Comic Book ... Booking

[Guest Goodear]

I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with the little wrestling convention where if you run a certain angle that you shouldn't do the same sort of again for a certain amount of time (say a year). It keeps the whole thing a little more fresh and less repetitive so you don't see someone new stealing Kurt Angle's medals every week. Anyway, I was thinking about comic books and thought that they should try to come up with some similar kind of rules so they don't keep doing the same things over and over again... Here's a list.

 

MARVEL

 

The X-Men being hunted by humans because they're damn dirty MUTANTS! With a minor amendment that not every human on the face of the planet having killed at least one mutant and/or saying something about stinking muties within earshot of a mutant character.

 

Wolverine standing there like a freaking moron and letting someone shoot him in the face since he's got the healing factor to live through it.

 

Daredevil getting yet another love interest creating the grand total of about a hundred.

 

The Fantastic Four being unavailable to a single hero because they're out of town. Are they ever in town when an unstopable killing machine is after Spider-Man or anyone?

 

DC

 

A world destroying monster of intergalactic power is stopped on earth. You'd think the first dozen of those would provide a clue to the cosmic powers to maybe eat Saturn first.

 

An old character being brought back "better than ever" by giving them more powers.

 

Batman saves the world in JLA. Again.

 

Superman saves the world in a company wide crossover. Again.

 

A company wide crossover where thousands of people are killed on panel. But the next week, everyone is perfectly comfortable. Again.

[Guest starvenger]

Hmmm,

 

>The X-Men being hunted by humans because they're damn dirty MUTANTS! With a minor amendment that not every human on the face of the planet having killed at least one mutant and/or saying something about stinking muties within earshot of a mutant character.

You know, if you take away the fact that people are afraid of mutants you're left with a pretty boring set of books. Being on the outside, looking in is what makes them interesting. I actually wouldn't mind it if they cranked up the paranoia a bit more, to be honest.

 

>Wolverine standing there like a freaking moron and letting someone shoot him in the face since he's got the healing factor to live through it.

Chuck Austen addressed this in the current Uncanny story arc. Wolverine gets his ass handed to him because he's too dependant on the healing factor...

 

>Daredevil getting yet another love interest creating the grand total of about a hundred.

You'd think that Murdock would at least hook Foggy up with some of them, no?

 

>The Fantastic Four being unavailable to a single hero because they're out of town. Are they ever in town when an unstopable killing machine is after Spider-Man or anyone?

Nope. Bet the Avengers are glad that they have them (well, not Johnny) as a reserve member...

 

A world destroying monster of intergalactic power is stopped on earth. You'd think the first dozen of those would provide a clue to the cosmic powers to maybe eat Saturn first.

You'd also think that super-villains would stop revealing their plot to James Bond, but that never happens, does it?

 

As for the others, well, I can't exactly refute them and/or have something witty to say...

[Guest HellSpawn]

You are right.

I said something similar about the DD thing in my DD#41 Jan review.

[Guest Sassquatch]

You want recycled storylines from 5, 10, 20 years ago?

 

I could go on for pages about how most of today's current writers are hacks or how they are overrated for retelling stories that someone better than they are could have told if they had been friends with the right people.

 

Comic books are worse than wrestling at times when it comes to rehashing old storylines used by writers from the past which were successful.

 

An expression I like to use when describing most of today's books:

 

"Same old crap, just a different color."

[Guest pochorenella]

An old character being brought back "better than ever" by giving them more powers

 

This has always bothered me with DC, specially with characters like Aquaman, Batgirl, Guy Gardner, and to a certain degree, Wonder Woman. Suddenly Aquaman could also control humans with his telepathy, and he's this awesome warrior with such anger that he can defeat Prince Namor by throwing a whale on top of him.

 

And Wonder Woman? Suddenly she's stronger or as strong as Hercules. Why the hell does she need those bracelets for anymore? One of her gimmicks was that she could deflect anything with them, now why would she need them if she's that strong?

Also why does she need that invisible plane if she can fly and move as fast as Hermes/Mercury? Is she faster than Superman or something?

Batgirl (either version)? All total experts on hand to hand combat, I'm sure either one of them could defeat an entire army by their lonesome if they wanted.

 

And don't get me started on that overrated Martian Manhunter.

 

Come on, DC! Stop trying to make each and every hero stronger and more powerful than God!

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

This is why everyone loves batman so much. There's no need to improve on him; as a character, he's perfect. His supporting cast used to be great as well.

 

Don't even get me started on how amazing his Rogue's Gallery is.

[Guest Goodear]

This is why everyone loves batman so much. There's no need to improve on him; as a character, he's perfect. His supporting cast used to be great as well.

 

Don't even get me started on how amazing his Rogue's Gallery is.

They have done quite a job on Batman too as far as making him all powerful while not giving him any "powers". I mean just once, I would love a question to come up in JLA that Batman can't answer. They write him as an all knowing superbeing who knows everything, all the time... and its annoying.

 

He's much more human in his own commics and written better there where his rougues work extremely well as challenges for him. They would get beaten up in four seconds by JLA Bats.

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

But that's just an ironic device. Batman; the JLA'er with no God-like pwers, is really the most powerful.

 

It's a reaffirmation of the depth of human potential. It's also quite sad, because if we had more guys like batman, we wouldn't NEED the JLA.

[Guest Sassquatch]

You're overlooking one thing:

 

Batman *would* get sluaghtered if he faced someone like Doomsday, Darkseid, Extant, Eclipso or someone else of the like.

 

They do have their weaknesses but you will be hard pressed to find Batman being able to scout those weaknesses out once they are decimating everything and everyone in their paths.

 

Superman does not possess the killer instinct that the beings listed above do because he was not born into a life where killing others was the norm or was corrupted by birth.

 

I love Batman as much as the next Bat fan in line but I'm not going to go out of my way and actually suggest that he could take down one of the cosmic monsters of the universe who have handed the JLA, Superman, Wonder Woman and the JSA their ass's.

 

Batman is damn good but he's not that good to be taking down guys on Apokolips.

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

Batman *would* get sluaghtered if he faced someone like Doomsday, Darkseid, Extant, Eclipso or someone else of the like.

 

One of these things is not the others, one of things doesn't belong.

 

Batman HAS taken down Eclipso, (The Brave and the Bold) he held his own against The Hulk in their cross-over, (Leading me to believe he could find a way to contain Doomsday until furthur help could arrive.) and I have NO IDEA who Extant is.

 

As for guys on Apokolips, I remember one quote from an arc of JLA where one of the New Gods says:

 

BATMAN? He's just a man! A fragile, puny, creature! What can he do?

 

Superman's response?

 

Yeah, he's just a man... the most dangerous man on Earth.

 

The brilliance of Batman is that encapsulates the fullest extent of human potential. To try and say "He couldn't do this, or he couldn't do that." robs the character of that greatness. I choose to believe that Batman could find a way out of almost any concievable situation.... just that sometimes he would need help to do it.

[Guest Sassquatch]

One of these things is not the others, one of things doesn't belong.

 

Batman HAS taken down Eclipso, (The Brave and the Bold) he held his own against The Hulk in their cross-over, (Leading me to believe he could find a way to contain Doomsday until furthur help could arrive.) and I have NO IDEA who Extant is.

 

As for guys on Apokolips, I remember one quote from an arc of JLA where one of the New Gods says:

 

You're overlooking one vital characteristic that the Pre-Crisis Eclipso and the Hulk lack in which the villains I named off do have:

 

They are not afraid to kill anyone or destroy anything in their paths.

 

Eclipso has come a *long* way from his days of when he was a troubled scientist with a curse placed upon him and would try to fight his darker side whenever the two would cross into one another. Eclipso has emerged as one of the DCU's most remorseless and blood thirsty war mongers in the last 10 or so years. A fight between Batman and the modern day Eclipso would look vastly different today than the fight they had in B&B.

 

Doomsday is not the Hulk so you're only kidding yourself if you think that Batman could actually survive an outing with Doomsday who is a bloodthirsty monster with no remorse or conscious. Fortunately for Batman the Hulk had both of those qualities about him which stopped him from actually trying to kill Batman.

 

Darkseid and Batman would be an interesting fight from a styles contrast point of view but in the end, the man from Apokolips is the winner.

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

One of these things is not the others, one of things doesn't belong.

 

Batman HAS taken down Eclipso, (The Brave and the Bold) he held his own against The Hulk in their cross-over, (Leading me to believe he could find a way to contain Doomsday until furthur help could arrive.) and I have NO IDEA who Extant is.

 

As for guys on Apokolips, I remember one quote from an arc of JLA where one of the New Gods says:

 

You're overlooking one vital characteristic that the Pre-Crisis Eclipso and the Hulk lack in which the villains I named off do have:

 

They are not afraid to kill anyone or destroy anything in their paths.

 

Eclipso has come a *long* way from his days of when he was a troubled scientist with a curse placed upon him and would try to fight his darker side whenever the two would cross into one another. Eclipso has emerged as one of the DCU's most remorseless and blood thirsty war mongers in the last 10 or so years. A fight between Batman and the modern day Eclipso would look vastly different today than the fight they had in B&B.

 

Doomsday is not the Hulk so you're only kidding yourself if you think that Batman could actually survive an outing with Doomsday who is a bloodthirsty monster with no remorse or conscious. Fortunately for Batman the Hulk had both of those qualities about him which stopped him from actually trying to kill Batman.

 

Darkseid and Batman would be an interesting fight from a styles contrast point of view but in the end, the man from Apokolips is the winner.

It's interesting, because if batman had the fullest extent of his arsenal at his disposal, I don't think Doomsday could win.

 

Wayne is a multi-billionaire. I'm pretty sure if he could destroy the JLA if he really wanted to, he could come up with anti-Doomsday plan if need be, and have the resources to implement it. But as I said before, the solution may require more men than just him.

 

Also, Batman could concievably wear out Doomsday as he has done to so many big men before.

[Guest Sassquatch]

We saw how easy it was for Superman, the Justice League and other various heroes to wear down Doomsday when they tried.

 

 

Each time Doomsday is defeated, whatever it was that caused him to lose, is nullified and is useless against him the next time he fights again.

[Guest areacode212]

I have NO IDEA who Extant is.

Remember Armageddon 2001, the 1991 crossover where Waverider came from 10 years in the future, where the world was ruled by an evil ex-superhero named Monarch? Who turned out to be Hank Hall, aka Hawk? Well, he eventually changed his name to Extant and was billed as the main villain of Zero Hour, until it was revealed that he was really just Hal Jordan's lackey. After that, he didn't really do a whole lot except pop up every once in a while and make trouble for people like Impulse. I think he got killed off in JSA some time back, but you know how these deaths are.

[Guest Some Guy]

Wouldn't Darkseid just shoot Batman with his eye beams or whatever and kill him in 2 seconds? batman is human and could not move fast enough to dodge them. Same goes for Doomsday, who was too fast for Superman to dodge. Seems to me that Bats would get killed if he fucked with those two.

[Guest Sassquatch]

Batman would give both Darkseid and Doomsday a harder time in combat then the way Some Guy described his possible battles with them, but in the end, both of the monsters would beat the Bat.