Recalibrating DC Heroes for a Grittier Century

[neutronbeam]

As some folks here have an interest in comic books and graphic novels, I thought y'all might find this (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/12/books/12dc.html?ex=1129694400&en=bac06c2f5fa48b8c&ei=5070) interesting,

If there was ever a job for Superman, this is it.

DC Comics is in the midst of a major effort to revitalize the company's fabled superheroes for the 21st century and better connect with today's readers. The undertaking, which began in 2002, has involved a critical look at DC's characters - from Aquaman and Batman to Zatanna - and developing story lines that sometimes have heroes engage in decidedly unheroic deeds.

[Spigot]

I still can't really get myself excited about this. Granted, I've never been a huge DC fan myself. I like Batman and some of their characters are interesting, but they seem to be a lot flatter, personality-wise, than the Marvel guys.

That said, the direction they're going is neat, but I'll just wait till one mammoth Infinite Crisis trade comes out and I'll wheel it home to peruse the goings on.

It would be neat if DC did something along the lines of the Marvel Ultimate series. I could even find myself enjoying a Superman tale if he were tweaked some. Just set it outside of standard continuity so the fans don't get uppity. Ah well. I still need to finish collecting my set of Bloodlines Annuals from many a year ago.

I DO want to thank those of you on these boards (esp. EverlostMI and the weekly comic reviews) for rekindling my love of comics. Now I actually can go into comic shops and know which titles are worth picking up instead of thinking that none of them are as good as the ones in my collection from years past.

[Bushido]

To the extreme!!!

[bardockkun]

So basically can they really be called heroes? Also wasn't a grittier time of DC heroes already introduced with The Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns? Either way i've bought the hype of Infinite Crisis.

Though All Star Batman and Robin remains as one of THE WORSE Batman stories next to War Crimes this year. So Batman is a child beating, anti-social, cop killing, douche bag with a mission? Goddamn Frank Miller turning Batman into Marv is by far the stupidest decision DC can make if its part of the gritty time of heroes.

[Deathbane27]

Aquaman

:p

Aquaman has needed updating since 2 seconds after he was born. :D

I've seen Justice League Unlimited a few times on Toonami while waiting for Adult Swim to come on, and I must say I like that version of him. Big beefy guy with a hook hand wielding a trident...

Also, Batman Begins was a nice movie. Making him a trained oriental martial artist with a dirty little secret in his past was nice.

[Evil Avatar]

Also, Batman Begins was a nice movie. Making him a trained oriental martial artist with a dirty little secret in his past was nice.

It is also the traditional Neal Adams Batman from the 70's. That is where the whole martial arts and Ra's Al Ghul plot line came from. Those are classic comics, the only shame of it is that neither Marvel or DC ever thought ahead to how to preserve their old comics and because they are big businesses - they don't spend a nickle to preserve old comics.

Most comics from the 60's, 70's and 80's suffer bad from fading and ink bleed-thru (really bad in the 80's when they started switching to different kinds of paper in an attempt to save money).

Most of the stuff from that time period needs the same kind of digital restoration that Disney has been giving their old films.

In fact, if you pick up the trade paperback of Crisis on Infinite Earths, you can see an example of some of the worst preservation possible. DC just took a low resolution scan of a faded comic to make the trade paperback.

Kind of a shame, because this art form really deserves to be archived and professionally preserved.

[Deadend]

I am wondering how they will change Super-man. He can be a really intersting character, and also good for other chracters to play off of. He is a nearly perfect hero, with great ideals, ultimate power, and never had to train his ass off to be what he is.

[bardockkun]

I am wondering how they will change Super-man. He can be a really intersting character, and also good for other chracters to play off of. He is a nearly perfect hero, with great ideals, ultimate power, and never had to train his ass off to be what he is.
I imagine doing things that make Superman realize he's still only a man. Meaning horrible shit happening to the people around him or him realizing that he's a bigger threat to the people around him with his powers.

[Deadend]

Sounds good, I was also thinking something about self-sacrifce, everyone else gave up lots of time and energy to be the hero they are, Super-man does it because he was born that way.

It is also a crying shame about how poorly DC and Marvel take care of their old stuff, as there should be a massive demand for the old stuff. Even if it's just a DVD per year of content.

Ohhh that would be cool.
$50 for every DC comic in a year? It would be a good price point, and if the archiving was done properly, they could also do vanity reprints of issues as well. Where you could order a issue at a inflated price and they print it up, as otherwise they just stamp out a DVD for you. I know Marvel has started this, and it would be a damn good thing for everyone to get into.

[Sazime]

One of my favorite bargain bin CDs at one point was a Dark Horse Comic collection of "The Mask". I think it was the same issues as are in the trade paperback that I have, and it also had some cool biographical info on the comic. There definately needs to be a movement to do something like this for all comics, at least to archive them. So, who wants to start? Who should get this organized?

[bardockkun]

Well both Marvel and DC have those huge phone book sized black and white collections of their older comics for less then $15. I enjoy those more then the Masterpiece collections and always a good read. Especially how bitterly insane the writers were in the golden/silver age with how sexist and racist some of the characters were.

Though they don't seem to reprint the golden age WWII comics with Superman slapping a buck toothed Tojo with the headline "You're a Sap Mr.Jap!" Or Superman throwing them into a meat grinder to make war bonds. God, so horribly politically incorrect.

[earthworm48]

Sea Man!

I went off of Marvel after that ridiculous Onslaught crap, with numerous stops and restarts. I looked this year to see if my old faves were still good to see Spiderman had restarted adn basically everything had (thanks to onslaught Iron Man and the Hulk that I loved did this numerous times) and I just don't care, they've just removed like 30/40 years of backstory but restarting a strip.

[Orphiuchus]

Now I hate comic books and most of the comic book people I know, but doesn't this sound like the tired "Lets make everything extreeeeme to connect to todays stupid youth"?

If I liked comic books I would be horrified. But, chances are, I don't get the reason you liked them in the first place so... whatever.

[Zeal]

To the extreme!!!

lol, good timing.

[Sion]

Batman and the Green Lanters(everyone aside from Hal, he is boring as fuck) need no updates. Superman on the other hand, does. I guess giving him a mullet in the 90's wasnt enough.

[Babbster]

It is also the traditional Neal Adams Batman from the 70's. That is where the whole martial arts and Ra's Al Ghul plot line came from.

At the risk of being the nitpickiest of the nitpicky, I just thought I'd note that while Neal Adams' art rocks (and his Batman was particularly great), the writer of most of those classic 70s Batman tales was Dennis (Denny) O'Neil. "Gots to give da man his props." :)

[Ernst_Jager]

Doom Patrol beating down terrorists sounds fun to me.

[TheHulk]

Doesn't DC do this about every 7 years? I haven't really followed comics for about 10 years, but from the time I started getting comics as a kid in the early 70's to when I stopped getting them it seems like DC trashed the back stories of their characters so often it was hard to keep up with what was going on to the average fan. Anybody have those Marvel DVD compilations?

[Cupelix]

Granted, I don't read a lot of DC Comics (really Batman/Superman is about it), but I'm not convinced a "reboot" of the universe is in order. It's odd to me that you can't give a character any sort of progression with out messing with the status quo of the entire universe.

[zipR]

Time for them to do "Twilight of the Super Heroes."

[Xerxes]

I don't like comics anymore. They make too many "world changing" events. More like universe changing. Like the infinity crisis or some shit which ends up changing the characters you thought you know. Deleting what supergirl was. Flip-floping back stories and altering the coulda beens. And cloning! I'm tired of the is this or that the real spiderman or mary jane. After a while I didn't give a fuck. And Venom, loved the hell out of venom and I once wanted every comic he appeared in. In the 90s he was in just spiderman books. He was every fucking whicha way. Then he had carnage. Last I heard he was a grandpa teamed up with carnage to stop carnages kid or some shit. Stay in one damn book people. A few guest spots are ok, but in every damn marvel comic?

I did dig a DC spinoff, DC Milestone. That was interesting. But they closed down shop. The head guy(Dwayne McDuffie) now writes alot of Justice Leagues episodes.

[MadHiro]

So basically can they really be called heroes? Also wasn't a grittier time of DC heroes already introduced with The Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns? Either way i've bought the hype of Infinite Crisis.


Hero; noun; someone who gets other people killed.

Watchmen wasn't really "DC Heroes" though; it was a completely seperate and self contained story. This is a change in the direction of their mainline comics.

[Kefkataran]

It would be neat if DC did something along the lines of the Marvel Ultimate series.

Just set it outside of standard continuity so the fans don't get uppity.

Check out the All-Star line. All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder by Frank Miller is up to issue 2 and is sort of meh so far, but All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison (!!) starts next month and looks to be spectacular. It's not exactly the Ultimate series, in that it's not a new universe, but it's out-of-continuity stories by some of the best writers around.

So Batman is a child beating, anti-social, cop killing, douche bag with a mission? Goddamn Frank Miller turning Batman into Marv is by far the stupidest decision DC can make if its part of the gritty time of heroes.

Good thing it's out-of-continuity. Honestly, though, I can't agree more. The Batman to-the-extreme that Miller has created is more than a little out of control, even in comparison with his previous Dark Knight stuff.

Kind of a shame, because this art form really deserves to be archived and professionally preserved.

Of course, that is happening now in many ways. DCs Archive line is absolutely stunning insofar as high-quality reproduction of tons of old comics, as is Marvel's Masterworks line. Although all those hardcovers are EXPENSIVE. Still, if you want the cheaps, you can always by the big black-and-white Essentials volumes.

Meaning horrible shit happening to the people around him or him realizing that he's a bigger threat to the people around him with his powers.

Like in August's "Sacrifice" storyline that tied in to Infinite Crisis. Maxwell Lord basically took over control of Superman and had him beating the shit out of the Batman, the Justice Leauge, and Wonder Woman.

It is also a crying shame about how poorly DC and Marvel take care of their old stuff, as there should be a massive demand for the old stuff. Even if it's just a DVD per year of content.

Seriously, I think you're way off on this. Marvel is releasing something along the lines of 12-20 Essential volumes per year and the same number of Masterwork volumes. Same with DC for their Archive lineup, although they're just now starting to get into printing cheap bulk black-and-white books. DVDs are obviously the next step for comic archiving, and that's just now starting to be explored with Marvel, thank God. Can't wait to see where it goes.

but doesn't this sound like the tired "Lets make everything extreeeeme to connect to todays stupid youth"?

It might if you're not reading it. If you were reading the stuff, you'd see it's not really "extreme" at all, just a bit darker and (thankfully) a lot more complex and compelling.

Batman and the Green Lanters(everyone aside from Hal, he is boring as fuck) need no updates.

I agree with the Lanterns, but are you kidding me about Batman? He's become such a gritty dickhead in the last five years that he seriously needs a kick in the ass to reboot him. Is he sort of a loner character? Sure. But that doesn't mean he should be a complete ass to all the other *heroes* in the DCU.

Doesn't DC do this about every 7 years?

Not really.

I'm not convinced a "reboot" of the universe is in order.

They're not rebooting the universe. Geoff Johns and the other DC writers involved in Infinite Crisis planning have mantained this over and over again -- this is NOT another continuity reboot.

[bardockkun]

Hero; noun; someone who gets other people killed.

Watchmen wasn't really "DC Heroes" though; it was a completely seperate and self contained story. This is a change in the direction of their mainline comics.
Watchman was originally supposed to be DC heroes though, but DC had a problem with how the characters were portrayed so thus original characters had to be made. Dr.Manhattan was supposed to be Captain Atom. Rosarch was supposed to be the Question. etc.

[Erisian]

The Ultimates makes me orgasm, on command. Most of the other Ultimate universe stuff does, too, except for the more recent X-Men.

I assume All-Star Superman will have roughly the same capability considering that Grant Morrison is an avatar of some wierd god of deviant artistic excellence.

[Xerxes]

Another thing that sucks about comics is crossovers that make you by some other books that you don't even read just to follow a story.