Salvation Run
Michael Wood
can't say that I was disappointed - since I didn't have very high hopes -
but I was actually offended by how bad it was.
*
Spoiler space if required.
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Basic premise was flawed. If it was this easy to catch super-villains, why
not do it years ago?
The US govt finds a paradise planet and they decide that the best use is to
turn it into "Escape from New York" on a galactic scale.
The US has boom tube technology and uses it to send supervillains away
rather than the 200 other possibilities (such as establishing colonies on
Mars, Titan etc).
The really offensive thing though was the mind boggling poor
chracterisation. Have none of these writers ever looked at another human
being except on a screen?
The Joker would be incredibly scary trapped with a band of mercenaries in
the jungle surrounded by monsters. Ina group of demi-gods, he is nothing but
"chum" in the water. Most of the heavy hitters would have taken him out in
the first 5 minutes simply to avoid the complications.
Joker killed Psimon by bashing in his braincase with a rock. Psimon's
response is to say "stop". I am very sure that Psimon protected his brain
with something significantly stronger than a fishbowl! And why not just fry
the man where he stood. The Brotherhood of Evil all seemed to be completely
ineffectual. And then they used the same thing to get rid of the Brain.
Don't get me started on Mallah.
Rick Flag thought that he was sending them off to start a new civilisation?!
How insane is that?
The only thing that vaguely made sense was that a boom tube took them to a
planet linked to Apokolips. I would assume some kind of self tuning system.
Luthor I can imagine having success at leading, but the Joker is not a
leader almost by definition.
And it was unnecessarily gory, and bloodthirsty for that matter.
At least the Rogues worked together as a team. Though surely Mirror Master
could simply leave through a mirror dimension?
I am exstatic that I did not spend money on this.
Michael Wood
grinningdemon
wrote:
>Recently got it from the library in TPB (I wasn't going to buy the thing). I
>can't say that I was disappointed - since I didn't have very high hopes -
>but I was actually offended by how bad it was.
Yet another example of how awful Bill Willingham is on anything beyond
Fables.
That's not really the flaw...they've always been able to CATCH them,
just never able to HOLD them...but, if they are willing to go so far
as to maroon them on a strange planet, essentially leaving them to
die, why not just execute them and be done with it? THAT is the
flaw...no one here can honestly say they would have a hard time
believing Amanda Waller wouldn't personally put a bullet in each of
their heads...and yet they instead go to these rediculous lengths to
do something that would certainly be considered cruel and unusual
punishment by the public.
>The US govt finds a paradise planet and they decide that the best use is to
>turn it into "Escape from New York" on a galactic scale.
>
>The US has boom tube technology and uses it to send supervillains away
>rather than the 200 other possibilities (such as establishing colonies on
>Mars, Titan etc).
>
>The really offensive thing though was the mind boggling poor
>chracterisation. Have none of these writers ever looked at another human
>being except on a screen?
As I said above, it amazes me how great Fables is when EVERYTHING else
I've read by Willingham is just terrible.
>The Joker would be incredibly scary trapped with a band of mercenaries in
>the jungle surrounded by monsters. Ina group of demi-gods, he is nothing but
>"chum" in the water. Most of the heavy hitters would have taken him out in
>the first 5 minutes simply to avoid the complications.
>Joker killed Psimon by bashing in his braincase with a rock. Psimon's
>response is to say "stop". I am very sure that Psimon protected his brain
>with something significantly stronger than a fishbowl! And why not just fry
>the man where he stood. The Brotherhood of Evil all seemed to be completely
>ineffectual. And then they used the same thing to get rid of the Brain.
>Don't get me started on Mallah.
>
>Rick Flag thought that he was sending them off to start a new civilisation?!
>How insane is that?
>
>The only thing that vaguely made sense was that a boom tube took them to a
>planet linked to Apokolips. I would assume some kind of self tuning system.
All good points.
>Luthor I can imagine having success at leading, but the Joker is not a
>leader almost by definition.
Right...aside from him never having shown the slightest hint of
leadership ability, how nuts would have to be to follow him? And, if
you look at the characters who lined up behind him, it wasn't just the
total whackjobs, either.
>And it was unnecessarily gory, and bloodthirsty for that matter.
I kind of think Lord of the Flies with supervillains would kind of
have to be...I mean, it's not like they're particularly pleasant to be
around even under the best of circumstances.
>At least the Rogues worked together as a team. Though surely Mirror Master
>could simply leave through a mirror dimension?
I think that was addressed in the story, wasn't it?
>I am exstatic that I did not spend money on this.
I actually think it could have been a great read if someone like Gail
Simone or even John Ostrander had written it...someone who really
knows how to write the villains well.
Steve Maser
<grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
> >The really offensive thing though was the mind boggling poor
> >chracterisation. Have none of these writers ever looked at another human
> >being except on a screen?
>
> As I said above, it amazes me how great Fables is when EVERYTHING else
> I've read by Willingham is just terrible.
I think Willingham's hands must be tied by editorial and it seems to
show accordingly.
His creator-owned stuff (like Fables and Elementals -- which I still
miss) is great.
Kenneth M. Lin
Billy Bissette
news:ckt4f554ivu059s3e...@4ax.com:
> On Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:18:55 GMT, "Michael Wood" <no-...@home.comj>
> wrote:
>
>>Recently got it from the library in TPB (I wasn't going to buy the
>>thing). I can't say that I was disappointed - since I didn't have very
>>high hopes - but I was actually offended by how bad it was.
>
> Yet another example of how awful Bill Willingham is on anything beyond
> Fables.
>>The really offensive thing though was the mind boggling poor
>>chracterisation. Have none of these writers ever looked at another
>>human being except on a screen?
>
> As I said above, it amazes me how great Fables is when EVERYTHING else
> I've read by Willingham is just terrible.
Yeah, but even Jack of Fables, the Fables spin-off, was pretty
terrible. He started it by blindly rewriting majors parts of how
the Fables universe worked.
Goldilocks survived? When Snow barely surviving was seen as a
big deal, with her expected to always suffer some degree of
debilitation even after her miracle recovery? If Fables were as
nearly indestructable as "Jack of Fables" portrayed them, then how
the heck were they dropping like flies in the main book? And if
popular Fables can take so much punishment, then why would it even
be a surprise that Snow lived in the first place? And why would
there even be such a question about Rose in the first arc?
For a main villain, he introduced a supposedly long-established
Earth-based big bad that had been catching and depowering Fables
but which the Fables had no clue even existed.
It was like a completely different writer came along and spat on
Fables.
If he has that effect on his own good title, then why not expect
the same from when he touches universes created by others?
Eminence
To be fair, it's a fundamental flaw within the genre (meta reasons
relating to the financial viability of continuing to publish the
characters' adventure notwithstanding). If you get rid of the villains
(let Taskmaster do it, or via the missions in Suicide Squad, or
through some other deadwood-clearing cosmic summer crossover event),
soon the heroes will have no one left to fight but each other (as in
"Kingdome Come" and "Civil War"). While they're turning on each other
in a ham-handed "tough on crime/soft on rehabilitation" story, new
villains *could* arise... but in a world (tm) where the heroes and/or
the government already took out the last batch, would they? The comics
universe spirals downward as characters and philosophies continue to
clash and the death toll mounts, until finally all that's left are the
biggest, most uncompromising badasses -- almost inevitably
uber-rightwing parodies (because while there might be more powerful
leftwing or moderate heroes, they will have compromised themselves by
this point, probably either retiring in disgrace, fleeing to other
worlds/dimensions, or committing suicide). Goodbye, heroic escapist
fantasy, hello dystopian nihilism. Not the best formula for long-term
sales.
>>The US govt finds a paradise planet and they decide that the best use is to
>>turn it into "Escape from New York" on a galactic scale.
>>
>>The US has boom tube technology and uses it to send supervillains away
>>rather than the 200 other possibilities (such as establishing colonies on
>>Mars, Titan etc).
Begs the question of why this tech isn't put to better use, which also
begs the question of why super tech doesn't filter down to the masses,
which of course runs headlong into the meta rationale for why it
can't, and we're back to reality hammering all over our escapist
fantasy, again.
Boo.
Eminence
_______________
Usenet: Global Village of the Damned
grinningdemon
wrote:
>In article <ckt4f554ivu059s3e...@4ax.com>, grinningdemon
><grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> >The really offensive thing though was the mind boggling poor
>> >chracterisation. Have none of these writers ever looked at another human
>> >being except on a screen?
>>
>> As I said above, it amazes me how great Fables is when EVERYTHING else
>> I've read by Willingham is just terrible.
>
>
>
>I think Willingham's hands must be tied by editorial and it seems to
>show accordingly.
I don't know about that...I could buy that if it were only a single
book but Salvation Run, Robin, and his current JSA all suck...and even
Shadowpact (which seems like a good fit for him) wasn't all that great
(though it was better than the others).
grinningdemon
<kennet...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>How many female villains were in the group? Wouldn't they be gang-raped?
Some of those female villains are just as likely to gang-rape the
men...in the story as is, it didn't really come up (beyond Vandal
Savage attempting to gather himself a harem)...but I'd bet money it
would have come up if Gail Simone had written the book.
grinningdemon
I thought the idea was that, up to a point, Fables are tougher and
harder to kill as they become more well known and popular with
mundies...Snow survived because her story is well known...Rose
commented in that same story that she would have been dead for sure
under those circumstances...Goldilocks is another well known
fable...and this is also one of the reasons Jack went to such lengths
to have all those movies made about him (to boost his own power)...the
idea also seems to be that, if such popular fables are killed off,
they will be replaced with another version (as happened with Jack
himself) unless the Fable community takes care of that themselves (as
with the 3 little pigs)
That said, these rules do seem to change from time to time to suit
story needs.
> For a main villain, he introduced a supposedly long-established
>Earth-based big bad that had been catching and depowering Fables
>but which the Fables had no clue even existed.
Yeah, that was crap.
> It was like a completely different writer came along and spat on
>Fables.
Matt Sturges
> If he has that effect on his own good title, then why not expect
>the same from when he touches universes created by others?
I think it's also worth noting that he isn't writing Jack of Fables
alone...he's co-writing with Mathew Sturges...as he did on Salvation
Run and currently on JSA...he actually seems to do better on his own.
lil...@dcccd.edu
<grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>>Luthor I can imagine having success at leading, but the Joker is not a
>>leader almost by definition.
>
>Right...aside from him never having shown the slightest hint of
>leadership ability, how nuts would have to be to follow him? And, if
>you look at the characters who lined up behind him, it wasn't just the
>total whackjobs, either.
Yet back in the Silver Age the Joker had henchmen just as often as any
of the other Batman adversaries. The thing is, the Joker is probably
pretty intelligent but doesn't express it as intellect and so is
dismissed. But he does get results in his own way and that's probably
what many of the villains were counting on.
--
Lilith
grinningdemon
But he's just as likely to turn on his own people as on his
enemies...and any idiot would know that.
Ty...@webtv.net
Scandal Savage beating the snot out of Bolt just for touching her ass.
There were also enough girls, many sticking together, and enough
powerhouses among the girls such as Giganta and Cheetah that trying for
anything like a gangrape would have been risky. Luthor camp was ordered
so it's unlikely that it would have happened there, Joker camp was a
likely place where it could have hapened, but Grodd was pretty much the
enforcer, Giganta and Poison Ivy, both very powerful women were also
there and I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to mess with
either of them. Vandal Savage tried with sedution, but didn't quite make
it.
Billy Bissette
news:56c6f5lhhqd8sfc9o...@4ax.com:
Yes, but there was still a fairly large difference between
survivability in Fables and in Jack of Fables.
No one expected Snow to survive having her brains blown out the
back of her head. In the main title, that's an understandable
situation. In the main title, Fables are pretty much mortal. No
matter who they are, they don't just bounce back. Snow ended up in
a coma, spent months in the hospital recovering, had to learn to
walk again, and had to carry a cane afterwards due to random
headaches. Goldi took an axe to the head, but was left for dead
after rolling down a cliff, getting hit by a truck, and then falling
into the river.
Jack, through his movies, makes himself the most famous Fable in
the world. Okay, you can accept him as being particularly
invulnerable.
But with Jack of Fables, we are told Goldi survived. More than
everything shown in Fables, she survived being continually eaten
by fish and repeatedly drowning from what I recall?
If someone like Goldilocks is unkillable, then why do Fables die
so easily in the main book? Baby Bear, who was from the same story
as Goldilocks, gained no benefit from that fame. He's taken out
with a few bullets to the chest.
> the
> idea also seems to be that, if such popular fables are killed off,
> they will be replaced with another version (as happened with Jack
> himself) unless the Fable community takes care of that themselves (as
> with the 3 little pigs)
I cannot remember, but wasn't that idea spawned with Jack of
Fables? Though it has been a while since I've read the books, I
don't recall it meshing particularly well with the pre-JoF main
book either.
For one thing, how long does a rebirth take? Quickly flipping
through Animal Farm shows the Three Little Pigs were executed at or
before Christmas while the giants were not transformed into pigs
until at least "the first warm day of Spring". That seems like a
decent amount of time for some presumably well-known characters.
The idea that there was a mundy "need" for three little pigs
itself seems a minor issue. Wayland makes a throw-away line about
it, as if it isn't important at all. There certainly wasn't any
kind of rush to replace them. (The only rush was to deal with the
giants, who were simply too big to maintain in the natural form.)
There didn't really seem to be a concern about Fables popping back
to life elsewhere. Just vague little bits of things, like dumping
bodies for no explained reason into the Wishing Well. There is the
idea of dropping enemies into the Wishing Well to make sure that
they won't be able to return, but that seems to be some secondary
feature of their chosen method of dealing with corpses. Indeed, if
it was believed that Fables in general would eventually be reborn
(even if it was as a new person), then why would you actively try
to prevent it from happening for the good guys? And what about
mundy belief in guys dropped into the Well?
The whole big bad of Jack of Fables in some way seemed to be created
to deal with some of the issues that Jack of Fables was introducing
into the mix. Mainly because it allowed for the claim that any Fables
that died and were reborn were snatched up by the JoF big bad, with
the main Fables community kept oblivious to it all.
Billy Bissette
news:nte6f5heuhqplhbkt...@4ax.com:
Bad guys in comics are often idiots.
grinningdemon
<bai...@coastalnet.com> wrote:
True...but some of that can be explained by saying that what happened
to Snow taught the other Fables more about themselves...things they
didn't know about their nature before...and it could also be said that
Revise and his bunch already knew these things.
> No one expected Snow to survive having her brains blown out the
>back of her head. In the main title, that's an understandable
>situation. In the main title, Fables are pretty much mortal. No
>matter who they are, they don't just bounce back. Snow ended up in
>a coma, spent months in the hospital recovering, had to learn to
>walk again, and had to carry a cane afterwards due to random
>headaches. Goldi took an axe to the head, but was left for dead
>after rolling down a cliff, getting hit by a truck, and then falling
>into the river.
>
> Jack, through his movies, makes himself the most famous Fable in
>the world. Okay, you can accept him as being particularly
>invulnerable.
>
> But with Jack of Fables, we are told Goldi survived. More than
>everything shown in Fables, she survived being continually eaten
>by fish and repeatedly drowning from what I recall?
>
> If someone like Goldilocks is unkillable, then why do Fables die
>so easily in the main book? Baby Bear, who was from the same story
>as Goldilocks, gained no benefit from that fame. He's taken out
>with a few bullets to the chest.
I suppose this could be explained just like the 3 little pigs...it's
only important that the bears exist but not so much their specific
identities...we could still see more bears pop up...but I agree it
hasn't been addressed.
>> the
>> idea also seems to be that, if such popular fables are killed off,
>> they will be replaced with another version (as happened with Jack
>> himself) unless the Fable community takes care of that themselves (as
>> with the 3 little pigs)
>
> I cannot remember, but wasn't that idea spawned with Jack of
>Fables? Though it has been a while since I've read the books, I
>don't recall it meshing particularly well with the pre-JoF main
>book either.
> For one thing, how long does a rebirth take? Quickly flipping
>through Animal Farm shows the Three Little Pigs were executed at or
>before Christmas while the giants were not transformed into pigs
>until at least "the first warm day of Spring". That seems like a
>decent amount of time for some presumably well-known characters.
Well, the Big Fables Crossover suggested it would take years for the
genre literals to be reborn...but they aren't Fables...I get the sense
that the characters themselves aren't entirely sure how the whole
thing works.
> The idea that there was a mundy "need" for three little pigs
>itself seems a minor issue. Wayland makes a throw-away line about
>it, as if it isn't important at all. There certainly wasn't any
>kind of rush to replace them. (The only rush was to deal with the
>giants, who were simply too big to maintain in the natural form.)
>
> There didn't really seem to be a concern about Fables popping back
>to life elsewhere. Just vague little bits of things, like dumping
>bodies for no explained reason into the Wishing Well. There is the
>idea of dropping enemies into the Wishing Well to make sure that
>they won't be able to return, but that seems to be some secondary
>feature of their chosen method of dealing with corpses. Indeed, if
>it was believed that Fables in general would eventually be reborn
>(even if it was as a new person), then why would you actively try
>to prevent it from happening for the good guys? And what about
>mundy belief in guys dropped into the Well?
>
> The whole big bad of Jack of Fables in some way seemed to be created
>to deal with some of the issues that Jack of Fables was introducing
>into the mix. Mainly because it allowed for the claim that any Fables
>that died and were reborn were snatched up by the JoF big bad, with
>the main Fables community kept oblivious to it all.
There are definitely inconsistencies within the books...both with each
other and even with earlier stories...but I'm OK with that in this
case...the story is evolving and changing as it progresses...I don't
think that Willingham ever had the future of the book planned down to
the details...he's kind of making it up as he goes...normally, that
kind of thing would drive me nuts but it seems to make sense for a
book like this...look at how all the fairy tales themselves change
over time.
At any rate, Fables remains one of my favorite books...I'm not a huge
fan of Jack of Fables but it has had its moments...personally, I would
have preferred a second ongoing that was set in the past...there are
so many stories to tell both from the homelands and from the centuries
in the mundy world leading up to Fables #1...and Willingham has barely
scratched the surface...I would love something like 1001 Nights of
Snowfall as an ongoing book.
grinningdemon
True...but many of the ones who sided with Joker (Grodd, for instance)
are not usually presented as such.
Kenneth M. Lin
"grinningdemon" <grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote in message
news:j2c6f51bseifpd9nn...@4ax.com...
DC is really pushing for co-ed prison thing. In Watchmen Silk Spectre was
running around in a jail in her bare-there costume. (She doesn't have any
super power so one twisted ankle and she's toast.)
This is worse than the co-ed restroom from Alley McBeal.
Michael Wood
"Kenneth M. Lin" <kennet...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:At2dnYSUvaMLEG7X...@giganews.com...
Hey. Don't knock it. I onced stayed in a residence at University that was
run by Anglican nuns. It had coed restrooms and bathrooms.
Really fond memories of the time.
Visiting parents seemed less enthused for some reason.
Michael Wood
Unknown
"Kenneth M. Lin" <kennet...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:At2dnYSUvaMLEG7X...@giganews.com...
Uh, Silk Spectre wasn't an inmate. She was there to break someone out.
Billy Bissette
news:m0n6f59lmpndv5rdj...@4ax.com:
> Well, the Big Fables Crossover suggested it would take years for the
> genre literals to be reborn...but they aren't Fables...I get the sense
> that the characters themselves aren't entirely sure how the whole
> thing works.
Problem is, the Big Fables Crossover came after Willingham rewrote
the way the world worked in Jack of Fables. That the main book had
adapted to the changes doesn't change how poorly his second series
meshed with the core title at the start. And like I said, if he can't
even play nice with his own design, then why should you expect him to
do well with others (such as writing a main DC universe book.)
Anlatt the Builder
>
> >At least the Rogues worked together as a team. Though surely Mirror Master
> >could simply leave through a mirror dimension?
>
> I think that was addressed in the story, wasn't it?
>
>
Not that I can recall.
grinningdemon
I actually don't expect him to do well on DC universe books...and yet
they keep putting him on them anyway.
grinningdemon
I could be wrong but I thought there was something in there about MM
not being able to move between worlds or something.
Duggy
> And if
> popular Fables can take so much punishment, then why would it even
> be a surprise that Snow lived in the first place? And why would
> there even be such a question about Rose in the first arc?
Because Rose isn't a popular character.
===
= DUG.
===