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Post by berkley on Aug 20, 2019 5:33:48 GMT -5
I think King misconstrues the whole Scott Free vs Orion dynamic, mostly on the Orion side, and that's an issue because the Orion character is one of the most important pieces of the whole New Gods puzzle.
I know that to a lot of comics fans this sounds just like every complaint they've ever heard about "Batman can beat anyone with enough prep time!" or "Superman would never do this or that", but it really isn't: the New Gods or Fourth World or whatever you want to call it was built on a pretty obvious and specific set of ideas, largely embodied in the major characters - so if the writer doesn't get those characters right it's a problem. The pieces all interlock and if one is twisted out of shape it the whole thing is fatally compromised.
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Post by rberman on Aug 20, 2019 7:41:00 GMT -5
I think King misconstrues the whole Scott Free vs Orion dynamic, mostly on the Orion side, and that's an issue because the Orion character is one of the most important pieces of the whole New Gods puzzle. I know that to a lot of comics fans this sounds just like every complaint they've ever heard about "Batman can beat anyone with enough prep time!" or "Superman would never do this or that", but it really isn't: the New Gods or Fourth World or whatever you want to call it was built on a pretty obvious and specific set of ideas, largely embodied in the major characters - so if the writer doesn't get those characters right it's a problem. The pieces all interlock and if one is twisted out of shape it the whole thing is fatally compromised. Within the logic of this particular story. King has a "get out of continuity free" card since we're only seeing what Scott thinks of Orion: as a bully. The "real Orion" never appears in this story, any more than Scott and Barda "really" have Jack Kirby for their son in the DC Universe. King is certainly not exploring the usual Fourth World territory of "Odin raises the son of his enemy." Rather, he uses select elements in a sort of veiled autobiography, just as he did before in Omega Men, The Vision, and The Sheriff of Babylon.And Brutalis is partly right. King is very interested in dialogue. He's not writing an adventure story, and his work will not be everyone's cup of tea. |
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Post by brutalis on Aug 20, 2019 7:54:09 GMT -5
King did his own thing with New Gods, which is fair enough. But if you are going to "change" Kirby concepts into fitting your own agenda then why not simply do your own characters? Everything about Mister Miracle just felt wrong for me. Scott Free. The name personifies the character and Kirby meant for him to be the opposite of everything Darkseid attempted. Scott literally and figuratively ESCAPES and in doing so he begins a chain reaction FREEING Barda and others, proving that Darkseid is not as inevitable as he may seem and providing hope and light against the deep dark foreboding blackness that might consume us. Committing suicide? Broken and depressed and defeated heroes? This is not the vision and positive outlook and grandeur of which Kirby would wish to inspire us all with.
There were only 2 things I found interesting within the series (yes I did read it and quickly got rid of it) and that was Uncle Funky Flashman the babysitter and the prophecy/concept that Orion in the end, defeats his father Darkseid striking even from death. Other than that I don't think the series served the Kirby characters very well at all.
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Post by rberman on Aug 20, 2019 9:14:10 GMT -5
I liked King’s take lot, but I have no childhood nostalgia factor for Kirby’s work, which I read much more recently. I can try to put myself in your position by imagining an X-Men story where Peter Rasputin became a terrorist, or Kitty Pride became a stripper, etc. I even made a stinkyface when Claremont wrote Kitty as a Coyote Ugly bartender skank. But Scott Free, from my reading of Kirby, was a pretty two dimensional character summed up as “two-panel escapes.” I know more was done with him later by others.
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Post by berkley on Aug 20, 2019 20:10:02 GMT -5
It isn't really a question of nostalgia, in my view: it's more that I see Kirby's New Gods as a whole thing in itself and if you're going to try to sell me an updated version or new interpretation of it, the first thing I'm going to look for is how the creators engage with the ideas underpinning it. If they don't engage with those ideas, or if they seem to have a poor grasp of them, or simply not to be much interested in them then, like brutalis, I'm going to wonder why they bothered using them in the first place.
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Post by rberman on Aug 21, 2019 0:06:50 GMT -5
It isn't really a question of nostalgia, in my view: it's more that I see Kirby's New Gods as a whole thing in itself and if you're going to try to sell me an updated version or new interpretation of it, the first thing I'm going to look for is how the creators engage with the ideas underpinning it. If they don't engage with those ideas, or if they seem to have a poor grasp of them, or simply not to be much interested in them then, like brutalis, I'm going to wonder why they bothered using them in the first place. Eh, characters do get radically reimagined sometimes. The bottom line for me is wherpther the new version is done well enough to justify it. |
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Post by berkley on Aug 21, 2019 0:50:18 GMT -5
It isn't really a question of nostalgia, in my view: it's more that I see Kirby's New Gods as a whole thing in itself and if you're going to try to sell me an updated version or new interpretation of it, the first thing I'm going to look for is how the creators engage with the ideas underpinning it. If they don't engage with those ideas, or if they seem to have a poor grasp of them, or simply not to be much interested in them then, like brutalis, I'm going to wonder why they bothered using them in the first place. Eh, characters do get radically reimagined sometimes. The bottom line for me is wherpther the new version is done well enough to justify it. Sure - and we judge those reimaginings in various ways. You can reimagine James Bond as an American soccer mom if you want to and it might even be a good story in itself - but if you try to sell it to me as a James Bond story I'm going to be pretty sceptical. |
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Post by rberman on Aug 21, 2019 8:05:24 GMT -5
Eh, characters do get radically reimagined sometimes. The bottom line for me is wherpther the new version is done well enough to justify it. Sure - and we judge those reimaginings in various ways. You can reimagine James Bond as an American soccer mom if you want to and it might even be a good story in itself - but if you try to sell it to me as a James Bond story I'm going to be pretty sceptical. Skepticism is fine on the front end. For me at the moment, Tom King has produced the most interesting Mister Miracle story, though granted I have a small data set. |
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