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Post by sunofdarkchild on Apr 8, 2018 16:08:52 GMT -5
My one big gripe with Grant Morrison is how he tends to take complex villains and turn them into mustache twirling Nazis and Bond villains. What he did with Magneto was easily the worst part of his X-Men run, though whoever decided to undo Magneto's reform and make him a villain again in the late 80s/early 90s also really messed up. Ra's al Ghul was brought up here, and if anything Talia was even more complicated, being torn between her love for her father and Batman, while also being torn between their respective ideals. Morrison screwed that up royally and I doubt her character will ever recover from his assassination of her. This is a common complaint about Morrison, but it seems that people either forget or ignore that he was writing Magneto and Talia very similarly to how they had been portrayed shortly before his work with them ("Eve of Destruction" and "Death and the Maidens" respectively). He could have gone with the (preferred by many) "anti-hero" or "sympathetic" route with either character, but that would have gone against then-current continuity.
Magneto, yes. With Talia she only became a full-on 'villain' because she was repeatedly killed and resurrected in the lazarus pits which shattered her mind. Before that she was a full-on ally of Batman and Superman in taking down Lex Luthor and in the Hush storyline. Before Morrison she was a victim, and he had her cross the moral event horizon to the point where the entire point of her character is impossible to bring back now. He even retconned their marriage into being date-rape, a change even he admitted was a mistake. Magneto was indeed a full villain for a number of years before Morrison got a hold of him, but the background Claremont had created still humanized him and gave the sense that he had the potential to have been a good man. When you have to retcon a story so that the main villain of all people wasn't actually there you've gone too far. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 8, 2018 21:56:00 GMT -5
This is a common complaint about Morrison, but it seems that people either forget or ignore that he was writing Magneto and Talia very similarly to how they had been portrayed shortly before his work with them ("Eve of Destruction" and "Death and the Maidens" respectively). He could have gone with the (preferred by many) "anti-hero" or "sympathetic" route with either character, but that would have gone against then-current continuity.
Magneto, yes. With Talia she only became a full-on 'villain' because she was repeatedly killed and resurrected in the lazarus pits which shattered her mind. Before that she was a full-on ally of Batman and Superman in taking down Lex Luthor and in the Hush storyline. Before Morrison she was a victim, and he had her cross the moral event horizon to the point where the entire point of her character is impossible to bring back now. He even retconned their marriage into being date-rape, a change even he admitted was a mistake. Magneto was indeed a full villain for a number of years before Morrison got a hold of him, but the background Claremont had created still humanized him and gave the sense that he had the potential to have been a good man. When you have to retcon a story so that the main villain of all people wasn't actually there you've gone too far. Talia as originally created and depicted, was Fah Lo Suee tp Ra's al Ghul's Fu Manchu. Fah Lo Suee is Fu Manchu's daughter and is also in love with Nayland Smith, F's mortal enemy. Her loyalties are often shifting, sometimes standing with her father, sometimes aiding her love. She is the template for characters like the Dragon Lady, in Terry & The Pirates, and Catwoman. In Dennis O'Neil's stories, that is her role. Others have written her as more victim in need of rescue, or meek follower of her father, while better ones have her as a strong characterwho is torn between love and loyalty to her father. Turning her into pure villain removes too many of her more interesting elements, in my mind. |
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