Roquefort Raider
CCF Mod Squad
Modus omnibus in rebus
Posts: 17,170
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 7, 2024 8:14:00 GMT -5
"Mangez-vous" actually means "Eat yourself".
That's not going to help with Howard's appetite, since he doesn't eat duck!
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Post by supercat on Aug 7, 2024 11:34:33 GMT -5
I feel like I'm seeing more bad pressing jobs with back issues sneaking into my purchases. Particularly hard folds that don't really "go away" because you've flattened the heck out of them, the paper is creased at that point and honestly they look kind of unnatural to me because they often don't really flatten all the way either. Cover scans don't often give this away for me when I'm shopping online, and I think a lot of sellers consider this widely acceptable and don't care (or maybe even notice in the first place). I know the slabbers allow this all day long and it's a common technique people try to use to get a better number, but man, I wish people would leave the raw books alone. I just want original books, warts and all.
It makes me just want to stick with trade collections at times.
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Post by silverdollar22 on Aug 7, 2024 14:40:55 GMT -5
Ra's is, if not the worst Batman villain, then certainly an epitome of the kind of creator that stretches the mythos until it becomes something unrecognizable. His personal aesthetic is pretty neat, but it doesn't belong within a nautical mile of Batman's world.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Aug 7, 2024 15:25:55 GMT -5
Ra's is, if not the worst Batman villain, then certainly an epitome of the kind of creator that stretches the mythos until it becomes something unrecognizable. His personal aesthetic is pretty neat, but it doesn't belong within a nautical mile of Batman's world. Hmm, I think I'm the polar opposite. The Ra's stories are among my favorite Batman tales and I'd rather read 100 Ra's stories than another Joker story. -M
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Post by silverdollar22 on Aug 7, 2024 16:34:01 GMT -5
Ra's is, if not the worst Batman villain, then certainly an epitome of the kind of creator that stretches the mythos until it becomes something unrecognizable. His personal aesthetic is pretty neat, but it doesn't belong within a nautical mile of Batman's world. Hmm, I think I'm the polar opposite. The Ra's stories are among my favorite Batman tales and I'd rather read 100 Ra's stories than another Joker story. -M If you retool Batman into something like a professional spy/adventurer who specializes in globetrotting threats, I'd agree (probably). As-is, Ra's goes so far out of his way to make literally every one of Batman's trappings ( beginning with the secret ID) so pointless that what's left is... actually, what is left? He's competent? He's determined? He's Badass™? These are traits every action hero gets handed at the front door.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 7, 2024 16:46:46 GMT -5
Hmm, I think I'm the polar opposite. The Ra's stories are among my favorite Batman tales and I'd rather read 100 Ra's stories than another Joker story. -M If you retool Batman into something like a professional spy/adventurer who specializes in globetrotting threats, I'd agree (probably). As-is, Ra's goes so far out of his way to make literally every one of Batman's trappings ( beginning with the secret ID) so pointless that what's left is... actually, what is left? He's competent? He's determined? He's Badass™? These are traits every action hero gets handed at the front door. That's the thing; when Denny O'Neil created Ra's, Batman was a globetrotting hero. It was my favorite iteration of the comic and I love the Ra's stories because of that. However, by the 1980s, the only writer who seemed to be able to do justice to the character was Mike Barr.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Aug 7, 2024 16:48:31 GMT -5
Hmm, I think I'm the polar opposite. The Ra's stories are among my favorite Batman tales and I'd rather read 100 Ra's stories than another Joker story. -M If you retool Batman into something like a professional spy/adventurer who specializes in globetrotting threats, I'd agree (probably). As-is, Ra's goes so far out of his way to make literally every one of Batman's trappings ( beginning with the secret ID) so pointless that what's left is... actually, what is left? He's competent? He's determined? He's Badass™? These are traits every action hero gets handed at the front door. Or, the true test of a character (or hero) is can they function outside their comfort zone? If they can't, they become a one dimensional character and is likely to stagnate and die. The strength of characters like Batman (and Superman and Spider-Man etc.) and the secret to their longevity is their ability to function in stories that take them outside their comfort zone, outside the single dimension and expand their milieu not become confined by it. If you cannot do that, characters will slowly die, strangled by the sameness of their stories which leads to blandness and boring repetitive stories. Which is fine if your audience cycles out and renews every 6-8 years the way comics did in the 40-60s, but once the audience starts staying longer, i.e. your audience becomes fans, the stories have to evolve to something different or it will stagnate in the eyes of most of the audience. O'Neil and Adams and company were evolving the Batman mythos in such a way in the early Bronze Age when Ras and other stories were being written because there was a need for Batman's mythos to continue to evolve. -M
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Post by tonebone on Aug 7, 2024 16:49:33 GMT -5
Ra's is, if not the worst Batman villain, then certainly an epitome of the kind of creator that stretches the mythos until it becomes something unrecognizable. His personal aesthetic is pretty neat, but it doesn't belong within a nautical mile of Batman's world. Hmm, I think I'm the polar opposite. The Ra's stories are among my favorite Batman tales and I'd rather read 100 Ra's stories than another Joker story. -M They could permanently retire Joker now... and I would not miss him ever. There are already enough (better) stories.
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Post by silverdollar22 on Aug 7, 2024 16:52:57 GMT -5
Hmm, I think I'm the polar opposite. The Ra's stories are among my favorite Batman tales and I'd rather read 100 Ra's stories than another Joker story. -M They could permanently retire Joker now... and I would not miss him ever. There are already enough (better) stories. Honestly? As a lifelong Joker fan I agree. No Joker writer's been able to make me crack a smile since Dini in the mid-00s (let's not talk about Dini after that...).
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Post by supercat on Aug 7, 2024 16:54:56 GMT -5
Here's a storyline idea to tidy all that up:
Ra's Al Ghul was the Joker all along!
Hey, it worked for Gaiman with Alfred...
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Post by wildfire2099 on Aug 7, 2024 17:19:36 GMT -5
I generally like Ra's but he can definitely be written poorly. Too often these days writers trying to make bad guys seem like they're really good, just a big misguided. For comics to work. so people have to be the bad guy. We can only have Civil War stories so often....
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Aug 7, 2024 17:29:28 GMT -5
I've seen Batman travel to Hungary to fight vampires in his earliest appearances and impersonate Russian politicians in Moscow on international television using his Mission Impossible facemasks. Even when his back was broken he went globetrotting to England and Latin America to defeat an international terrorist. Take away all the Ra's stories and 99% of his globe-trotting and spy stories would remain.
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Post by silverdollar22 on Aug 7, 2024 19:55:01 GMT -5
I've seen Batman travel to Hungary to fight vampires in his earliest appearances and impersonate Russian politicians in Moscow on international television using his Mission Impossible facemasks. Even when his back was broken he went globetrotting to England and Latin America to defeat an international terrorist. Take away all the Ra's stories and 99% of his globe-trotting and spy stories would remain. I don't mind Batman having globetrotting adventures when they're one-offs—it's Ra's being a constant presence that bugs me (especially when 99% of writers won't let Batman even catch him at the end of an arc; it makes the Joker-Arkham combo look downright consequential). Combined with the fact that his entire deal makes Bruce's secret ID pointless, you have to wonder what difference it would make if the heroes of these stories was, say, Richard Dragon or King Faraday. Believe it or not, the one time he truly, genuinely worked for me on a "this story was brilliant and unforgettable and couldn't have worked with any other villain" level was his appearance in Batman Beyond: as a haunting reminder of what happens to Great Men like Bruce when they start thinking their own accomplishments—past, present and future—are all that matter.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Aug 7, 2024 20:07:27 GMT -5
I've seen Batman travel to Hungary to fight vampires in his earliest appearances and impersonate Russian politicians in Moscow on international television using his Mission Impossible facemasks. Even when his back was broken he went globetrotting to England and Latin America to defeat an international terrorist. Take away all the Ra's stories and 99% of his globe-trotting and spy stories would remain. I don't mind Batman having globetrotting adventures when they're one-offs—it's Ra's being a constant presence that bugs me (especially when 99% of writers won't let Batman even catch him at the end of an arc; it makes the Joker-Arkham combo look downright consequential). Combined with the fact that his entire deal makes Bruce's secret ID pointless, you have to wonder what difference it would make if the heroes of these stories was, say, Richard Dragon or King Faraday. Believe it or not, the one time he truly, genuinely worked for me on a "this story was brilliant and unforgettable and couldn't have worked with any other villain" level was his appearance in Batman Beyond: as a haunting reminder of what happens to Great Men like Bruce when they start thinking their own accomplishments—past, present and future—are all that matter. Unless you are doing a period piece, modern tech like facial recognition software, voice analyzers, and tracking of expenditures and money trails he would leave, Batman's identity has become pointless regardless of whether one or several villains know it. It's a relic of bygone days, not because of Ras but because the world we live in and the way it works has evolved. There's ways to try to maintain anonymity that could work, but not with either or both Bruce Wayne and Batman being public figures. -M
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Post by Cei-U! on Aug 7, 2024 20:33:58 GMT -5
Ra's is, if not the worst Batman villain, then certainly an epitome of the kind of creator that stretches the mythos until it becomes something unrecognizable. His personal aesthetic is pretty neat, but it doesn't belong within a nautical mile of Batman's world. Hmm, I think I'm the polar opposite. The Ra's stories are among my favorite Batman tales and I'd rather read 100 Ra's stories than another Joker story. -M What he said. Ra's is my favorite Bat-foe after The Scarecrow (and both were terribly misused in Batman Begins).
Cei-U! I summon the Demon's Head!
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