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Post by the4thpip on May 19, 2014 2:05:02 GMT -5
I agree wholeheartedly with that. It's as if I were to start a new Sherlock Holmes story for publisher XYZ, and instead of trying to gain attraction by some clever twist on the concept, or by having Holmes do something new things that would have people go "woah, I wish I had thought of that!", I started with the murder of Dr. Watson. Or suppose I were to write a new Shang Chi series and started by killing... Well, there we go. It's easy and cheap, and bound to make readers unhappy more than intrigued. The way to get an audience interested is to shake the status quo. It happened with hal going nuts in Green lantern, Yellowjacket getting disgraced in Avengers and Stark falling off the wagon in Iron man. Fans might be annoyed but they won't turn away. Sometimes they do. Wonder Dog eating Marvin and mauling Wendy in Teen Titans only served to speed up that title's decline. She-Hulk going all dark and grim as a bounty hunter when PAD took over from Dan Slott drove that title (which had had very stable sales previously, being a rare light-hearted haven during the dark Millar/Bendis age) into the ground very quickly. Making the Cassandra Cain Batgirl a junkie under Deathstroke's control was one of the most ridicules stories of the time and hurt sales more than it helped and was quickly (and awkwardly) fixed.
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2014 3:05:09 GMT -5
The way to get an audience interested is to shake the status quo. It happened with hal going nuts in Green lantern, Yellowjacket getting disgraced in Avengers and Stark falling off the wagon in Iron man. Fans might be annoyed but they won't turn away. Sometimes they do. Wonder Dog eating Marvin and mauling Wendy in Teen Titans only served to speed up that title's decline. She-Hulk going all dark and grim as a bounty hunter when PAD took over from Dan Slott drove that title (which had had very stable sales previously, being a rare light-hearted haven during the dark Millar/Bendis age) into the ground very quickly. Making the Cassandra Cain Batgirl a junkie under Deathstroke's control was one of the most ridicules stories of the time and hurt sales more than it helped and was quickly (and awkwardly) fixed. There's a fine line between shaking up the status quo and turning the characters into plot puppets and steering them into story territory that does not resonate with the basic core of the character. It's the double edged sword of shared sandbox characters. Sometimes the story ideas may be good in and of themselves, but a poor fit for the character they get grafted on to. For ever Demon in Bottle that shakes up the status quo and becomes a classic, you get far too many Teen Tony/Kang's bitch type stories that discard everything that works about a character just for shock and awe and the hope of a sales spike. Other times you get stories like Civil War, which could have been an interesting idea played out in the Marvel Universe, but grafting those viewpoints onto Steve and Tony the way they did, in such a ham-fisted manner that ignored who the core of those characters was, can do more harm than good in the long term in terms of losing vs. gaining readership. It's the dilemma of sandbox characters, you want growth and development, but you have to stay true to the core of the IP that has sustained it for so many years. It's both the strength and weakness of that type of storytelling. -M
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on May 19, 2014 10:22:49 GMT -5
Was there a point or turn of events that was a driving point for Max to kill Beetle? Or was it just shock writing? I'd read Infinite Crisis again but if it's anything like the first read I had no clue what was going on and what the point was. COIE still does the same to me as far as continuity history but I still enjoyed the story.
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Post by the4thpip on May 19, 2014 11:03:02 GMT -5
Was there a point or turn of events that was a driving point for Max to kill Beetle? Or was it just shock writing? I'd read Infinite Crisis again but if it's anything like the first read I had no clue what was going on and what the point was. COIE still does the same to me as far as continuity history but I still enjoyed the story. IIRC, there was no prior warning, it was completely out of left field and then they added insult to injury by retconning Max into always having been an evil mastermind who had orchestrated the League to be laughable during the Giffen/DeMatteis era to make them less respected or something (just ignore the fact that they still beat some major threats in between the laughs).
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Post by Icctrombone on May 19, 2014 11:24:06 GMT -5
I get the feeling that TPTB never really liked the baa ha era of the JLA. They didn't mind making as much money off of it as they could but it made their heroes kinda silly.
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Post by Pharozonk on May 19, 2014 20:01:11 GMT -5
I get the feeling that TPTB never really liked the baa ha era of the JLA. They didn't mind making as much money off of it as they could but it made their heroes kinda silly. That would explain why Morrison's JLA run was stripped of the heavy comedy and focused on straight forward super-heroics.
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Post by Icctrombone on May 20, 2014 6:22:02 GMT -5
Death # 16 Phantom lady is penetrated ..uh Impaled by Deathstroke in Infinite Crisis #1 . Phil Jimenez/ Andy Lanning
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Post by the4thpip on May 20, 2014 9:22:50 GMT -5
I get the feeling that TPTB never really liked the baa ha era of the JLA. They didn't mind making as much money off of it as they could but it made their heroes kinda silly. That would explain why Morrison's JLA run was stripped of the heavy comedy and focused on straight forward super-heroics. The unpopular runs in between Giffen/DeMatteis and Morrison had already gotten rid of most of the humor. Gerard Jones et al.
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Post by the4thpip on May 20, 2014 9:35:34 GMT -5
Kodak moments #5: Being that guy in Spider-Man's armpit during a historic first.
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Post by Icctrombone on May 22, 2014 19:33:14 GMT -5
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Post by Icctrombone on May 22, 2014 21:09:34 GMT -5
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Post by Icctrombone on May 23, 2014 6:05:30 GMT -5
I promise to get on another theme other than Death. LOL
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Post by Hoosier X on May 23, 2014 10:14:32 GMT -5
I'm torn between sadness for Flower and Kamandi ...
and on the other hand, I'm trying not to laugh at the out-of-context interpretation of page 21, panel 4.
Ornery beasts, indeed!
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Post by Icctrombone on May 23, 2014 21:16:19 GMT -5
I'm torn between sadness for Flower and Kamandi ... and on the other hand, I'm trying not to laugh at the out-of-context interpretation of page 21, panel 4. Ornery beasts, indeed! As a youngin' my eyes curved around that hair many a time.
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Post by Icctrombone on May 23, 2014 21:20:43 GMT -5
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