Amph Here's Some Money, Go See A Swap Thing: DCU/Elseworlds Discussion

Well, 1. Execution is everything, so never count it out and 2. I’m not quite so sure. Heroes in Crisis seems to have been viciously rewritten as it was coming out (and viciously rewritten by noted hack and war criminal Tom King, at that), to the point that there’s evidence Wally wasn’t the original culprit at all. Wally had basically no motive for doing what he did, instead attempting to hastily cover-up what even he considered an accident. HiC didn’t serve as a jumping off point for new characters or new plot lines. And because they attempted to walk it back almost immediately with Flash Forward, it’s unlikely it will have a major long-term impact. None of these issues plague ET. About the only thing I think they have in common is fan backlash to a beloved character doing a bad thing, and in both cases it was quick to escalate from “understandable disappointment and lack of interest in still reading” to “embarrassingly over the top to the point of death threats” and will, unfortunately, probably not be looked back on with quite enough people declaring said reaction cringe.

 

Absolutely not. He's John Glenn, not a drunk. That storyline is essentially character assassination and should be disregarded.

 

Man I dunno what the heck Tom King did at DC that got people so upset. I thought his Marvel Vision series was aces and also shows up, at least in thematic weirdness, in Wandavision.

 

Tom King’s work is, on the whole, exceptional. The Vision and Mister Miracle are two of the best comics to come out of the Big Two in the 2st century, and imo both Rorschach and Strange Adventures are shaping up nicely. I enjoyed his Batman run, although the pacing was sometimes too slow, and Batman/Catwoman has a more focused story that I think will read really nicely as a completed volume.

Heroes in Crisis is disappointingly bad and thoroughly misguided, however.

 

Hey, appleseed, long time, no see!

 

Hey hey~!

 

I’m probably just not going to agree with some folks on this, I think Mister Miracle is loaded with warning signs that King was being overrated, most of which have panned out, and if that’s him at his best I want no part of it. These days he’s an automatic avoid for me, which DC is helpfully facilitating by having him do one of their many grotesque Watchmen cash-grabs, which I avoid on principle anyway.

But wouldn’t it be better if John Glenn was also an incompetent drunk that everyone hated but inexplicably you were supposed to like him at the end even though he hadn’t done much to justify that reaction? In this TED talk, I will...

 

I've been told to give Snyder's Justice League run a look (SCOTT Snyder, not Zack, lol), I think I am going to go pick it up today at my FLCS, anyone know which volume is the first? Feel like @The2ndQuest might know for some reason

 

No Justice, it’s a prelude so it doesn’t have a volume number, IIRC. Then it rather conveniently starts with Volume 1, as long as you mean Volume 1 and not Volume 1, Volume 1, or Volume 1.

... I really hate how the big two number their trades, although fortunately you can just double check the author.

Edit: Oh, and I think they also recently put out Book One, which covers the first two volumes, but not No Justice.

 

Just reminiscing here; that first ever JLA ish with Starro is quite fun.

 

Story question...does Darkseid show up at all?

 

was it just me or did anyone else think his name was pronounced Darkseed when they read the comics? 'cos Darkside is so on-the-nose as to be silly.

 

If you want Darkseid battling the Justice League I would direct you to Grant Morrison’s JLA or Geoff Johns’ Justice League instead, I don’t think Snyder used him (I have not read the run myself yet, but the impression I got from other books was he was kind of building up plot points for his big Death Metal crossover, which revolved around... multiversal evil Joker Batman? Basically?).

Edit: Oh, and obviously there are the collections of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World material, but that lacks the Justice League. Mostly. It’s complicated.

 

Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer is an excellent story too. And it has terrific artwork.

Hopefully they make an eight hour film of that someday in the future.

 

I thought it was only me that had that issue. I... I feel seen. Thank you.

 

@godisawesome

You make great points.

I must admit, only read Identity Crisis once meself and I've nowhere near the recollection of detailed plot details as yourself.

I bought the TPB when I went on a DC comics binge about 10 years ago, read it immediately in two days, and as a newbie to that story I found it impactful, memorable, and well crafted, especially the artwork, which is mainly why I read comics anyhow, at least over story.

So, yes, I tend to agree with your observations and insights, although, in fairness, I ought to reread the book again and then I might have new insights.

It is a richly detailed work and perhaps I might view it differently on second read as is often the case with everything.

Thanks for the insights mate.

 

Now I have admittedly never read Identity Crisis precisely because of the Sue Dibny stuff, buuuuut Jean Loring being... well, one of a myriad and rich history of poor comic book depictions of mental health actually has precedent from the 1970s of all periods, which DC likes to cite in some of their collected editions of older material as proof of how very correct it was to release Identity Crisis, actually (I'm thinking of The Wedding of the Atom and Jean Loring, for example).

Mind you I'd cynically think the bank statements were justification enough given the miniseries seems to have been an excuse to slap "BRAD MELTZER" in big letters on the trade, but I guess somebody cares.