they're both going to die?
Yes. She likes him and wants to go out with him.
You see your problem is you're looking at this with the foreknowledge that
they're going to die. Fox, however, doesn't know she and AM are about to die
so she's planning for the future. Its perfect. Its realistic dialogue and
its something that could actually happen. Thats a beutiful touch. They
didn't act like they were about to die. Any other writer wouldn't have put
that bit of dialogue in there cause he'd figure there's no point establishing
a romantic subplot between characters who were about to die. But that writer
would be ignoring a great peice of realistic dialogue.
Take a look at The Shining (arguably THE classic horror film next to
Rosemarys Baby). Scatman Cruthers gets set up as the hero. He comes in to
save the day and he gets an ax in the chest before he does ANYTHING. It was
perfect, it came out of left feild and it established that unlike in fiction,
real life isn't always neat. Stuff doesn;t always turn out the way you expect
it. Thats the point of Fox hitting on AM. God, I was just joking when I
suggested you don't understand quality, but if you didn't understand why this
was in here maybe you really don't know anything.
>Robinson doesn't
>even have the story sense to give the heroes something heroic to do before
>they're offed;
Because they're supposed to be getting MURDERED not fighting the good fight
against a villain like the anti-monitor, or Darkseid. Its not a battle, its
cold blooded assassination
>he just lets them stand around chatting, filling their mouths
>with sub-par dialogue that advances neither plot nor character
Well actually considering that the plot did advance then the dialogue did by
definiton advance the plot. (especially in the case of Fox where it was vital
for the Mist to have her stand around talking for a few seconds. )
>Which would have been one of the greatest stories ever, IMHO...
You're right about that. Its interesting how a lot of the stuff he suggested
(Cyborg becoming more robotic, Changeling losing control of his powers,
"Joannie" Quick etc etc etc) have begun slipping into stories over the years.
>As I've mentioned in other posts, I see this as the writer's fault, not the
>character's.
I see it as both. Giffen did a fine job with all the other members of JLE but
didn't make Fox work too well. AM was never anything but a ressurection of
the original. As for BD well you may be right but I would have thought
SOMEONE would have done somethign with him in all the years that have passed.
>I
>can't even think of one single fictional character who would not become
>interesting and exciting to me with the right writer telling his/her tales.
Barney
>Fair enough. She had a few reasons to kill the heroes. But in my opinion,
>these reasons are not well-developed in the story, nor are they sufficient
>enough to justify the act
They were well developed enough for me to pick up on a first reading. As for
jsutification, Nash is a nutball she doesn't need justification.
>As I've said before, so she's a killer who needs
>practice. Why not kill strangers?
Cause she's already had enough practice killing ordinary people. She needs to
take a shot at people who actually have a chance of fighting back. Also see
reason #2. Every villain kills civilians. Very few kill heroes
> But geez, the way
>she did it, she may as well have been killing bank guards.
No.... She killed heroes. True they were b-grade heroes but still heroes, and
now she'll be known to a lot of folks who used to be in the JLA
>I could have done what she did.
I doubt it.
>First off, I don't think it's been well told.
I know. But you gave three rather restrictive examples that you felt enclosed
ALL good deaths in comics. I was merely saying that there are (at least)
three others.
>But point five is
>crap.
In what sense. I think we have to wait and see if its factually correct or
not.
>These deaths are just plot devices?! How cold and heartless.
Are you schyzophrenic? These aren't real people we're talking about here.
They're characters in a story. Their entire lives are plot devices. Check
out the movie LA Confidential abotu a dozen people die in the course of that
movie to advance the plot. Is that heartless? Is that cold? No, its just
storytelling. I can't beleive you're sitting here and telling me that writers
should not have bad things happen to people. I mean maybe thats fine if you
want to read Sweet Valley High books or watch Barney all day long but
basically every other story being told has something thats at the least
inconvenient happen to the characters.
I write stories (just for my own enjoyment) and I love my characters, but
I'm not under any kind of delusion that they deserve anything from me or the
world other than to be used in a good story. If that involves one of them
getting the crap kicked out of them then so be it. If that involves someone
getting killed then hey, I'm all for it. Its not heartless for a writer to do
bad things to a character in the name of the plot. Its simply storytelling.
>1) The Blue Devil/Firestorm scene, pages 8-9
> Exhibit A of Robinson using the dialogue to cheaply attempt to
>generate sympathy for the characters.
I don't think its trying to generate sympathy. I think its trying to establish
the characters and give them some interaction so the issue isn't "Mist visits
the JLE shooting gallery"
>He even throws in a reference to the
>exact sort of tactics he'll be using in killing these characters: "Nowadays
>you fly off for a moment, you come back and two or three of your buddies are
>dead in that time."
Thats a great little bit of foreshadowing. Very similar to Nashs comment to
her son "You're gonna grow up to be just like your uncle and grandaddy" (She
means Mist I and Kyle, but remember who the babies other uncle and grandfather
were)
>Thanks to hacks like you, they're dead.
Hmmm refering to one of the more talented writers in the business today as a
"hack" really doesn't say anything about him, but does indicate you don't
really know what you're talking about.
>"...I have some high hopes." Again, why use
>this kind of language when these characters are gonna be corpses in a few
>pages anyway?
CAUSE THEY DON'T KNOW THEY'LL BE CORPSES!!!!!!!!
>James also has to create this impromptu love
>affair so that Amazing Man can react with horror when he finds Crimson Fox
>dead later in the issue.
Blue Devil reacted with a lot more horror and he wasn't romanitcally involved
with either Fox or Amazing Man, so your theory doens't really hold water.
>Doing so makes me feel dirty. It's nearly a racist tactic as well
>as poor writing.
What the hell are you talking about. How is a man commenting on his race a
"racist tactic".
> What purpose does this speech serve in developing this
>character? NONE.
>
>
Wrong it shows another reason that he's happy to be here, and that he's got
high hopes. Hopes which are tragic cause they'll soon be dashed by the Mist.
>This I can understand. I tried to offer as many examples as I could.
Hmmmm not in your original review you didn't. You pointed to specific elements
of the issue and said "thats shitty" but you didn't give any reason why. Now
you're starting to but your reasons are so laughably ridiciulous I almost wish
you hadn't
>I never said that the "art stinks"; in fact, I liked the art a lot.
Sorry mea culpa. I was confusing you with another reviewer
>I know what flashbacks and foreshadowing are. In my opinion, their use in
>this issue is worthless.
Well thats another matter, but claimign that it isn;t a legitimate literary
tool is just plain silly.
But point of fact is that you're wrong. Its defintiely not worthless. It
sets up a framing device for the story. Shows us that its all told (perhaps
subjectively) by the Mist. That she's in Greece with her baby. That she
plans for her baby to become a big time villain. That She's planning to hold
Opal City hostage. That she's a doting mother, and that she's a total nutjob
cause she's telling her kid bed-time stories about people getting killed. All
in all those four pages of prologue and epilogue are pretty meaningful and
worthwile.
>To me, it's mean-spirited when Robinson
>knows what's going to happen in the issue and makes sure the reader knows
>too.
How is that mean spirited. Would it be any better if people thought it was
just another everyday issue and then had the deaths sprung on them by
surprise?
>To me, all these characters spoke in that classic Robinson sarcastic,
>self-exploratory style.
Sure, but tempered a bit to reflect their more mainstream origins.
>I found not several voices coming out of their
>mouths, but one single voice,
If you can find a writer who can write several different styles of dialogue
convincingly I'd like to meet him. In all my years of reading I can't think
of any off the top of my head who pulled it off without resorting to dialects
or accents.
>You're right on this--I retract my previous opinions. I agree.
Although apparently the one whos still alive had a very slight French accent,
not the heavy one displayed in this issue.
>I'm talking about how dialogue is an
>expression of what a character thinks and feels. To me, all of these
>characters thought and felt the same
Well then you have to read a bit more carefully. Fox is flirting with AM. AM
is all for it but not quite flirting with her. he's also real excited about
the JLE and being in Paris. Firestorm is hopeful but a bit melancholy about
the past. Blue Devil is a little wary about whats goign to happen. THose
aren't one voice speaking. Those are four seperate voices.
>All the characters
>spoke the same way, brief lines followed by an inevitable soliliquy about
>superheroics.
Hmmm a black college age kid, a French millionaire businesswoman, a substance
abusing model-superhero, and a stuntman trapped in the form of a demon. What
do these people have in common other than being super-heroes????? Of course
they're gonna talk about being heroes. Also Fox had no long speach. Amazing
Mans speach was mostly about Paris as a haven for the black man, not about
super-heroic, and BD and Firestorm had a long winded DISCUSSION of
super-heroics. So, factually, you're "soliiquy about superheroes" comment is
wrong.
> I had hoped to generate
>discussion; all I've done is uncovered one of those classic idiots who
>believes anyone whose opinions disagree with his has a "piss-poor
>understanding of how a comic should be written."
HMMM considering that you both admit that you have no understanding of how a
comic shoudl be written and display numerous times in this thread a lack of
understanding of even the most basic literary devices I'd have to take this as
a compliment.
>Actually, I thought my examples were clear. If they weren't, I apologize.
Not early on they weren't if you gave any reasons for it being shitty they were
very well hidden. In this post you did give reasons.
>What I am most upset about in dealing with this thread is the utter
>disrespect
>with which my writing and opinions have been treated by you.
I'm sorry if I offended you but I think when people set themselves up as an
arbiter of whats good and what not (which is what you do when you write
reviews) then they should either have a pretty good understanding of the
medium they're talking about or be willing to accept some harsh criticism.
>The situation didn't have to
>begin in the first place.
Why woudl you post a review if you didn't want responses?
> I get angry when people tell me I'm stupid,
I don't think I called you stupid, I'm sorry if I did.
>have "piss-poor
>understanding" or that I wouldn't know a good comic from a hole in the wall.
>
Actually you're the one who said all of these things. I qualified all these
statements saying that they might be true under certian circumstances. I
didn't say that these were definitely true. You confirmed that, both directly
and indirectly with your subsequent posts.
>But what it boils down to
>is that you've regarded my writing from the beginning as though it were shit
>because it disagrees with your opinions
No, I've regarded your review as off base because it disagrees with fact when
it sets itself up as based on fact. If you had just said "I didn't like this
issue" I would have been fine with that. I might have mentioned that I
thought it was a good issue but I wouldn't have been anywhere near as harsh
because in the end what you like is up to you. There's well written books out
there I don't care for (Sandman) and poorly written books I do care for.
Thats a judgement call, but when you go talking about the quality of a book as
if your beleifs are FACT them I'm gonna jump on you hard with both feet if
your view of whats fact differs from what IS fact.
The fact is that Starman #38 was a decent issue. It wasn't great. It wasn't
a classic. it wasn't the best of the line. But it wasn't bad either.
Prestorjon
>1)Amazing Man rarely bothered touching available surfaces; he carried
>around a pouch with samples of several useful materials (rubber, steel,
>stone, etc.), so he would always be able to transform no matter what his
>setting. Robinson figured that since he has the same powers as Crusher
>Creel (Marvel's the Absorbing Man), he used them the same way. If James
>had done his research, the Mist's trap as written would not have worked.
>
>
If he started doing this it was pretty late in the EJ run. But lets use logic.
You're about to fight an enemy. Do you touch that solid wall right next to
you, or do you waste time rummaging in your belt pouch to find the same
element?
>2)The interminable conversation between Blue Devil and Firestorm about
>what it's like to be on a superhero team.
Ten panels (two pages) is interminable? God I'd hate to see what you think of
an actual book. I mean those things go on for hundreds of pages.
>Memo to James: Blue Devil *was*
>on a superhero team. He was a member of the JLA when he got those
>demon-spawned abilities that are so crucial to the way he dies.
Yeah he was a member of the JLA for about three days. That barely counts and
certainly doesn't have any effwect on his wish that he had joined a team
sooner.
Prestorjon
<<Buncha points. One, I don't like it when writers have a character kill
just to show how bad-ass they are. It might or might not make for a good
story but it's usually indicative of lazy storytelling.>>
How do you figure that?
>Two, if super-
>heroes are going to die their deaths should mean something.
There's a difference between meaning something to people IN the story, and
meaning something to the story itself. I think Fox, BD, and AMs deaths were
all the more powerful because they were meaningless (in the story). It made
it all the more tragic that these heroes were murdered and didn't die fighting
the good fight. But their deaths did mean a lot TO the story. THeir deatsh
were the whole reason d'etre for this issue, and I think we'll see a little
more about how this affects how people react to Nash.
>The medium
>is heroic fiction - heroes don't die stupid deaths.
Why not?
>2) Ice Maiden accepts whatever anonymous tip the Mist gave her without
>question. I'd like some details about what kind of threat she couldn't
>tell the others about please.
Yeah but you've gotta remember that Icemaiden (whos different from Fires
friend) has most recently been characterized as a pretty insipid, stupid, and
worthless character who I could totally see falling for this where a savvier
hero (like Fox) wouldn't have.
>3) Everyone accepts Ice Maiden's choice of room assignments? Why?
Why not. Fox is the de facto leader but she didn't have much of a plan so they
took a good suggestion when it came along.
>since
>he rejoined the League Blue Devil has been a real asshole, questioning
>everyone about everything
I read that as him just being pissed off over being a real demon. I figure he
grew up
> Would he really just let IM order him
>around like that?
She didn't. S he gave a suggestion and eveyone thought it was okay.
>4) Crimson Fox's death. What the hell happened there?! I literally
>can't tell. Was the mist poisoned or corrosive?
Yeah that should have been clearer. Apparently the fog numbed Crimson Fox so
she couldn't feel that Mist had actually cut her throat.
>5) Amazing Man's death. Someone explain to me how the Mist coated the
>walls with glass or whatever the hell she did without anyone else
>finding out. Please?
Yeah this was the dumbest one of them all. it would have worked in any other
comic but Starman.
>Also how come he didn't hear Fox's screaming and
>run to her aid
FOx didn't scream. Thats why he didn't hear her.
>6) Blue Devil's death. Like AM, how come he didn't hear the two
>fights in time to help?
He came in about as soon as can be expected. He hears a shout, he comes
running and by the time he gets there its all over for Amazing Man.
>If I recall correctly, he's got hearing
>amplifiers in that suit of his.
The suits gone. Who knows what his new demon body lets him do.
> No sweat so far. But then what does he do?
>Why, he just stands there and waits to dissolve.
He stands there for about a second after he realizes whats going on. By then
he starts to disolve. Anyway the dramatic pause is a staple of the action
genre and can hardly be faulted here.
>
>She had to be able to coat an entire room in glass and then paint
>over it and empty the sprinkler system for the entire building and
>replace it with Holy Water
Actually I think the room was already made with glass walls
>The one thing that really annoyed me is how EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of the
>Mist's plan worked out perfectly. Let's take a look at everything that
>had to happen just right:
This isn't any more fantastic than anything else that happens in comics.
Plenty of folks over in Batman routinly pull off plans with multiple
contingencies that all have to work perfectly for the plan to have any hope of
succes.
Eric Harding
In article <63ppm0$bso...@res-hall.nwu.edu>, mjs...@lulu.acns.nwu.edu (matthew, j, springer) wrote:
>Our ratings system:
>! = Crap.
>! ! = Crap that doesn't stink.
>! ! ! = Pretty good.
>! ! ! ! = Great.
>! ! ! ! ! = The second coming of Kirby and Lee.
>
>
>STARMAN #38
>". . .La Fraternite De Justice Et Liberte!"
>
>Writer: James Robinson
>Penciller: Dusty Abell
>Inks: Dexter Vines/Norman Lee
>Editor: Archie Goodwin
>
>Rating: ! !
>
>
>SPOILERS AHEAD! IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THIS ISSUE YET, DON'T READ THIS REVIEW!
>THEY'RE VERY BIG SPOILERS!
> Perhaps "controversy" is too weak a word to describe the expected
>reaction to this issue. "Horror" and "disgust" might be more appropriate
>terms. As you may have discovered already from the heavy fan debates leading
>up to this issue, Robinson has the Mist killing Blue Devil, Amazing Man, and
>Crimson Fox as they protect valuable diamonds in the heart of Paris. Yet the
>reactions of disgust and horror to STARMAN #38 should not arise merely because
>characters die between its covers. Death in comics is not in and of itself a
>bad thing. Properly handled, it can be a powerful reminder of the mortality
>of these larger-than-life figures we call "superheroes." It can also pay off
>with some incredible stories. Unfortunately, the story told in STARMAN #38 is
>neither powerful nor well-told.
No kidding. This book read like a Friday the 13th film with big words in it.
Wheeeeeeeee. As of this issue, I've put it on my 3 issue death list. If
it doesn't improve in 3 issues, it gets dropped.
Eric
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Bonnie Harding
seacher of the truth because it is out
there somewhere.....
star...@mailcity.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Donald MacPherson
Prestorjon <prest...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19971107061...@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
After I wrote...
> >It is character-driven, even by characters Robinson intends to "kill
off"
>
> I don't think its character driven. "character driven" means that the
main
> point of the story is to watch the developement of the characters, while
> "plot driven" means that the point is to watch the plot unfold. THis
> issue was plot driven cause the whole point was to show us The Mist
> killing these heroes, not to show the heroes reactions to it, or Nashs
> reaction to it (although both of those were certainly a part of the
story)
First of all, Prestorjon, I'm begging you... leave in attributions and fix
your line length.
Secondly, I must disagree. STARMAN #38 is character-driven. There's not
much to the plot (the Mist ambushes the new JLE), but there's so much in
the way of characterization. The Mist is the main character; her
development as a criminal and her intentions in raising her son are the
focus. We also get some nice moments with the JLE'ers, such as Amazing-Man
and Fox's potential romance and Firestorm's reflections on The Old Days.
Don MacPherson
David
Well I for one don't have much of a problem with the occasional trimming
of dead wood.
David
Prestorjon wrote:
>
> <<And why'd he have to kill the Blue Devil
> anyway?>>
>
> Y'see this is what I'm talking about. People don't care wether it was a well
> written sotry or not. They only care that certain characters got killed.
> Would it be any better if Dr Light died instead of Blue Devil?
>
> How about Blue Devil AND Dr Light? The ranks need some thinning.
Mikel Midnight
In article <19971106233...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
perr...@aol.com (PERRYDER) wrote:
> Spoiler Space
> /
> /
> /
> /
> /
> /
> /
> /
> /
> /
> /
> /
> /
> /
> /
> /
>
>
> I'm just glad they didn't kill any Chinese Super-Heroes (waitasec, are there
> any?).
Cascade (Global Guardians)
Claw II (Primal Force)
Gloss (New Guardians)
Kuei (Young Allies)
"Sino-Batman"
"Sino-Flash"
"Sino-Green Lantern"
"Sino-Superman"
--
_______________________________________________________________________________
"She always had a terrific sense of humor" Mikel Midnight
(Valerie Solonas, as described by her mother)
blak...@best.com
__________________________________________________http://www.best.com/~blaklion
matthew, j, springer
[POSTED AND E-MAILED]
In article <19971107074...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
prest...@aol.com (Prestorjon) wrote:
>>For example, can you explain to me the motivation for Crimson Fox asking
>>Amazing Man out just pages before they're both going to die?
>
>Yes. She likes him and wants to go out with him.
>You see your problem is you're looking at this with the foreknowledge that
> they're going to die. Fox, however, doesn't know she and AM are about to
die
> so she's planning for the future. Its perfect. Its realistic dialogue and
> its something that could actually happen. Thats a beutiful touch. They
> didn't act like they were about to die. Any other writer wouldn't have put
> that bit of dialogue in there cause he'd figure there's no point
establishing
> a romantic subplot between characters who were about to die. But that
writer
> would be ignoring a great peice of realistic dialogue.
I've deleted the portion about "The Shining" because I haven't seen it and the
comparison is useless until I have (which I will; I know it's a classic).
In a way, your argument proves my argument, which is that the dialogue
and character interactions in Starman #38 are little more than a weak attempt
on Robinson's part to generate quick sympathy for these characters with the
reader before he kills them, thereby increasing the necessary shock of the
Mist's attack. You say "it's realistic dialogue that could actually happen."
True. Then you say that any other writer wouldn't have put such a scene in
his version of Starman #38 because "he'd figure there's no point establishing
a romantic subplot between characters who were about to die."
Robinson DOES see the point of it: generating sympathy when these guys
are offed (or even before that, since we know they're dying based on the first
two pages of the comic). But you've argued all along that this isn't
happening and that Robinson is simply giving us some great character moments,
so here we must agree to disagree, if you can handle it.
>>Robinson doesn't
>>even have the story sense to give the heroes something heroic to do before
>>they're offed;
>
>Because they're supposed to be getting MURDERED not fighting the good fight
> against a villain like the anti-monitor, or Darkseid. Its not a battle, its
> cold blooded assassination
I have serious problems with this part of your argument. Why are these
characters simply "assassinated"? Granted, they don't have that much
experience, but they do have a good amount. And I'd wager some of that
experience is against genuine supervillains and not just a woman with a knife
and a gun. So why does Robinson never give them the chance to behave as
anything but amateur morons? You're right; as it's written, it is
assaassination. But there's little reason to me why it should have been and
why these fairly experienced superheroes couldn't have found a way to stop the
Mist.
>>Which would have been one of the greatest stories ever, IMHO...
>
>You're right about that. Its interesting how a lot of the stuff he suggested
> (Cyborg becoming more robotic, Changeling losing control of his powers,
> "Joannie" Quick etc etc etc) have begun slipping into stories over the
years.
Well heck, "Kingdom Come" is as close to a rip-off of Twilight as we'll see.
It's pathetic the way DC did that.
>>I
>>can't even think of one single fictional character who would not become
>>interesting and exciting to me with the right writer telling his/her tales.
>
>Barney
I'll give you that... :)
>> But geez, the way
>>she did it, she may as well have been killing bank guards.
>
>No.... She killed heroes. True they were b-grade heroes but still heroes,
and
> now she'll be known to a lot of folks who used to be in the JLA
But as I've noted above, why did they not behave as heroes? Robinson writes
these heroes with the experience levels and abilities of bank guards. None of
them are able to use their fighting abilities or their powers against the
Mist. She's faster than the Crimson Fox (hard to believe) and smarter than
both Amazing Man and Blue Devil. The heroes act like dopes, and that's
Robinson's fault.
>>I could have done what she did.
>
>I doubt it.
Wanna see me try?
>>These deaths are just plot devices?! How cold and heartless.
>
>Are you schyzophrenic? These aren't real people we're talking about here.
> They're characters in a story. Their entire lives are plot devices. Check
> out the movie LA Confidential abotu a dozen people die in the course of
that
> movie to advance the plot. Is that heartless? Is that cold? No, its just
> storytelling. I can't beleive you're sitting here and telling me that
writers
> should not have bad things happen to people. I mean maybe thats fine if you
> want to read Sweet Valley High books or watch Barney all day long but
> basically every other story being told has something thats at the least
> inconvenient happen to the characters.
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
I NEVER said that "writers should not have bad things happen to
people." Let the floods come and the heavens collapse for all I care, if it's
WELL-WRITTEN. ALL ALONG, I've maintained that my primary focus is in how well
a comic is written. This is a poorly written comic book in my opinion, and
one of the biggest reasons is that the deaths portrayed within never become
more than plot devices for me. The character moments fail IMHO, and all I
have left are three vaguely depicted superheroes chatting while they wait to
die. To me, that's heartless and cold.
I'm a bit surprised that you can justify your statement that a
character's entire life is plot devices to you. Do you not see them as
possessing any personality traits at all? Don't they grow on you or warm up
to your heart a bit? These were good characters KILLED POORLY (note the
poorly part, prestorjon; let them die, just let them die well-written). They
were nothing more than plot devices. Any character who exists only as a "plot
device" is a very, VERY poorly written character for me.
> I write stories (just for my own enjoyment) and I love my characters, but
> I'm not under any kind of delusion that they deserve anything from me or the
> world other than to be used in a good story. If that involves one of them
> getting the crap kicked out of them then so be it. If that involves someone
> getting killed then hey, I'm all for it. Its not heartless for a writer to
do
> bad things to a character in the name of the plot. Its simply storytelling.
But they're still characters. My point is that these figures in this story
have no character because Robinson spends the whole issue trying to generate
sympathy for them, not giving us true character moments. (Again, here we
disagree, and I'm fine with that if you are.) I think there's a difference
between character traits and plot devices. Robinson's JLE was short on the
former and big on the latter.
>>1) The Blue Devil/Firestorm scene, pages 8-9
>> Exhibit A of Robinson using the dialogue to cheaply attempt to
>>generate sympathy for the characters.
>
>I don't think its trying to generate sympathy. I think its trying to
establish
> the characters and give them some interaction so the issue isn't "Mist
visits
> the JLE shooting gallery"
Well, the issue could have been "Mist visits JLE and they fight before Mist
kills them with a bomb." I think they're made to be pathetic by not fighting.
For me, the dialogue failed to establish much character because since Robinson
knows he's going to kill these characters, and the READER knows he's going to
kill these characters, offering character interaction is either a) a
space-killer or b) a sympathy-generator. I think here we must agree to
disagree also.
>>He even throws in a reference to the
>>exact sort of tactics he'll be using in killing these characters: "Nowadays
>>you fly off for a moment, you come back and two or three of your buddies are
>>dead in that time."
>
>Thats a great little bit of foreshadowing. Very similar to Nashs comment to
> her son "You're gonna grow up to be just like your uncle and grandaddy"
I thought it was a cheapshot. We agree to disagree.
>>Thanks to hacks like you, they're dead.
>
>Hmmm refering to one of the more talented writers in the business today as a
> "hack" really doesn't say anything about him, but does indicate you don't
> really know what you're talking about.
When was the "James Robinson is one of the most talented writers in the
business" vote taken? And when was it decided that posters to this newsgroup
must agree with all general opinions without question?
>>Doing so makes me feel dirty. It's nearly a racist tactic as well
>>as poor writing.
>
>What the hell are you talking about. How is a man commenting on his race a
> "racist tactic".
It's giving an African-American character hopes for his future in a country
far less focused on race than America, then killing that character before he
can achieve those hopes. Robinson's the one who lets him comment on his race.
Nice character moment or nearly-racist baiting? You decide.
>>This I can understand. I tried to offer as many examples as I could.
>
>Hmmmm not in your original review you didn't. You pointed to specific
elements
> of the issue and said "thats shitty" but you didn't give any reason why.
Now
> you're starting to but your reasons are so laughably ridiciulous I almost
wish
> you hadn't
1) That last line is a cheap shot I left in because it was too hard to
extricate from your text. Why must you maintain this tone with others? We're
just talking here. No one here is trying to claim their opinions are the
final word on affairs. We're all just debating. There's no need to insult
opinions that differ from yours.
2) In my original review, I used the words "hell" (1 time) and "damn" (twice),
but never "shitty." I resorted to swearing after your initial post introduced
dirty words into the picture. I've tried to control my anger in reading your
insults, and to elevate the argument a bit since the initial two posts.
3) Since you may not have the review in front of you, let me quote a paragraph
here real quick:
"This is an issue that will live in infamy for quite some time, not just for
the deaths of three great characters but for the piss-poor writing offered by
Robinson. Even if you had no idea that Robinson was going on a murder spree
in the DCU before you read this issue, by page four it would be all too easy
to predict the final outcome of the story. After Robinson tips his hand too
early, he forces the reader to sit through page after page of weak character
interactions between heroes that both he and the reader know will DIE before
the end of this comic book. Instead of bringing the reader closer to these
characters before they bite the bullet, Robinson somehow succeeds in spending
the entire issue CHEAPENING their deaths through his awkward dialogue and
plotting. The story is full of crass ploys to generate interest and sympathy,
each one failing so miserably that they would be laughable if they weren't so
clearly cruel and mean-spirited."
Here's my take on it: Robinson's writing is bad because a) Robinson gives away
the death early on, then b) indulges in weak character interactions. These
character interactions are weak because both he and the reader know the
characters will die, transforming the character moments into "crass ploys to
generate interest and sympathy." Did I quote the issue specifically? Often I
do in my reviews, but this time I didn't. We're not talking about a
dissertation here; it's a 500-word comic book review. I think based on
the limits of the usenet comics review format, I both stated my points and
supported them well. If I had no classes, no interest in anything other than
comics, and no friends or life, I would probably write 4000-5000 word reviews
of each comic and give complete textual evidence for each of my claims.
>>I know what flashbacks and foreshadowing are. In my opinion, their use in
>>this issue is worthless.
>
>Well thats another matter, but claimign that it isn;t a legitimate literary
> tool is just plain silly.
I never claimed it wasn't a "legitimate literary tool"; I claimed that they
were a poorly-used device in this particular story. I'm a huge foreshadowing
fan. But it didn't work for me here.
> But point of fact is that you're wrong. Its defintiely not worthless. It
> sets up a framing device for the story. Shows us that its all told (perhaps
> subjectively) by the Mist. That she's in Greece with her baby. That she
> plans for her baby to become a big time villain. That She's planning to
hold
> Opal City hostage. That she's a doting mother, and that she's a total
nutjob
> cause she's telling her kid bed-time stories about people getting killed.
All
> in all those four pages of prologue and epilogue are pretty meaningful and
> worthwile.
You know what? I LIKED the framing device. But there's a difference between
a framing device and "foreshadowing." And it sets up the flashback, which
didn't really have much effect either way on my appreciation for the story.
>>To me, it's mean-spirited when Robinson
>>knows what's going to happen in the issue and makes sure the reader knows
>>too.
>
>How is that mean spirited. Would it be any better if people thought it was
> just another everyday issue and then had the deaths sprung on them by
> surprise?
Maybe. Or if these characters had died fighting instead of chatting. Or if
the story had been spread over two issues, one for character interactions and
one for a fight to the death. I know, I know; you're probably going to say
that I'm just trying to make Robinson's story conform to some different and
traditional idea of comics storytelling, and that I just need to realize that
Robinson is trying to do something different. Well, if this is just
"different," then different doesn't always equal "good." Making the JLE look
pathetic so that he can give his villain an ego boost is mean-spirited to me,
not different.
>If you can find a writer who can write several different styles of dialogue
> convincingly I'd like to meet him. In all my years of reading I can't think
> of any off the top of my head who pulled it off without resorting to
dialects
> or accents.
To name a few: Alan Moore, Kurt Busiek, Doug Moench, Alan Grant, John
Ostrander, etc. In other words, most good writers, and even Robinson most of
the time.
>>I'm talking about how dialogue is an
>>expression of what a character thinks and feels. To me, all of these
>>characters thought and felt the same
>
>Well then you have to read a bit more carefully. Fox is flirting with AM.
AM
> is all for it but not quite flirting with her. he's also real excited about
> the JLE and being in Paris. Firestorm is hopeful but a bit melancholy about
> the past. Blue Devil is a little wary about whats goign to happen. THose
> aren't one voice speaking. Those are four seperate voices.
I misspoke here; sorry. You're right; they didn't think and feel the same
way. They spoke the same way. They thought and felt different things, but
their voices (word choice, sentence structure, etc.) were the same. There may
have been different characters lurking behind the voices, but the voices were
all Robinson's.
>>What I am most upset about in dealing with this thread is the utter
>>disrespect
>>with which my writing and opinions have been treated by you.
>
>I'm sorry if I offended you but I think when people set themselves up as an
> arbiter of whats good and what not (which is what you do when you write
> reviews) then they should either have a pretty good understanding of the
> medium they're talking about or be willing to accept some harsh criticism.
First off, I know I have a good understanding of this medium. And I think you
do too. You've rested your entire argument upon an assumption that I DON'T
KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. It's in your tone, and you come right out and
say it on several occassions.
Second, I disagree with this deal about me being "an arbiter of what's
good and what's not." My primary focus in writing reviews is to generate
RESPECTFUL discussion of the comic in question. I like participating in these
discussions, and I like for others to participate as well. If you (not YOU,
prestorjon; the general "you") respect my opinions, then perhaps you might
consider me some kind of "arbiter" for your reading tastes. But if you don't
think I know what I'm talking about, which is fine, then I'm no arbiter; I'm
just some kid who writes reviews. Ignore me or debate me. Just stop treating
me like I'm stupid because my idea of good comics disagrees with yours. I
appreciate harsh criticism, just not criticism delivered harshly (as in, "you
have a piss-poor understanding of comics" or "you wouldn't know a good comic
from a hole in the wall").
>>The situation didn't have to
>>begin in the first place.
>
>Why woudl you post a review if you didn't want responses?
I wanted intelligent (which yours have been) and (for lack of a better word)
NICE responses. There's no reason to insult my opinions or theories or
support just because you disagree with it.
>> I get angry when people tell me I'm stupid,
>
>I don't think I called you stupid, I'm sorry if I did.
I think you did, and apology accepted.
>>have "piss-poor
>>understanding" or that I wouldn't know a good comic from a hole in the wall.
>>
>
>Actually you're the one who said all of these things. I qualified all these
> statements saying that they might be true under certian circumstances. I
> didn't say that these were definitely true. You confirmed that, both
directly
> and indirectly with your subsequent posts.
So because my opinions were shown to not be valid or well-supported BY YOU,
then I have a "piss-poor understanding" of comics? That's bull.
>>But what it boils down to
>>is that you've regarded my writing from the beginning as though it were shit
>>because it disagrees with your opinions
>
>No, I've regarded your review as off base because it disagrees with fact when
> it sets itself up as based on fact. If you had just said "I didn't like
this
> issue" I would have been fine with that. I might have mentioned that I
> thought it was a good issue but I wouldn't have been anywhere near as harsh
> because in the end what you like is up to you. There's well written books
out
> there I don't care for (Sandman) and poorly written books I do care for.
> Thats a judgement call, but when you go talking about the quality of a book
as
> if your beleifs are FACT them I'm gonna jump on you hard with both feet if
> your view of whats fact differs from what IS fact.
I"m not sure how I set up my beliefs as "fact." It's assumed by everyone else
here that a review or comment on an issue ends up with opinion, and that many
points can be debated but that there's a bottom line of subjectivity that
everything comes back to. NEVER do I consider my opinions to be anything but
OPINIONS, often based on an argument. I am passionate about many of my
opinions, so I will argue them as vigorously as I can. But take my argument
back as far as you want; at the end of the day, it's all still opinion. It's
infuriating to me that you're trying to claim that I'm representing my
opinions as fact. Absolutely not.
> The fact is that Starman #38 was a decent issue. It wasn't great. It
wasn't
> a classic. it wasn't the best of the line. But it wasn't bad either.
Actually, that's OPINION, prestorjon. I respect it and can understand how you
would see it that way, but I absolutely disagree. That's the bottom line
here. All I ask is that in the future you regard my opinions with some
respect. Not automatic agreement, but RESPECT. Hell, we all care a lot about
comics here, and we all work hard on our posts and reviews. It becomes a
waste of time when those opinions are treated as garbage because they disagree
with what you believe.
Now, can't we all just get along?! :)
Elayne Wechsler-Chaput
Prestorjon (prest...@aol.com) wrote:
: <<Jon, they're opinions, not facts; they don't carry a "right or wrong" to
: them. I think killing heroic characters is usually a copout, when a
: writer can't think of anything else to do. That's my opinion. It cannot
: be proven factually wrong.
: >>
: Well if you feel that its wrong then thats your perogative but basically yes,
: factually you are wrong. I'll accept that many deaths that HAVE BEEN
: PORTRAYED have been cop-outs (I don't agree. I think its actually a cop-out
: to say that its a cop-out) but not that in literature most deaths are
: cop-outs. Sorry I will fight you to the death on this one (no pun intended).
It's not worth it. You and I aren't going to agree on this. And I
bristle at being told an opinion is factually wrong. I'm outta this
discussion.
- Elayne
--
"Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both
unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort.
If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat
something sweet and the feeling will pass." - Fran Lebowitz
Peter Meilinger
One more thing that occurred to me. Don't you think the JLA (you know,
the real ones) and pretty much every other hero in the world will be
looking for the Mist now? Granted they might not know who did it, but
they'll find out. Any bets as to whether Robinson ignores this?
Pete
Abhay Khosla
On 6 Nov 1997, Prestorjon wrote:
> >Death in comics is not in and of itself a
> >bad thing. Properly handled, it can be a powerful reminder of the mortality
> >of these larger-than-life figures we call "superheroes."
> Bullshit. People weren't upset about this issue becuase they felt it wasn't
> going to be handled well. They were upset about it because super-heroes are
> going to bite the bullet. Lets face it the vast majority of comic book
And bullshit, back at'cha. The underlying reason people were upset that
super-heroes were going to bite the bullet is because DC writers and
editors have shown themselves to be entirely incapable and downright
STUPID in several score cases to do this with any amount of drama or
dignity. It ALWAYS sucks. Its always a gimmick. And its never in
service of a good story. They do it to inject drama the pussy writers
couldn't inject on their own, not because they want to create anything
truly horrifying or fascinating or imaginative or interesting...
Excuse us for having been burned before.
> readers are whiney babies when it comes to a character actually getting a
> lasting change, and death is the most lasting change of all. People hate it
> when a character dies, not ebcasue the story isn't well handled, but because
> they want to see more of that character. How else can you explain that theres
> about only a dozen characters in the history of super-hero comics who have
> died and STAYED DEAD.
And yes, you're right. There is certainly that element to the population.
Certainly. How often the story is handled well, though, is not a question
you can avoid though...
As for why characters don't stay dead, how often is it our fault? If I
had to guess, I'd guess its a crutch, though. Why tell a story when you
can tweak continuity? "This issue so-and-so comes back! Oooh." Its a
cliche now. Or is the statistics that its our fault? Thats a question
for an editor I guess, but I can see that both ways...
> > This is an issue that will live in infamy for quite some time, not
> >just for the deaths of three great characters but for the piss-poor writing
> >offered by Robinson. Even if you had no idea that Robinson was going on a
> >murder spree in the DCU
> Three crappy heroes who end up taking the long dirt nap doesn't exactly
> qualify as a "murder spree"
I dug Crimson Fox. I thought she was cool. Someone else just said they
like Amazing Man. I don't think Blue Devil is officially dead yet.
Excusing a poorly written issue, be it this or Underworld Unleashed or any
old piece of shit, for using "crappy" heroes is a cop-out. Its not that
its crappy heroes dying. It could be someone I really dug dying ... if it
MATTERED. And it doesn't here.
> By page 1 it should be all too easy since Mist says flat out that she killed
> some heroes, and the cover has a picture of the JLA. Curse that James
> Robinson for telling a story that wasn't strictly linear.
> Get over it bunk, its a common literary tool.
Which is over-used by nineteenth-rate writers. Look at movies. Pulp
Fiction works, Bound kinda works, and then you turn around and every movie
is opening with a reverse flashback out the other end or something. But
they don't have the material to hold up the structures and they all
collapse.
Good writing is a much more effective literary tool. (I just saw IN the
Company of Men last night, by the way... felt like someone had puked down
my esophagus after that movie... fantastic flick...)
> Hmmmm I don't know how the characterization can be weak considering that
> there's a lot more of it in this one issue than there was in the whole first
> year of Grant Morrisons JLA.
A big pile of shit is still just feces in the end.
Which is appropriate because in many ways Grant Morrison's JLA isn't about
sitting down and getting to the heart of the characters. Its about the
characters showing their personalities mid-way through blowing up the
world. Its a whole different kind of structure.
> And yeah we know they'll die in the end, so what! The journeys often more
> important than the destination. Why read the book at all if you just care
> WHAT happens. Why not just read a plot synopsis, plenty of people can provide
> them to you.
So what? So everything done prior to it is gross manipulation, meant to
inspire pathos that the writing doesn't provide. Oh look, they would have
had a romance, but... nope, they're dead. Writing like this doesn't come
from the heart or the mind or the guts or the soul... this comic is shit.
It comes from the ass.
> I don't think theres's any attempts to gain sympathy. The talk between the
> heroes is colleagues talking amongst themselves, not some conived reason to
> gain sympathy.
Read a whole different book than I did....
> Actually they're entirely well motivated. The Mist is a psychotic bitch who is
> goign to use the JLEs deaths as "calling card" in the super-hero community to
> show how much of a bad-ass she is. Its also practice for when she gets
> together with Jack again.
So you're saying Jack is anything vaguely like Crimson Fox or Amazing Man
or BLUE DEVIL. I agree though. They are well-motivated. She's killing
them because she's EVIL. Sure enough. Its a half-witted evil not fit for
Die-Hard rip-offs, not the kind of evil that makes your skin crawl, not by
half. But okay. But she's killing them in stupid fashion and its
entirely undramatic. She's not convincing me of her evilness at all,
except by the torture of her shitty dialogue.
-Abhay
akh...@umich.edu
Dwight Williams
He'd better not. And Chuck Kim and Archie Goodwin had better not *let*
him. *If* it turns out that this isn't Nash's delusion and that it really
happened...
--
Dwight Williams(ad...@freenet.carleton.ca) -- Orleans, Ontario, Canada
Karl Hiller
Peter Meilinger <mell...@io.com> wrote:
> One more thing that occurred to me. Don't you think the JLA (you know,
> the real ones) and pretty much every other hero in the world will be
> looking for the Mist now? Granted they might not know who did it, but
> they'll find out. Any bets as to whether Robinson ignores this?
Who's going to connect this incident with Nash? For someone who claims to
be out to make a name for herself, she didn't do a lot to reveal her
identity to anyone.
On the other hand, given that these were fairly well-connectred heroes
(members of the Justice League, after all), there should be *some*
reaction from the other heroes. And given the number of characters with
exceptional detective skills, magical powers, telepathy, and god knows
what else, it shouldn't take them long. Nash ought to be toast.
Unless Robinson extends her near-godlike ability to anticipate every
possible contingency: "Ha, Batman, you stepped into that bear trap I set
up earlier! Just as soon as I've finished gloating, I'm going to pull out
a big stick and beat you to death while you lie there writing in pain!
Oh, and don't bother calling your JLA friends for help -- I've coated this
building with anti-telepathy paint, distracted Superman with an emergency
in Metropolis, planted Nintendos in the lobby to distract Green Lantern,
coerced John Byrne into killing Wonder Woman, slipped sleeping pills into
Green Arrow's orange juice, caused a drought to keep Aquaman away,
poisoned the Speed Force with rohypnol, and painted myself yellow
just in case Hal Jordan comes back. Bwah ha ha!"
It could happen.
Karl
[@] Systems Librarian, ne'er-do-well, axolotl fancier, INTP ^
[@] Playing: Ancient Domains of Mystery / @ \
[@] Reading: _Calde of the Long Sun_ by Gene Wolfe /-----\
"I won't have a renegade necrophiliac princess as *my* roommate!!!"
matthew, j, springer
>
>>One more thing that occurred to me. Don't you think the JLA (you know,
>>the real ones) and pretty much every other hero in the world will be
>>looking for the Mist now? Granted they might not know who did it, but
>>they'll find out. Any bets as to whether Robinson ignores this?
>
>
> They probably would, but given whose book this is, I'll
>wager Starman finds her and the others play only a minimal role.
I don't predict this will happen, though it would be a cool way to salvage the
debris of this story. Actually, I'm surprised that's not played on more
often; superheroes should be like cops in that when one of their own goes
down, they drop everything to bring the killer to justice. I'd really love to
see this result in a huge superhuman manhunt for the Mist, with Jack Knight
reluctantly at the head. But I seriously doubt that's gonna happen; at least
the next three issues are preoccupied with other stories.
Jeffrey Raglin
On Fri, 7 Nov 1997, matthew, j, springer wrote:
> In article <espinoza....@cgl.ucsf.edu>,
> espi...@cgl.ucsf.edu (Hernan Espinoza) wrote:
> >Peter Meilinger <mell...@io.com> writes:
> >
> >>One more thing that occurred to me. Don't you think the JLA (you know,
> >>the real ones) and pretty much every other hero in the world will be
> >>looking for the Mist now? Granted they might not know who did it, but
> >>they'll find out. Any bets as to whether Robinson ignores this?
> >
> > <shrug>
> >
> > They probably would, but given whose book this is, I'll
> >wager Starman finds her and the others play only a minimal role.
>
> I don't predict this will happen, though it would be a cool way to salvage the
> debris of this story. Actually, I'm surprised that's not played on more
> often; superheroes should be like cops in that when one of their own goes
> down, they drop everything to bring the killer to justice. I'd really love to
> see this result in a huge superhuman manhunt for the Mist, with Jack Knight
> reluctantly at the head. But I seriously doubt that's gonna happen; at least
> the next three issues are preoccupied with other stories.
Well, in all fairness, if we accept the story there's no way for the
superheroic community to know "whodunnit", at least not immediately.
I find it interesting that Robinson's gone out of his way to bring Batman
into the story a couple times so far. Maybe sometime four months or so
hence Batman will show up at the collectible shop and badger Starman into
leading a superpowered manhunt... (Ideally, Batman would acquire his
information by reconstituting Amazing Man and asking him what happened...)
Jeff Raglin, Clemson University Computer Science Dept.
ck
In article <6401vv$o3t$1...@owl.slip.net>, Karl Hiller <kjhi...@slip.net> wrote:
> Peter Meilinger <mell...@io.com> wrote:
> > One more thing that occurred to me. Don't you think the JLA (you know,
> > the real ones) and pretty much every other hero in the world will be
> > looking for the Mist now?
Nash ought to be toast.
>
> Unless Robinson extends her near-godlike ability to anticipate every
> possible contingency: "Ha, Batman, you stepped into that bear trap I set
> up earlier! Just as soon as I've finished gloating, I'm going to pull out
> a big stick and beat you to death while you lie there writing in pain!
> Oh, and don't bother calling your JLA friends for help -- I've coated this
> building with anti-telepathy paint, distracted Superman with an emergency
> in Metropolis, planted Nintendos in the lobby to distract Green Lantern,
> coerced John Byrne into killing Wonder Woman, slipped sleeping pills into
> Green Arrow's orange juice, caused a drought to keep Aquaman away,
> poisoned the Speed Force with rohypnol, and painted myself yellow
> just in case Hal Jordan comes back. Bwah ha ha!"
>
> It could happen.
>
> Karl
ladies and gentlemen,
the master is among us.
john
ShutUpRob
In article <63t0lq$e...@force.stwing.upenn.edu>,
sepi...@force.stwing.upenn.edu (Alan Sepinwall) writes:
>He told a lazy, clumsily-dialogued story that missed
>several important points about the heroes involved, including:
>
>1)Amazing Man rarely bothered touching available surfaces; he carried
>around a pouch with samples of several useful materials (rubber, steel,
>stone, etc.), so he would always be able to transform no matter what his
>setting. Robinson figured that since he has the same powers as Crusher
>Creel (Marvel's the Absorbing Man), he used them the same way. If James
>had done his research, the Mist's trap as written would not have worked.
>
>
Of course, Pat would say, "It doesn't matter if it gets in the
way of the writer telling his story."
Feh.
This is the same thing as a writer saying that Superman's
wife is Lana Lang in one story and Lois in the next.
-- Rob Jensen
=========================================
"Enlightenment can only be achieved through studious
contemplation of male pattern baldness."
-- from the 'Tao Te Kojak'
Peter Meilinger
> Y'see this is what I'm talking about. People don't care wether it was a well
> written sotry or not. They only care that certain characters got killed.
> Would it be any better if Dr Light died instead of Blue Devil?
No, because it wasn't a well-written story. I've got a post floating
around somewhere wherein I detail why I think it was a badly-written
story. You have yet to justify why you think it was a good story.
Pete
Jason Fliegel
In article <63rmso$boc...@res-hall.nwu.edu>,
matthew, j, springer <mjs...@lulu.acns.nwu.edu> wrote:
>
>here's an interesting question--how many of you out there are planning on
>dropping Starman as a result of this issue?
I dropped it after last issue ("Look at me! I'm the Red Bee, and I'm
being an asshole for no Goddam reason at all!"). From what I've read
here, I don't regret my decision at all, though I'll probably flip through
the book in the store just to see what all the hype is about.
--
Jason Fliegel
j-fl...@uchicago.edu
2L, University of Chicago Law School
Prestorjon
<<I would too, but I doubt that Robinson intended this.
Since it's a one-issue, self-contained story, it would be the perfect
format for an O'Henryesque twist ending, like a Twilight Zone episode. If
Nash is really delusional about what happened, why not reveal this at the
end of the story? Why leave the readers -- and other writers who might
want so refer to or use these characters -- in the dark about their fates?
It's the sort of dramatic point that has to be made within the story.
Anything else would just look like backpedalling or retconning.>>
My thoughts exactly. All Robinson had to do to indicate this was a delusion
was something as simple as putting a newspaper in the panel that says "JLE
foils jewel heist". Since there was NOTHING in here to indicate a
hallucination I have to assume it was real
Prestorjon
<<And bullshit, back at'cha. The underlying reason people were upset that
super-heroes were going to bite the bullet is because DC writers and
editors have shown themselves to be entirely incapable and downright
STUPID in several score cases to do this with any amount of drama or
dignity.>>
Like when? Other than Hal Jordan dying (and Jotots death which doesn't count
cause it came out at the same time as Starmna38) I can't think of any recent
cdeaths (poorly done or not)
<< It ALWAYS sucks.>>
No... sometimes its good. Like Barry Allens death.
<<Its always a gimmick.>>
No... sometimes its a plot developement.
<<And its never in
service of a good story. >>
Again I point to Barry in Crisis, or Supergirl in Crisis as just two examples.
<<They do it to inject drama the pussy writers
couldn't inject on their own, not because they want to create anything
truly horrifying or fascinating or imaginative or interesting... >>
I didn't realize you could read their minds.
<<And yes, you're right. There is certainly that element to the population.
Certainly.>>
I think its the majority of comics fans. I think its whats wrong with the
industry. Just like Alan Moore said about The Dark Knight Returns and why it
was so good. He observed that almost every story has a begining a middle and
an end. But comic books because of the nature of the industry don't have an
end. They have to be open ended to satisfy the fans so they can never truly
acheive epic or legendary quality. DKR provided and end, a capstone, to the
Batman story and thats why it was so good (story or art considerations aside),
because it added a legendary quality to the Batman story.
<<As for why characters don't stay dead, how often is it our fault?>>
I think its often the fault of fans. Sometimes writers just want to bring back
a dead hero, but sometimes they do it cause they know the fans want them back.
<<I dug Crimson Fox. I thought she was cool. Someone else just said they
like Amazing Man. I don't think Blue Devil is officially dead yet.>>
I don't think Blue Devils dead either. We already saw his skeleton speak.
Anyway I liked Fox for what she was in JLE but she was always the worst
character. People liked Amazing Man but he was never really a real character.
he was always just a gimmick to ressurect Amazing Man I.
<<Excusing a poorly written issue, be it this or Underworld Unleashed or any
old piece of shit, for using "crappy" heroes is a cop-out. >>
Oh I wasn't. I was jsut saying that three murders do not a "massacre" make.
Now the issue of Eclipso where all those heroes died counts as a massacre
<<Which is over-used by nineteenth-rate writers.>>
Sorry but linear storytelling is a LOT more over-used than non-linear. Anyway
what does it matter if its over-used? If it works it works. it shouldn't
matter wether it was used once before or a hundred times before.
<<Pulp
Fiction works, Bound kinda works, and then you turn around and every movie
is opening with a reverse flashback out the other end or something>>
Pulp Fiction, Bound, Usual Suspects, what else recently has been non-linear?
(Devils Advocate in a way but not really)
<<A big pile of shit is still just feces in the end.>>
Yeah but this ain't shit.
<<Which is appropriate because in many ways Grant Morrison's JLA isn't about
sitting down and getting to the heart of the characters>>
Which is why it'll never be any better than adequate (except for the art. the
one stand-out feature of JLA is that Howard Porters pencils get better with
every issue. He stank in Underworld Unleashed but now he's a pretty damn good
artist, especially when he draws GLs ring constructs)
<<Its about the
characters showing their personalities mid-way through blowing up the
world. Its a whole different kind of structure.>>
Actually so far its just been about them blowing up the world. The
characterization has been minimal.
<<Oh look, they would have
had a romance, but... nope, they're dead. Writing like this doesn't come
from the heart or the mind or the guts or the soul... this comic is shit.
It comes from the ass. >>
Thats good writing. It shows that these were real people. That they had
plans, had a life and then they got killed. Thats a nice touch and something
most writers wouldn't have thought of doing because they're not imaginative
enough.
<<Read a whole different book than I did....>>
I read Starman #38 what book did you read? : )
<<So you're saying Jack is anything vaguely like Crimson Fox or Amazing Man
or BLUE DEVIL. I agree though. >>
Yeah he's a super hero. And actually he is somewhat like Blue Devil. Both
have staffs etc.
<<But she's killing them in stupid fashion and its
entirely undramatic.>>
To you. To me it worked well. Also "stupid fashion" is way too vague. Do you
mean the actual method she used to kill them, or what?
Prestorjon
<<: The one thing that really annoyed me is how EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of the
: Mist's plan worked out perfectly.
Which is why I and others prefer to see this entire story as a delusional
fiction residing only in the Mist's mind. :) >>
I don't find this unbeleivable at all for a comic book. Its certainly about as
beleivable as the events of the first story arc in JLA.
Prestorjon
Peter Meilinger <mell...@io.com> says
<<One more thing that occurred to me. Don't you think the JLA (you know,
the real ones) and pretty much every other hero in the world will be
looking for the Mist now? Granted they might not know who did it, but
they'll find out. Any bets as to whether Robinson ignores this? >>
Yeah they should. But then again when did the JLA or anyone display much
concern over heroes they weren't very freindly with?
Prestorjon
mjs...@lulu.acns.nwu.edu (matthew, j, springer) says:
>I've deleted the portion about "The Shining" because I haven't seen it and
>the
>comparison is useless until I have (which I will; I know it's a classic).
Whoops. hope I didn't spoil it for you. Thats the only applicable example I
can think of other than a minor point in the book Aristoi by Walter Jon
Williams where they set up a character who it seems will have something going
on later and then kill him about halfway through the book.
> In a way, your argument proves my argument, which is that the dialogue
>and character interactions in Starman #38 are little more than a weak attempt
>
>on Robinson's part to generate quick sympathy for these characters with the
>reader before he kills them,
Maybe in a wya, but I think its mainly to establish them as real people and put
in a bunch of dialogue. I don't think the romance itself was meant to inspire
sympathy but I think the fact that these people had hopes and plans is
supposed to make their deaths a little more sad.
>Robinson DOES see the point of it: generating sympathy when these guys
>are offed
Or putting in a bit of dialogue. One of Robinsons strengths is that he isn't
afraid to put in good dialogue for the sake of good dialogue. Usually unless
it advances the plot somehow or illustrates something important about the
characters writers won't put in dialogue. Robinson is one of the few writers
in comics whose character actually chat. Y'know just talk do they can talk to
someone, like real people do. Its a nice touch and lets him put in some good
bits of dialogue which often end up developing a character in a more subtle
way than other comics would.
>I have serious problems with this part of your argument. Why are these
>characters simply "assassinated"?
Cause Mist is smart enough to know that in an open fight the only JLE member
she'd stand a chance against is Crimson Fox. Both BD and AM could take her
down in a slugfest so there's no reason for her to get into oen with them.
Also it shows the type of villain she is. She's not the kind of perosn who
beleives heroes should be given a fair shot. Shes a villain who beleives she
should use whatever she can to defeat heroes (I think Jack is an exception to
this. She obviously feels theres rule he and she have to play by)
>Granted, they don't have that much
>experience, but they do have a good amount.
Blue Devil and Firestorm are fairly experienced. Fox is somewhat but she's
also been out of practice for a while, and AM is a green rookie with what, a
couple of months of heroics under his belt?
> So why does Robinson never give them the chance to behave as
>anything but amateur morons?
Cause its murder not a battle, and they never have the chance (other than Fox
and I find it somewhat beleivable that she'd take a few moments to figure out
what was going on)
>You're right; as it's written, it is
>assaassination. But there's little reason to me why it should have been
There's plenty of reason why it should have been.
>Well heck, "Kingdom Come" is as close to a rip-off of Twilight as we'll see.
>
>It's pathetic the way DC did that.
I don't think so. I've got more respect for Mark Waid than that, and I think
there were some substantial differences betwen them (other than quality). But
there have been a lot of things which have crept into the DCU from Twilight
which makes you wonder if the proposal isn't circulating DC.
>
>But as I've noted above, why did they not behave as heroes?
They did. I don't understand why you feel they didn't. They hesitated for a
moment sure, but they'd just seem coleagues get killed, that'd give anyone
pause. Blue Devil and Amazing man both made attempts to fight and they died.
On another note is anyone surprised Icemaiden didn't inform the rest of the JLE
she was going on leave? (although perhaps she left a message and Nash
destroyed it)
>She's faster than the Crimson Fox (hard to believe)
No she's not. She used a mist to dull Foxs reflexes then she ambushes her.
> and smarter than
>both Amazing Man and Blue Devil.
Thats not much of a trick.
>Wanna see me try?
Go ahead. If you can find a group of five super-heroes I'd like to see it.
> I NEVER said that "writers should not have bad things happen to
>people."
Hmmm you said that its heartless to have characters die as a plot device. By
extension its heartless (or at least a little callous) to have anything bad
happen to a character. Or do you draw a line somewhere? Whats heartless to
do in the name of the plot: murder? Rape? Maiming? Insults? What?
> ALL ALONG, I've maintained that my primary focus is in how well
>a comic is written.
Then why are you bitching that Robinsons heartless for using the characters as
plot devices? If all that matters to you is good writing then you shouldn't
care wether they were just plot devices or not. If they're deaths are well
written plot devices then you should like it, if its a poorly written atempt
at drama you shouldn't. The fact is that their deaths were a well written
plot device, so I don't understand why Robinson should be heartless for using
them that way.
>This is a poorly written comic book in my opinion, and
>one of the biggest reasons is that the deaths portrayed within never become
>more than plot devices for me.
So you do care about more than if its well written?
>To me, that's heartless and cold.
>
But its well written so what does it matter?
>I'm a bit surprised that you can justify your statement that a
>character's entire life is plot devices to you.
Of course I can. What else is it? Their entire "life" exists to tell a
story. Thats a fact.
>Do you not see them as
>possessing any personality traits at all?
Of course. But that has nothign to do with wether or not their lives exist to
tell a story.
>Don't they grow on you or warm up
>to your heart a bit?
Of course. I said as much in my original post. Don't you read these things?
But they aren't real people. They exist for no other reason than as a vehicle
through which to tell a story. I don't know about you but I save my moral
outrage for stuff that happens to real people, not to what happens to
fictional characters. If its a good story and something I find interesting
I'll accept most any plot developements.
>These were good characters KILLED POORLY
But these were good characters killed WELL. Thats your problem. Your whole
argument is circular. I ask why you think its a poorly written story and you
basically say "because it was poorly written"
You claimed that their being plot devices contributed to it being a crappy
book. But then when I ask why that should be the case you say "because it was
a crappy book" it doesn't work that way Matt. If its heartless for Robinson
to use them as just plot devices, or that his using them in that way
contributes to the book being poorly written you have to give readons why
other than "the book was poorly written"
>They were nothing more than plot devices. Any character who >exists only as
aplot device" is a very, VERY poorly written >character for me.
Then, basically, what you're saying is that every character literature is
poorly written? Becuase, at their heart, every character ever written just
exists to tell a story.
>But they're still characters. My point is that these figures in this >story
have no character
Yes they do. Robinson establishes their character as well as most crossover
writers do.
>because Robinson spends the whole issue trying to generate
>sympathy for them,
No. He spends the entire issue trying to kill them off.
> not giving us true character moments.
Hmmm Crimson Fox expresses her interest in Amazing Man. amazing man expresses
his hopefulness at being in France and part of the team. Blue Devil expresses
his regret at how his life went. Firestorm expresses his nostalgia for times
gone by and his dismay over how things have changed. I'd call all of those
character moments (and thats not counting the dialogue shared at their HQ
where they talked about their feelings on being shut out of the JLA)
>Well, the issue could have been "Mist visits JLE and they fight before Mist
>kills them with a bomb."
Yeah and it would have been a peice of junk rather than the fairly decent story
it turned out to be.
>I think they're made to be pathetic by not fighting.
I don't think its a reflection on them at all. They were murdered. Do we
blame murder victims for not fighting back?
>For me, the dialogue failed to establish much character because since
>Robinson
>knows he's going to kill these characters
I don't see how wether the characters are going to die or not has anything to
do with wether he can succesfully establish thenm or not.
>a) a
>space-killer or b) a sympathy-generator.
or c) a way to establish the characters. You're really hung up on this
sympathy thing aren't you?
>I thought it was a cheapshot. We agree to disagree.
Well you can think that but you'd be wrong.
>And when was it decided that posters to this newsgroup
>must agree with all general opinions without question?
It wasn't but Robinson certainly is one of the more talented writers in the
business (or if he's not he's certianly very lucky in that every series he's
put out out in the last few years has been pretty good, except maybe his work
at Marvel which I never read), so calling him a "hack" really just shows you
don't know what you're talking about.
>It's giving an African-American character hopes for his future in a country
>far less focused on race than America, then killing that character before he
>can achieve those hopes.
How is that racist? Is it classist to have a guy travel to someplace to make
it rich and then kill him off before he can? Ansolutely not. This isn't
racist. Let me give you a clue here guy. Not everyhting that involves race
is a racial issue.
>Robinson's the one who lets him comment on his race.
>Nice character moment or nearly-racist baiting? You decide.
Yeah I will decide, and the decision is you're nuts. There's nothing even
vaguely racist in here.
>2) In my original review, I used the words "hell" (1 time) and "damn"
>(twice),
>but never "shitty."
Excuse me I thought you had. I must have gotten it mixed up with another
reviewer. But the effects still the same. Wether you swear or not you just
basically said "okay look at Blue Devils dialogue that was bad" that doesn't
really SAY anything. Its certainly not giving any reason for why the book was
poorly written. its just giving examples of elements you THOUGHT were poorly
written
" weak character interactions"
"awkward dialogue"
"crass ploys"
"cruel and mean-spirited."
Again you weren't telling why it was badly written. you were applying
adjectives to particular plot points.
>
>Here's my take on it: Robinson's writing is bad because a) Robinson gives
>away
>the death early on, then
You still haven't explained why this is bad thing.
>b) indulges in weak character interactions.
Well you're just wrong here. The character interactions are fairly strong
given the space constraints. Certainly much stronger than most action
adventure comics that involve geust stars.
>These
>character interactions are weak because both he and the reader know the
>characters will die,
Why does that make them weak? I'm sorry I still don't understand this.
>Did I quote the issue specifically?
I didn't ask you to. But you should offer REASONS why you think a book is well
or poorly written, not just EXAMPLES of story elements you felt were poorly
done.
>I never claimed it wasn't a "legitimate literary tool";
Actually basically you did. You said that Robinson undermines the book by
telling us that the characters will die. This implies that any kind of
foreknowledge of how a plot will turn out is a bad thing.
>You know what? I LIKED the framing device.
Then why are you saying its worthless?
>Maybe.
No. I might actually say that that was mean-spirited. Here virtually everyone
knew what they were getting when the bought it, and if they didn't they knew
in the first few pages. If it had been a surprise it would have been purely
for shock value and people would have been upset because they thought it was
going to be an issue where Mist fights the JLA and it turned into an issue
wehre Mist murders the JLA.
> Or if these characters had died fighting instead of chatting.
You still don't get it. THIS WASN'T A FIGHT. IT WAS A MURDER. It doesn't
make sense for Nash to fight the JLE they could kick her butt in an open
fight. It also isn't Robinsons strong suit (his one biggest weakness is an
inability to write good slugfest)
>Or if
>the story had been spread over two issues,
Then you would have had two issue in a row featuring characters totally
unconnected to the book.
>Well, if this is just
>"different," then different doesn't always equal "good."
Of course it doesn't. But in this case it does.
>Making the JLE look
>pathetic so that he can give his villain an ego boost is mean-spirited to me,
>
I don't think they looked pathetic. They lost. There's nothing pathetic in
that. They were murdered, theres nothing shameful in that (on the part of the
victim anyway). I think Blue Devil was actually heroic in that he used his
last breath to warm Firestorm
>To name a few: Alan Moore, Kurt Busiek, Doug Moench, Alan Grant, John
>Ostrander, etc.
You're right about Moore (although the only real examples I can think of are
Rorschach in Watchmen, and V in V for Vendetta) but not the others to my
knowledge.
>In other words, most good writers, and even Robinson most of
>the time.
Sorry but you're wrong. Most good writers write in a particular style and that
also goes for how their characters talk. Usually characters will talk pretty
much the same in tersm of how they speak.
>I misspoke here; sorry. You're right; they didn't think and feel the same
>way. They spoke the same way.
Make up your mind guy. Now you're just squirming around. First I say that
you're thinking about how characters actually speak, and you say "no I'm
talking about what they say" then you change your mind back and say "No I'm
talking about how they speak" Which is it guy? Is it how they speak or what
they say?
>First off, I know I have a good understanding of this medium.
Well you didn't really demonstrate it in this case. Sorry.
>You've rested your entire argument upon an assumption that I DON'T
>KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.
No. I've rested my entire argument on the fact that the book is well written
and I can give reasons why. You've rested your entire argument on the fact
that you THINK the book is poorly written.
>It's in your tone, and you come right out and
>say it on several occassions.
I don't think you know what you're talking about for two reasons
1) This is a well written book and you think its poorly written.
2)You;ve demonstrated in your posts a lack of understanding of whats going on
in the book, how stories are structured in general, and how the comic book
medium works in particular.
> Second, I disagree with this deal about me being "an arbiter of what's
>good and what's not." My primary focus in writing reviews is to generate
>RESPECTFUL discussion of the comic in question.
Then why don't you make a post which contains points of departure for
discussion of the comic? Why do you format your post as an organized review
(defined by Websters as "A magazine containing articels of criticism and
appraisal often in a specific feild)? If your purpose is solely to inspire
discussion then why not post a list of "Things to think about"? Why offer up
your evaluation of the quality of the book? The only discussion that will
inspire is argument from people who feel you're wrong, and pointless agreement
from people who think you're right.
>But if you don't
>think I know what I'm talking about, which is fine, then I'm no arbiter;
Yes you are. You set yourself up as someone who reads books and then says
"this one was good. That one wasn't" that means your there indicating which
books are good and which aren't. That makes you an "arbiter" (at least how I
used the word)
>Ignore me or debate me.
I am debating you. The fact that I don't have a whole lot of respect for when
you say silly things doesn't mean I'm not debating you (just indicates the
STYLE in which I'm debating you)
>Just stop treating
>me like I'm stupid because my idea of good comics disagrees with yours.
I didn't say that you were stupid. I did say that some of your ideas are silly
(and I think I said some of them are stupid) but thats different than calling
YOU stupid. Also you said that this book WAS poorly written. You didn't say
yuo didn't like it, you said it was poorly written. Theres a big difference
between the two.
>I wanted intelligent (which yours have been) and (for lack of a better word)
>NICE responses.
Sorry. Your review was rather adamant and energetic in its criticism of this
issue so I felt you needed an energetic response.
>So because my opinions were shown to not be valid or well-supported BY YOU,
>then I have a "piss-poor understanding" of comics? That's bull.
I don't think your opinions have been shown to be valid or well supported. I
think you have shown what you beleive is support for your opinions but I don't
think they really offer any support to your assertation that the book is
poorly written.
>I"m not sure how I set up my beliefs as "fact."
By displaying them in a review format and by saying that the book IS POORLY
WRITTEN (as opposed to "I didn't enjoy the book")
> It's assumed by everyone else
>here that a review or comment on an issue ends up with opinion
Then why structure it in a review format with a ratings system? Why say that a
book is "poorly written" when really you mean that you don't like it? And why
try to defend wether or not you like the book as if that were a reflection on
wether the book is poorly written or not? In the end if its just your
opinion that you don't like the book then what does it matter wether I like it
or not? But if its your opinion that the book is poorly written then thats a
different thing, thats something that can be debated and explored. Wether you
like a book or not can't be debnated because basically you have the final word
on it and no one else can jump inside your head and examine what you find
interesting and what you don't. But we can all read the issue and try to
figure out wether a book was well written or not.
>NEVER do I consider my opinions to be anything but
>OPINIONS,
Yes but its an opinion on wether the book is well written or not. So you
better be sure that your opinion is right.
>But take my argument
>back as far as you want; at the end of the day, it's all still opinion.
But its an opinion about a fact. If I said "The moon is made of blue cheese"
then that'd be my opinion but I'd be wrong. But if I said "I think the moon
looks like blue cheese" I'd be right (assuming I did think the moon looked
like blue cheese). If you say "I didn't enjoy that issue because A, B, C"
then if you're right. You're the only factor in what you like or don't like.
But if you say "That issue was POORLY WRITTEN because A, B, C" then you might
be right and you might be wrong.
>It's
>infuriating to me that you're trying to claim that I'm representing my
>opinions as fact. Absolutely not.
Of course you are. If you're not then maybe you should correct your langueg so
its obvious you're only talking about what you enjoyed or didn't enjoy, and
not wether the book was well written or not.
>
>Actually, that's OPINION, prestorjon.
No.. Thats FACT Matt. Its also opinion, but unlike you my opinion corresponds
with fact. Yours doesn't and that why I'm arguing with you.
>It becomes a
>waste of time when those opinions are treated as garbage because they
>disagree
>with what you believe.
No I treat your opinions as grabage because they disagree with fact. I don't
care too much if you disagree with me. I don't like country music. Maybe you
do, but its no skin off my nose. I do, however, care about what is fact.
What is reality, and the fact is that Starmna #38 was a pretty decent issue.
Thats why i jumped on you, not because you disagreed with me, but because you
disagree with fact.
Notice my response to Elayne. She says she doesn't like to see death in
comics. I srespond by saying that I do like occaisional death in comics but
to each their own (I also asked her to respect my wish to see death in some
comics). But when she starts making claims about this and that (like Death is
a cop out, or that death is innapropriate to the genre) I really started
arguing with her.
I don't give a rats ass if someone likes this that or the other thing,
but I do care if they say that this that and the other thing are true.
dwa...@creighton.edu
As far as I'm concerned, Crimson Fox may have died but it sure
wasn't Constance D'Aramis. (We all know that Vivian was already dead.) If
we remember from the JLE days, Constance is the normal talking one. It
was Vivian who talked with that stupid phony french accent--and she's
already dead. Whoever was in that suit was not the real Crimson Fox...
Another thing is that I don't think Robinson is the sole person to
blame for this debacle. Someone in the higher ups ok'd this. Presumably
Fox, Amazing Man, Blue Devil, etc. still belong to the JLA editing crew so
I'm going to hold them (slightly less) responsible for okaying this as
well. I already dropped Starman, in addition, I won't be buying any of
the JLA books that come out next month as well...
Dwayne Chun
Peter Meilinger
Prestorjon <prest...@aol.com> wrote:
> Karl Hiller <kjhi...@slip.net> says
> <<And given the number of characters with
> exceptional detective skills, magical powers, telepathy, and god knows
> what else, it shouldn't take them long. Nash ought to be toast.>>
> Except that how will they find Nash? First you have the problem that all the
> evidence was blown up. People who investigate such things will tell you
> arsons are damn tough to investigate cause most of the evidence goes up in
> smoke. Same thing with a bomb. Secondly Nash can effectively pose as an
> ordinary person and apparently she doesn't have the compulsion to dress up in
> wild costumes and draw attention to herself like most super-villains do. I
> could see Nash just sitting tight on whatever Greek island she's on until the
> furor dies down.
This makes sense, to a point. It will indeed be hard if not impossible
for the heroes to figure out who's responsible. But do you really think
Nash isn't gonna brag about it to Jack? When word gets out who did it,
half the heroes in the world should be gunning for Nash. If I were to
kill 3 random citizens the cops would do their damndest to find me, but
I might manage to get away and the chase might die down. If i killed
3 cops, they'd NEVER stop looking.
One way I could see Robinson circumventing this problem is if Nash
either doesn't tell anyone (I think she would, but maybe not) or if
she just tells Jack and he decides he has to bring her in by himself
and doesn't tell anyone else. Maybe he's afraid the kid'll somehow
be hurt in the crossfire. If the world at large learns that Nash
killed the JLE she'd be a marked woman.
Pete
Peter Meilinger
Prestorjon <prest...@aol.com> wrote:
> >1)Amazing Man rarely bothered touching available surfaces; he carried
> >around a pouch with samples of several useful materials (rubber, steel,
> >stone, etc.), so he would always be able to transform no matter what his
> >setting. Robinson figured that since he has the same powers as Crusher
> >Creel (Marvel's the Absorbing Man), he used them the same way. If James
> >had done his research, the Mist's trap as written would not have worked.
> If he started doing this it was pretty late in the EJ run. But lets use logic.
> You're about to fight an enemy. Do you touch that solid wall right next to
> you, or do you waste time rummaging in your belt pouch to find the same
> element?
Well, if i were Amazing Man I'd have trained myself to always go for
the pouch because I could guarantee I'd find something useful there. If
you're ambushed it's a lot easier to grab something on your belt that
you know is right there than to look around and see if there's something
useful nearby then make your way to it. Besides which, iron or steel
are tougher than rock - if I believed the Mist was superstrong and had
just killed a friend I'd want the best stuff available. Not to mention
AM could fairly easily have the DC Universe's equivalent of Adamantium
at hand. The Absorbing Man stole a little piece in Quasar once. That
was the smartest thing he ever did, if you ask me.
But the real point here is that Robinson should've known that AM
used the pouch.
Pete
Donald MacPherson
Tom Galloway <t...@netcom.com> wrote in article
<tygEJB...@netcom.com>...
> In article <19971108060...@ladder01.news.aol.com>
prest...@aol.com (Prestorjon) writes:
> >blak...@best.com#nospam (Mikel Midnight) says:
> ><<"Sino-Batman" "Sino-Flash" "Sino-Green Lantern" "Sino-Superman">>
>
> Obscure characters who I believe showed up a whopping once, in a
storyline
> in the Batgirl strip in Batman Family where she was trying to find her
> older brother Tony. They were created by the Chinese government to be
> counterparts of the American big gun heroes.
They appeared in BATMAN FAMILY #19. How do I know? It was the first comic
I ever read.
Don MacPherson
Matches Malone
Prestorjon (prest...@aol.com) wrote:
> >In my fantasy literature, I detest people dying. Part of the appeal of
> >fantasy is for heroic figures to triumph, to grow and change without
> >succumbing
> Don't take this the worng way but maybe you're reading the wrong stuff, if you
> don;t want to see poeple die. I mean after all this is an ACTION medium.
> People should get hurt, occaisionally people should die. I don't find
> anything heroic about figures who AREN'T under any circumstances going to get
> hurt. I think detah itself can be heroic, can be a triumph. But more
> importantly it can be great drama.
Moreover, IMO it's important to keep in mind that the story isn't over
yet. Eventually Starman will defeat the Mist. The story will end with
good triumphing over evil, despite evil's early score. And that ultimate
triumph will mean more if the evil being combatted is particularly
heinous.
--
********************************************************
** "Why can't we have one meeting that doesn't end **
** with us digging up a corpse?" - Diamond Joe Quimby **
*************************** schm...@email.unc.edu *****
Prestorjon
<<I quite like the Shade, and I think depicting him as a "badass" is
logical, considering his past experience and powers, not to mention his
attitude toward those who threaten his city.>>
I like Shade too, but I think its clear that Robinson holds him in a bit too
high a regard. Also its one thing for the Shade to be a bad-ass around
ordinary folsk I buy that completely. But its another when heroes like DR
Fate say they might not be able to beat him.
Prestorjon
blak...@best.com#nospam (Mikel Midnight) says:
<<"Sino-Batman"
"Sino-Flash"
"Sino-Green Lantern"
"Sino-Superman">>
What?
Prestorjon
Karl Hiller <kjhi...@slip.net> says
<<And given the number of characters with
exceptional detective skills, magical powers, telepathy, and god knows
what else, it shouldn't take them long. Nash ought to be toast.>>
Except that how will they find Nash? First you have the problem that all the
evidence was blown up. People who investigate such things will tell you
arsons are damn tough to investigate cause most of the evidence goes up in
smoke. Same thing with a bomb. Secondly Nash can effectively pose as an
ordinary person and apparently she doesn't have the compulsion to dress up in
wild costumes and draw attention to herself like most super-villains do. I
could see Nash just sitting tight on whatever Greek island she's on until the
furor dies down.
Prestorjon
Peter Meilinger <mell...@io.com> says
>No, because it wasn't a well-written story. I've got a post floating
>around somewhere wherein I detail why I think it was a badly-written
>story. You have yet to justify why you think it was a good story.
>
>
Actually I have. In this very thread. GO back and find the posts but
basically it had good characterisation, relaistic dialogue, and good art.
That, in my mind at least, adds up to a good book.
Prestorjon
"Donald MacPherson" <don...@gov.nb.ca> says:
<<First of all, Prestorjon, I'm begging you... leave in attributions and fix
your line length.>>
heh sorry
<<Secondly, I must disagree. STARMAN #38 is character-driven. There's not
much to the plot (the Mist ambushes the new JLE), but there's so much in
the way of characterization.>>
I agree that there wasn't much plot and a lot of characterization but I still
think its plot driven cause the point is to watch the MIst kill people.
Although perhaps its character driven in the sense that its setting us up for
a change in the Mist.
Tom Galloway
><<"Sino-Batman" "Sino-Flash" "Sino-Green Lantern" "Sino-Superman">>
>What?
Obscure characters who I believe showed up a whopping once, in a storyline
in the Batgirl strip in Batman Family where she was trying to find her
older brother Tony. They were created by the Chinese government to be
counterparts of the American big gun heroes.
tyg t...@netcom.com
RedRavi7
>In article <espinoza....@cgl.ucsf.edu>,
> espi...@cgl.ucsf.edu (Hernan Espinoza) wrote:
>>Peter Meilinger <mell...@io.com> writes:
>>
>>>the real ones) and pretty much every other hero in the world will be
>>>looking for the Mist now? Granted they might not know who did it, but
>>>they'll find out. Any bets as to whether Robinson ignores this?
>>
>>
>> They probably would, but given whose book this is, I'll
>>wager Starman finds her and the others play only a minimal role.
>
>I don't predict this will happen, though it would be a cool way to salvage
>the
>debris of this story. Actually, I'm surprised that's not played on more
>often; superheroes should be like cops in that when one of their own goes
>down, they drop everything to bring the killer to justice. I'd really love
>to
>see this result in a huge superhuman manhunt for the Mist, with Jack Knight
>reluctantly at the head. But I seriously doubt that's gonna happen; at least
>
>the next three issues are preoccupied with other stories.
>
I thought Ostrander did what you suggest really well in a story from the
Suicide Squad. The Atom was MIA, so Superman, Aquaman, and Batman went
looking for him and kicked ass until they did.
Ravi
Tom Galloway
In article <6400n2$o...@freenet-news.carleton.ca> ad...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Dwight Williams) writes:
>Peter Meilinger (mell...@io.com) writes:
>> One more thing that occurred to me. Don't you think the JLA (you know,
>> the real ones) and pretty much every other hero in the world will be
>> looking for the Mist now? Granted they might not know who did it, but
>> they'll find out. Any bets as to whether Robinson ignores this?
>him. *If* it turns out that this isn't Nash's delusion and that it really
Ahem. I believe they'll have to stand in line behind those of us waiting
for the killer of 3 to 7 JSAers to be brought to justice (Extant in
Zero Hour. Definitely responsible for Atom, Hourman, and Dr. Mid-Nite,
arguably responsible for Kent and Inza Nelson and Carter and Shiera Hall,
and I'm including Inza and Shiera in as JSAers for simplicities sake).
<sarcasm> There's hope; it only took 20 years to see the story of Mr.
Terrific's killer being taken care of after all. </sarcasm>
tyg t...@netcom.com
Carl Fink
On 8 Nov 1997 16:37:33 GMT, Matches Malone <schm...@email.unc.edu> wrote:
> . . . And that ultimate
>triumph will mean more if the evil being combatted is particularly
>heinous.
There is a big difference between "heinous" evil and "implausibly
effective, flashy evil."
Raping someone (which Nash has done) is "heinous". Defeating people
with a ridiculous plan that nevertheless goes perfectly -- a plan that
requires the people to be idiots and to forget their own weapons and
tools exist -- is implausible. Seeking out very difficult to kill,
famous people just to show how evil you are (Nash's actual motive) is
flashy and implausible both.
--
Carl Fink ca...@dm.net
"With some technology, you get the feeling that the designers weren't fully
considering ease of use. With ISDN, you get the feeling that the designers
hate your friggin' guts." -Scott Adams
Prestorjon
ca...@panix.com (Carl Fink) says
<<Raping someone (which Nash has done) is "heinous". Defeating people
with a ridiculous plan that nevertheless goes perfectly -- a plan that
requires the people to be idiots and to forget their own weapons and
tools exist -- is implausible.>>>
It's no less implausible than the stuff that Batman villains do and a lot of
them are considered "heinous"
Prestorjon
Peter Meilinger <mell...@io.com> says
<<Well, if i were Amazing Man I'd have trained myself to always go for
the pouch because I could guarantee I'd find something useful there. If
you're ambushed it's a lot easier to grab something on your belt that
you know is right there than to look around and see if there's something
useful nearby then make your way to it.>>
No its not. its a lot easier to reach over and slap something that I know is
there, rather than go, rooting in tiny belt pouches for the particular item I
need.
Nachro2
On Sun, Nov 9, 1997 02:13 EST, Lots42 (lot...@aol.com) said:
> Nash raped someone?
> Who, when, where and most importantly HOW?
Sure. That'd be Jack, in #12, in the Mist's lair, and by knocking him out
first. Where did you think that baby of Jack and hers came from?
-Alex Tam
DC COMICS' STARMAN: A Compendium: http://users.aol.com/nachro2/starhome.htm
Lots42
Nash raped someone?
Who, when, where and most importantly HOW?
Lot...@aol.com
"It's a little childish and stupid, but then so is high school." -- Ferris
Bueller.
"Blah, blah, blah, yackety, shmackety." Taz's dad.
Prestorjon
t...@netcom.com (Tom Galloway) says
<<Obscure characters who I believe showed up a whopping once, in a storyline
in the Batgirl strip in Batman Family where she was trying to find her
older brother Tony. They were created by the Chinese government to be
counterparts of the American big gun heroes.>>
Did they have similar powers?
Prestorjon
Peter Meilinger <mell...@io.com> says
>But do you really think
>Nash isn't gonna brag about it to Jack?
Oh yeah she will but I was thinking of the time between now and when she
confronts Jack. I think she'll lie low (like she has for the past year). I
don't know what she's gonna do or what her situation will be after he rnext go
around with Jack, so I won't speculate.
Prestorjon
<<Nash raped someone?
Who, when, where and most importantly HOW?>>
In the Sins OF The Child storyline Nash had her goons drug Jack. Wehn he woke
up he was naked and she was in her underwear and the "dream" he had contained
some erotic scenes. Later it was confirmed that she had in fact had sex with
him. I'd call that rape, since in my book its no different than plying a
woman with alcohol or drugs till she passes out and then having sex with her.
Mikel Midnight
In article <19971109064...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
prest...@aol.com (Prestorjon) wrote:
> t...@netcom.com (Tom Galloway) says
>
> <<Obscure characters who I believe showed up a whopping once, in a storyline
> in the Batgirl strip in Batman Family where she was trying to find her
> older brother Tony. They were created by the Chinese government to be
> counterparts of the American big gun heroes.>>
>
> Did they have similar powers?
Sino-Superman had low-level super-strength.
Sino-Green Lantern had a wrist device which fires blasts of green energy.
Sino_flash had low-level super speed.
Sino-Batman had no powers that I could decipher, but it is hard to tell as
the characters were completely undefined. In fact, this is one of the most
appallingly racist stories I have seen since the Golden Age ... the nadir
of anti-Communist hysteria to me, especially given the era. The problem
with these characters is that after a period of time their power use caused
them to explode and die. None of the protagonists seemed to give a damn
... it just got them out of the way (until they were replaced by the next
agent to wear the costume).
I would love to do a story set in China, teaming the Sino-supermen with the
other Chinese heroes against some major threat ... and show a gallery of
dead heroes who have worn the suits. Of course, by the time of that story
they would hopefully have fixed that bug, but I'd doubtless kill off one of
them in action anyway just to show his inclusion in the gallery.
--
_______________________________________________________________________________
"She always had a terrific sense of humor" Mikel Midnight
(Valerie Solonas, as described by her mother)
blak...@best.com
__________________________________________________http://www.best.com/~blaklion
Peter Meilinger
> <<Well, if i were Amazing Man I'd have trained myself to always go for
> the pouch because I could guarantee I'd find something useful there. If
> you're ambushed it's a lot easier to grab something on your belt that
> you know is right there than to look around and see if there's something
> useful nearby then make your way to it.>>
> No its not. its a lot easier to reach over and slap something that I know is
> there, rather than go, rooting in tiny belt pouches for the particular item I
> need.
Did you actually read my post? I said it's easier to go for something
you know is there then to look around and see what's nearby. Are you
actually going to disagree with that? And do you really think AM would
just have a bunch of samples thrown haphazardly in his pouch? It'd be
remarkably easy to set up a pouch where you could quickly reach in and
find exactly what you were looking for.
And I notice you snipped the question at the bottom of my post. Let me
repeat it for you: DON'T YOU THINK ROBINSON SHOULD HAVE KNOWN ABOUT
THE POUCH IF HE WAS GOING TO WRITE THIS CHARACTER?
Pete
Peter Meilinger
> >She's faster than the Crimson Fox (hard to believe)
> No she's not. She used a mist to dull Foxs reflexes then she ambushes her.
This was very badly shown. I'll go so far as to say it wasn't shown at
all. What I got out of that scene was that the Mist's fog made the Fox
bleed to death and somehow she didn't notice. If that's not what was
intended, it's bad storytelling on the artists part at least and possibly
on the writers if he had anything to do with what we were shown.
> >These were good characters KILLED POORLY
> But these were good characters killed WELL. Thats your problem. Your whole
> argument is circular. I ask why you think its a poorly written story and you
> basically say "because it was poorly written"
Oh kettle, thou art black! YOU have yet to justify your assertion that
this story was well written. Any time someone says it was poorly written,
whether they give their reasons for believing that or not, you just say
"You're wrong. It was well written." Maybe you could put your money where
your mouth is?
> >I thought it was a cheapshot. We agree to disagree.
> Well you can think that but you'd be wrong.
No he's not. And neither are you. That's how opinions work.
Pete
Hernan Espinoza
RE: The Sino-Supermen from Batman Family #19
blak...@best.com#nospam (Mikel Midnight) writes:
>Sino-Superman had low-level super-strength.
>Sino-Green Lantern had a wrist device which fires blasts of green energy.
>Sino_flash had low-level super speed.
>Sino-Batman had no powers that I could decipher, but it is hard to tell as
>the characters were completely undefined. In fact, this is one of the most
>appallingly racist stories I have seen since the Golden Age ... the nadir
>of anti-Communist hysteria to me, especially given the era. The problem
>with these characters is that after a period of time their power use caused
>them to explode and die. None of the protagonists seemed to give a damn
>... it just got them out of the way (until they were replaced by the next
>agent to wear the costume).
Ye gods, I remember this story and those those "authentic"
costumes.. 8-) Yeesh.
>I would love to do a story set in China, teaming the Sino-supermen with the
>other Chinese heroes against some major threat ... and show a gallery of
>dead heroes who have worn the suits. Of course, by the time of that story
>they would hopefully have fixed that bug, but I'd doubtless kill off one of
>them in action anyway just to show his inclusion in the gallery.
That would be cool. One thing that I think would be interesting
would be to see what their proper Chinese codenames would be since
I'm assuming "Sino-Superman" could be explained as a poor translation...
Heck, does anyone know enough Chinese to take a stab at this or know
what translations or transliterations are used for Superman, Batman,
etc. in Chinese versions of DC Comics (presumably sold outside the PRC)
if such things exist?
Done properly (i.e. with a _ton_ of research), it could make
a hell of a story, IMHO...
-Hernan, of course, no one would buy it...sadly.
Prestorjon
<< Moreover, IMO it's important to keep in mind that the story isn't over
yet. Eventually Starman will defeat the Mist. The story will end with
triumph will mean more if the evil being combatted is particularly
heinous.>>
I don't think we know this for sure. We do know that Jacks story ends in the
early part of the year 2000 (James said so in an interview) but we don't know
what will be tjhe cause of this (we also don't know if Starman the series will
continue) It could be that Mist kills Jack (although I'd certainly rather see
Jack win) or cripples him so he can't continue as Starman (perhaps leading
Shade, or Danny Blaine to seek revenge). But, yeah, probably Jack will win in
the end.
Prestorjon
Peter Meilinger <mell...@io.com>
<<This was very badly shown. I'll go so far as to say it wasn't shown at
all.>>
You're part right. It was not shown that the mist could numb her. It was
shown, however, that the mist slowed her down. Page 14 panel 4 Mist:"You
thinkyou were fast? Oh you were. But not fast enough unportected against the
mist I'm generating in here. It slowed your reflexes."
>YOU have yet to justify your assertion that
>this story was well written.
Actually I have. I've provided plenty of reasons it was well written. You may
not agree with them but they're there.
>Any time someone says it was poorly written,
>whether they give their reasons for believing that or not, you just say
>"You're wrong. It was well written."
Only when they make vague accusations. If they make any kind of specific
comment I respond specifically.
JohannaLD
>>Are people really devastated by the loss of Crimson Fox and Amazing Man?<<
More interestingly, what about when Crimson Fox was killed the FIRST
time? I don't recall any great outroar here when that happened; maybe
I'm just misremembering, or maybe more people read Starman than
read Justice League America then?
Johanna
Krissy 80
prestorjon wrote:
>It could be that Mist kills Jack (although I'd certainly rather see
> Jack win) or cripples him so he can't continue as Starman (perhaps leading
> Shade, or Danny Blaine to seek revenge). But, yeah, probably Jack will win
>in
> the end.
Who's Danny Blaine?
~Lampbane
***Lamp...@mindless.com***
***http://members.aol.com/Krissy80/index.html***
"I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information."
- Calvin and Hobbes
Prestorjon
<<Did you actually read my post? I said it's easier to go for something
you know is there then to look around and see what's nearby>>
Yes I read your post and I'm disagreeing with you. Here's why. First off if I
go looking in the pouches I probably have to go "heads down" so I can see what
I'm doing. That makes it so I can't see the enemy (even for a split second
this can be a bad thing). Secondly it puts my arms in an akward position
bunched at the front of my body isntead of having one arm wherever I want it
and another than can go wherever I want it in an instant. Third it takes more
time. I reach over and slap the wall and I've got the powers of that
substance in under, all in under a second. I fumble in my belt pouches and
I'll take a second or two. The belt pouch is a good idea for basically one
reason: it makes sure you always have something useful on hand. Its great if
you've got a second or two to find something. But why waste time and energy
on the pouches when a suitable substance is right next to you.
Really this is just hind-sighted nit-picking. People are trying to find
fault with a story that they don't like. Would anyone care if Amazing Man was
in a battle and his touching the wall instead of going for the belt pouches
resulted in him WINNING?
Prestorjon
kris...@aol.com (Krissy 80)
>Who's Danny Blaine?
From Starman annual #1 we know that Danny Blane will be Starman sometime after
Jack Knight stops being Starman.
ChandaK562
Well, I finally read this story today and I have to agree with the people who
say that it isn't well-written. My big reason for saying this is that
Robinson killed the wrong Crimson Fox. There were twin sisters that played
her: Vivian and Constance. Vivian was the sister with the heavy French
accent. Constance never had any trace of an accent. Vivian died in JLA #104
leaving Constance as the surviving Crimson Fox therefore, the Fox in this
issue shouldn't have had an accent. She did though and her personality was
almost entirely Vivian's. Robinson killed the dead sister. I think that
right there is a perfectly good reason to say that the issue isn't well
written when a dead person dies again.
Chanda Keith
Chand...@aol.com
I was one of the Crimson Fox's biggest fans and I actually did email DC when
they killed her off.
One Bee To Rule Them
For me, personally, it's the fact that Starman #38 was a killing spree,
while the first Crimson Fox death wasn't. Also, JLE was sucking pretty bad
by then, while I _know_ that Robinson is capable of good writing. The
characters in Starman #38 were way out of character with all their
bemoaning their status as second-stringers. I don't think that the Mist,
no matter how cool and hip Robinson makes her, is capable of doing what
she did.
Oh, and Firestorm is one of my favorite characters, and I really don't
like seeing him written poorly. Elemental Firestorm is the one thing I
hold against Ostrander. They were good stories. They just weren't
Firestorm, and neither was the guy in Starman #38.
----
H. Jameel al Khafiz, Physicist-At-Large
"Fool! Pain is my friend! Allow me to introduce _you_ to it!"
"You're no match me! Burn, traitor, burn!" --mighty Inferno
The Happy Fun Page --> http://www.dhp.com/~spectre
Paul Edward Freitag
From article <19971110024...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, by joha...@aol.com (JohannaLD):
>>>Are people really devastated by the loss of Crimson Fox and Amazing Man?<<
>
> More interestingly, what about when Crimson Fox was killed the FIRST
> time? I don't recall any great outroar here when that happened; maybe
> I'm just misremembering, or maybe more people read Starman than
> read Justice League America then?
Well, Vivian was "killed" in a big explosion back in JLE, but since there
was no body, I think people assumed she was okay. Later, when Vivian came
back, she had been assumed dead for a while, and she was only alive for
two issues before she was killed off, er, again.
Of course, according to logic, the heavily-accented Vivian was killed
AGAIN in Starman #38. Some people never learn.
Paul Freitag
Paul Edward Freitag
From article <647od1$t36$1...@nntp-3.io.com>, by Peter Meilinger <mell...@io.com>:
> Do you think Robinson should have known about the pouch before he wrote
> the character?
I do. If you're going to write a story that really, truly, seriously
affects a character's life, you'd better DAMN WELL KNOW THE CHARACTER WELL
ENOUGH NOT TO MAKE ANY STUPID CONTINUITY MISTAKES.
The same goes for the whole Vivian/Fox/Constance/French accent thing.
Paul Freitag
Rokkit
Just to drop two more cents into the well...
First the setup: I've been reading this starman series since issue1
(err...0), and I've enjoyed it. I feel it is extremely creative and
is a lot fresher then much of the glut of comics out there. Although
I have been reading comics for quite awhile, there is a lot of
material, especially related to the more 'classic' characters, that I
am not as familiar with. For example, I've known about all the other
Starman's, and Grundy and Alan Scott, etc., but I have not been able
to read these characters extensively. Starman has enabled me to be
reintroduced to these characters, and learn a little more detail about
them. Overall, Starman is one of the few books I pick up regularly.
And usually I go back to a book for one reason: not art, but
story-quality. More often than not I find Starman satisfying.
That being said, this is how I felt about 38:
First off, I had been purposely avoiding any posts about the issue
since I had not yet read it. As it was, I knew almost nothing about
this issues contents. (unfortunately I was unable to pick up 37 as
well, since my usual comics source was sold out before I could pick it
up) I was quite surprised to read in these posts that the plot of
this issue has been debated for quite awhile.
I will agree that the writing, as far as dialogue and pace, was a
little poorer than I was used to. It did seem a little bland.
However...
I know who Crimson Fox is, as I had read some of JLE before. I knew,
too, that she had a sister. Firestorm I knew, Blue devil I was
familiar with (most recently, for me, from Underworld Unleashed, or
whatever), I think I've seen a picture of Amazing Man once, and I
don't remember anything about Icemaiden. So, the deaths of Fox, BD,
and AM did not have as much of an impact, as far as character history
goes. Although, recognizing what I did had quite an effect (as I'll
explain in a moment).
What the issue did for me was create a very vivid sense of what kind
of villian Mist is. The cold-heartedness of the deeds she commited,
along with the planning necessary, really illustrates how dangerous a
character this is. This is what the effects of the character deaths
did for me, which is what I feel was intended. One of the best things
about this book is that it isn't always a part of the usual comic book
mold. Mist could have come across as any sort of 'megavillian' by the
usual standard fare. (y'know, some big elaborate plot that required a
nice 3 issue story arc or maybe a crossover. Or course she'd have to
have some sort of armor, too, and maybe a 'mystical' item of some
sort, don't forget that) But instead, this one issue succeeds, IMHO,
in giving the reader a disturbing sense of Mist's character. (adding
her interaction with the baby was a nice touch as well.)
As far as the JLE's actions throughout the issue, well I felt they
were portrayed correctly considering the idea was that they were
trying to restart the League. They thought they had a simple job to
do, and were looking ahead to the future together. ('one step at a
time'.) It did a good job of lulling the reader just a bit before
mist's appearence. Unfortunately, I think knowing so much about the
story beforehand hurts anyone reading this issue a bit. But overall,
I felt the whole issue was quite effective.
anyway, essay's over. sorry for the length...
Rokkit
Peter Meilinger
Prestorjon <prest...@aol.com> wrote:
> <<Did you actually read my post? I said it's easier to go for something
> you know is there then to look around and see what's nearby>>
> Yes I read your post and I'm disagreeing with you. Here's why. First off if I
> go looking in the pouches I probably have to go "heads down" so I can see what
> I'm doing. That makes it so I can't see the enemy (even for a split second
> this can be a bad thing). Secondly it puts my arms in an akward position
Are you saying you can't rummage in your pockets for say a coin without
taking your eyes off of whatever you're looking for? If you give me an
afternoon I could work up some kind of pouch that would work like a
money belt - I'd know where to grab for whatever kind of coin I was
looking for. It wouldn't be that hard to memorize the positions either.
I have absolutely no reason to do this, of course, but AM does.
> bunched at the front of my body isntead of having one arm wherever I want it
> and another than can go wherever I want it in an instant. Third it takes more
> time. I reach over and slap the wall and I've got the powers of that
> substance in under, all in under a second. I fumble in my belt pouches and
> I'll take a second or two. The belt pouch is a good idea for basically one
> reason: it makes sure you always have something useful on hand. Its great if
> you've got a second or two to find something. But why waste time and energy
> on the pouches when a suitable substance is right next to you.
I got the impression that AM had to walk a bit before getting to the
wall. That might be just a problem with the way comics panels work,
though - since he made that little "I'll absorb this wall and kick your
ass" speech in the same panel we saw him touch the wall, I interpreted it
as meaning it took him a bit of time to accomplish. That might not be what
was intended.
> Really this is just hind-sighted nit-picking. People are trying to find
> fault with a story that they don't like. Would anyone care if Amazing Man was
> in a battle and his touching the wall instead of going for the belt pouches
> resulted in him WINNING?
Some would, since it can indicate the writer doesn't know the character.
Speaking of which, I notice once again you've snipped the question I've
posed twice now. Allow me to repeat it once more, and I'd really be
interested in hearing your answer.
Do you think Robinson should have known about the pouch before he wrote
the character?
I'm not saying he didn't, mind you. He might have known about it
and decided that AM wouldn't use it in that situation, just like you've
theorized. But if you're going to write about a character you should
know what their abilities are, don't you think?
Pete
Crisper Than Thou
Despite having dialogue about how Fox feels so alone with her sister gone.
Weird. Start to finish, weird.
--The Elder Dan
--
In dreams, logic grows on trees.
Crisper Than Thou
Prestorjon <prest...@aol.com> wrote:
> Really this is just hind-sighted nit-picking. People are trying to find
> fault with a story that they don't like. Would anyone care if Amazing Man
> was in a battle and his touching the wall instead of going for the belt
> pouches resulted in him WINNING?
No, not a bit-- because the wall would then not be a crucial pin holding
together the story. Does anyone care if a big alien badguy punches
Superman? Not unless he kills Big Blue. Then everyone says, WHAT THE FUCK?
If you ignore what has been done with characters in the past completely
(such as showing no evidence whatsoever of knowing about AM's ready-at-hand
bag of materials, which he's carrying for *just* this sort of sudden
confrontation) in favor of an overly drastic and complex "solution", expect
people to scream. I don't think it's nit-picking at all.
I'm not even that familiar with the characters involved, and I was shouting
"oh, COME ON!" every other page. Gratuitous death is bad enough; when it's
death by idiocy, gross incompetence, and out-of-character behavior, it
borders on criminal.
This was supposed to impress Jack somehow? Somehow I don't think he's got
that superhero cameraderie thing ingrained quite deeply enough yet to feel
all that upset about the JLE being fed into the Queasy-Nart; especially
since it's not at all clear how anyone's ever going to learn who did it.
Was this issue rushed? Maybe JR got *told* he should kill off some people? I
dunno. But 90% of this issue didn't feel like Robinson OR _Starman_ to me.
Feeling better about the way Eddie kicks my ass when I turn in a plot that
makes no sense,
ChandaK562
<<<Are people really devastated by the loss of Crimson Fox and Amazing Man?>>>
<< More interestingly, what about when Crimson Fox was killed the FIRST time?
I don't recall any great outroar here when that happened; maybe I'm just
misremembering, or maybe more people read Starman than read Justice League
America then?>>
<Well, Vivian was "killed" in a big explosion back in JLE, but since there was
no body, I think people assumed she was okay. Later, when Vivian came back,
she had been assumed dead for a while, and she was only alive for two issues
before she was killed off, er, again.
Of course, according to logic, the heavily-accented Vivian was killed AGAIN in
Starman #38. Some people never learn.>
that this is her third death in four years. Does anyone have any idea when
she was reserected the second time? I didn't see it if it happened and I'm a
big Crimson Fox fan so I think I would. Did I miss something?
Chanda Keith
Chand...@aol.com
Dwight Williams
Crisper Than Thou (cri...@shell15.ba.best.com) writes:
> ChandaK562 <chand...@aol.com> wrote:
>> Robinson killed the dead sister.
>
> Despite having dialogue about how Fox feels so alone with her sister gone.
> Weird. Start to finish, weird.
Indeed. <shaking my head>
Wonder how much angry mail and e-mail Robinson, Kim and Goodwin are
getting right now...
--
Dwight Williams(ad...@freenet.carleton.ca) -- Orleans, Ontario, Canada