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Interesting. Because I just read #1 of both and enjoyed Batwing more. Justice League Beyond is also very cool.

What made you like Batwing more than Birds of Prey?

Obviously, I disagree. Batwing is grotesque. I acknowledge that some can find that pleasant. I know I like grotesque things in other circumstances, for example.

But it seems to me that, at least since Frank Miller, the Bat-books have been escalating in terms of brutality according to the misplaced sentiment that this characteristic earns them legitimacy. Chris Nolan's films are the most famous example but even he was just following the comics.

Gotham, as portrayed since the 1980s, doesn't make sense in a nation that also contains Metropolis. Despite the efforts of Batman and Wayne Enterprises, the conditions are (when convenient to the story line, which is often) basically third-world. The No Man's Land storyline (1999), involving the United States disowning Gotham, simply took note of this development. Of course, that storyline had a major influence on Nolan's Dark Knight Rises.

You can see why Grant Morrison, when re-inventing the Batmen of All Nations concept vis-a-vis Batman, Inc., would pick the Congo as the home of his "Batman of Africa." (And note, there was no Batman of Africa in the '50s.) Judd Winick, whose trade is dramatizing reality (see MTV's Real World), is right at home working with plot elements like child soldiers.

You'll recall that Winnick also wrote the Red Hood arc, which is a "first-world" fantasy vision of child soldier PTSD. It's a great story and I really enjoyed it. But there's something distasteful about working through such concepts in a more literalized way with superheroes. The child soldiers of the Third World are, after all, not the wards of eccentric billionaires ... but, of course, as soon as I type that, I realize I've given myself an example of the kind of repugnant irony that drove me away from Batwing. (To be fair, I guess men like Jospeh Kony aren't nearly as wealthy as Bruce Wayne.)

That's not to say that any irony is intended. Batwing is a very earnest title. It's been praised as "gritty" and "real." I've heard some readers claim that its setting lends "urgency." I just don't see it. Or rather, I see the attempt but i don't think it's comes out to anything "important" -- just more escalation.

The current Death of the Family arc has given us a number of issues with die-cut covers of the Joker's peeled-off face. This is actually a new height of depravity in the Bat-titles -- that's the most important reason they did it -- but it's hard to tell. It's just not much of a shock, which is frankly troubling. The pages of Batwing were the same for me.

Nolan's version of the Joker is kind of the personification of this escalation. I find myself wanting to ask him, "why so serious?"

Birds of Prey just wouldn't click with me. I like Black Canary in every animated incarnation (especially the recent one from Young Justice) but here she felt a bit lame. The artwork wasn't that impressive either. And apart from her, there weren't any characters in it I enjoy. Barbs doesn't count... anymore.


I have to mention that this is the first time I read something with Batwing in it. What I like about him is in fact, the setting. There were no child soldiers in the first issue, but I see your problem with it. When I really think about what I find appealing about this character, I come to the conclusion, that I like the idea of putting a larger-than-life superhero in a place which really is that bad in real life. You and me, we can't do anything about warlords and mass murder in Africa, but there is something cathartic about seeing a superhero take on these problems. Grotesque, probably, but also enjoyable on a certain level.

Intermission: I really hope I'm not stepping on any toes here. I'm afraid I might know enough about the character or the real world situation "down there", but I enjoy this kind of conversation about the medium. Anyway....

I just checked Batwings wikia page. Didn't know he was a child soldier. If they talk about it in the first issue I must've missed it.
Is it really that bad, that the author works with these issues? On a similar note, you might take offense on Django Unchained, which does something similar. You take a very real and dark fact from history, but give it a positive spin by adding a hero who gets to defeat the bad guys. Oversimplified (is that a real word?) sure, but again, for me this is a reason to enjoy the story.

One might also argue that Damian's origin is much more unrealistic, but yet no less disturbing. A 10 year old born and raised to kill. And kill he does.

Death of the Family just started for you, but it'll take some time till I get my turn with it. I'm reading the monthly series in German. I saw some of the Joker covers but apart from those I never felt the regular Batman stories threatened to drift off intro Miller-brutality.

And how is Nolan's Joker worse than the one from Alan Moore?

 Anung Un Rama wrote:
Is it really that bad, that the author works with these issues?

Nah, it's not "bad." I just don't like it. Big difference.

I'm kind of exhausted by the escalation I mentioned. It's not really too big of a deal and it doesn't prevent me from buying basically every Bat-title except Batwing every month. There is one issue nagging at me: I don't have kids and I'm not a prudish guy but it pains me to realize if I did have kids I wouldn't in good conscience be able to hand them any issue of any of the current Batman titles. That seems a shame.

 Anung Un Rama wrote:
One might also argue that Damian's origin is much more unrealistic, but yet no less disturbing. A 10 year old born and raised to kill. And kill he does.

Of course, there can be no mistaking Damien for anything possible in the real world. That's why he belongs to the World of Superheroes.

 Anung Un Rama wrote:
And how is Nolan's Joker worse than the one from Alan Moore?

It's not really a matter of better or worse. Like I said, Nolan was just following the way comics have gone since the 80s. Comic books have traditionaly been "ahead of" movies, although that seems to be less the case now than before.

 Anung Un Rama wrote:
You take a very real and dark fact from history, but give it a positive spin by adding a hero who gets to defeat the bad guys.

I understand why people like these "righteous revenge" type fantasies but they're rarely to my taste.

 DutchKillsRambo wrote:
On topic I've just started reading the whole Exiles series. Much underrated for Marvel in my opinion. Really love the issue where the entire West Coast of America is overrun by a mutant strain of Doc Connor's Lizardman virus. Really cool series overall.

I'm gonna do you a favor here-stop before Claremont starts in on it. Exiles is a great series, but once he starts, he begins removing characters and kicking them off the team and replacing them with characters he created. The earlier the Exiles, the better. I've read through the whole thing, and I agree-it is seriously cool. Just that Claremont does a bad job here-I like some of his work, but not on this.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

 DutchKillsRambo wrote:
On topic I've just started reading the whole Exiles series. Much underrated for Marvel in my opinion. Really love the issue where the entire West Coast of America is overrun by a mutant strain of Doc Connor's Lizardman virus. Really cool series overall.

I'm gonna do you a favor here-stop before Claremont starts in on it. Exiles is a great series, but once he starts, he begins removing characters and kicking them off the team and replacing them with characters he created. The earlier the Exiles, the better. I've read through the whole thing, and I agree-it is seriously cool. Just that Claremont does a bad job here-I like some of his work, but not on this.

I'm rereading so I'm fully aware the end wasn't as good as the beginning. Its actually one the few series I own from issue one through 87(?) I think, so almost the entirety. I still think it stands out highly for Marvel when you compare it other series of the same time period (Fantomex I'm looking at you). Not the best surely, but overall really, really fun I think. And to me thats what Marvel should be about. When I want serious I look for Vertigo or Image, mostly.

Nolan's films are pretty tame compared to the comics actually. They're just PG-13. The comics would R. But even when I was a kid they were pretty brutal too, although I'm sure they have escalated as well.

I think a cities like Gotham and Metropolis could exist in the same country. In fact that kind of disparity exists just within cities irl.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
But even when I was a kid they were pretty brutal too, although I'm sure they have escalated as welll.

That's exactly the problem with this escalation -- it does not seem to matter.

I'm no censor. If violence or sexuality is significant to the meaning of the story, then by all means print it. But if it serves no purpose, it becomes merely depraved. What do I mean by "no purpose"?

Interestingly, even as the Bat-titles have become more savage, the sales have not really increased and have actually steadily decreased.* Now, I'm not saying that the decline in comics sales is caused by the escalation. What I am saying is the escalation is doing nothing to prevent the decline in sales. It seems to me that the escalation is at this point a vain attempt to merely "keep up" with the market. And in fact, comics sold much better before Moore and Miller and others kicked off, unwittingly or otherwise, this escalation. I realize that sales don't necessarily match up to quality but I don't think the escalation has really delivered better stories, either. Grant Morrison, for example, has to my mind demonstrated that the wacky stories of the Silver Age are in their own way just as good as any of the grimmer fair created since.

Going back to Anung Un Rama's question, what makes Nolan's Joker worse than Moore's? Again, nothing. Moore's Joker sticks with us because it was very shocking at the time compared to other Batman titles. Similarly, Nolan's Joker stands out as shocking compared to Burton's Joker. But Nolan's Joker isn't shocking at all compared to Moore's Joker -- because Nolan was just following in Moore's footsteps. This is an example of how the escalation doesn't matter. Twenty five years ago, the Joker shot Babs in the spine and gak got serious. Today, the Joker has his face cut off and we barely react. It doesn't stand out. It's just more of the same. Turning it "up to eleven" doesn't matter because we're already deaf.

In this era, more of this kind of "grittiness" is not going to stand out. Cranking it up even further is just getting into bad taste. How are we going to shock them? Have the Joker sodomize a puppy or something? At what point do we say, "that's just unnecessary." It's not just boring; it's also stupid and gross. I don't need to declare that we have reached that point or that we're getting close to it. Just the fact that we're on that path is what repulses me.

What is really shocking today -- and I mean shocking in the sense of meaningful entertainment here, not just cranking it up -- is Adam West's Batman. That comes out of left field for people like me, who grew up in the shadow of the Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. To my mind, the camp wholesomeness of that show is delightfully entertaining. Yeah, it's dated but that point of view generally is what's interesting. So it's really no surprise that what got me back into comics is Grant Morrison's run on Batman because he was drawing from the Silver Age but doing stories that weren't just relics of times long past. He was doing stories for now that were inspired by something before The Dark Knight Returns and Batman Year One. It's fresh.

At the same time, Morrison's books aren't devoid of this escalation (they even sometimes get close to what I'd call flat out bad taste) and they certainly don't lack sex and violence. Just to go back to the earlier point, I'm not advocating censorship. Let's just have brutality in comic books have a meaningful purpose.

* Proof that this is complex situation: the reverse is true of the movies.

I agree about the escalation, that just seems to be the way of things. As for the correlation to declining sales I'm not so sure. Sales peaked around Spawn's heyday and that was a gratuitously violent comic. Generally, sex and violence sell, even if we've become more and more desensitized.

Manchu, have you ever watched The Brave and the Bold cartoon? You might like it.

I did love it and bought the DVDs!

They ran the Adam West Batman series when I was kid; didn't like them then, still don't now. I don't begrudge anyone for enjoying it, but I just never liked the aesthetic, even as a child. In the end, though, it was still Batman and it was on TV so I watched it anyway.

I them it when I was very young but I can't watch it now. I think Batman The Animated Series is one of the best shows ever though.

Young Justice is on ATM; and "Arsenal" has been added to the line-up.

Huzzah!

I need to ask a question.

I'm looking at a big list of upcoming Marvel comics and was wondering how this gets rationalised as one continuity with so many people writing it. Just using Wolverine as an example, we find the following:

Age of Ultron #6 - Wolverine goes on a quest.

Wolverine & The X-Men #27 - Wolverine continues his quest.

Wolverine #2 - Wolverine is tracking someone.

Savage Wolverine #4 - Wolverine is doing something in the Savage Lands.

Ultimate Comics Wolverine #3 - We learn about Wolverine's past (some more).

Wolverine & The X-Men #27 - Wolverine's half-brother defeats Wolverine.

Astonishing X-Men #61 - Wolverine says goodbye to someone important.

Wolverine MAX #6 - Wolverine heads to LA after doing something with Sabretooth.

Now, he can't do all of these things, and what happens in Wolverine & The X-Men #27 seems to directly impact All-New X-Men #10, Uncanny X-Men #4 and Uncanny X-Men #5.

So how do they track all of these? Let's assume that the one that says "Ultimate" is from the Ultimates universe (what do I know?) that still leaves 7 Wolvie story-lines, some of which tie into the Age of Ultron and others that... don't? Or do they?

How does this work?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Just using Wolverine as an example

Wolverine is the example. TVTropes even calls this "Wolverine Publicity".

The Ultimate (now Ultimate Comics) and MAX imprints are both outside of the mainstream continuity, but the others tend to just be handwaved with jokes, if mentioned at all.

There is a New character created in YJ! Not in the comics as far as I know.



So far the second half of the season is fantastic. I'm happy with all the added characters and love when they have members of the JL show up. Especially Captain Marvel (Shazam). I love how he really wants to be a part of the YJ team. I would love it if he somehow was able to make himself look younger to become Captain Marvel Jr.!

Wolverine jokes his super power is time management. Still, that's only 6 things. Most people can do 6 things in a month.

Young Justice really is the best superhero related thing on tv since Batman TAS. I can't handle the cliffhangers. The other Team. What happend to Aqualad. It's killing me.

 Anung Un Rama wrote:
Young Justice really is the best superhero related thing on tv since Batman TAS. I can't handle the cliffhangers. The other Team. What happend to Aqualad. It's killing me.

Give Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes a go. The show loosely follows the Avengers comics from beginning (modernized) through the Civil War and Secret Invasion story lines, and has humor and great character interaction-it shows the stories well, but alters the story just enough so that it's original for anyone who has read all the comics. The show really plays on the correct character personalities and truly shows the Avengers as they are. I highly recommend it-I think it's nearly on par with Batman: TAS.

And yes, I also love YJ.

No spoilers/reviews for "Arrow" tonight, other than to say that Ben Browder was in it.

He was fantastic.

Oh Lord help me but I'm starting to really want to read this:

Brian Wood wrote:When I was approached for this job, I took a couple of minutes to think about what Star Wars meant to me, in order to determine if I had anything to bring to the table. I saw Star Wars in the theater; an odd decision for my mother, who tended to err on the side of caution when exposing her five-year-old to the mass media. I, of course, got a bunch of Star Wars toys, collected full sets of playing cards, and reenacted Hoth battle scenes in the snowy woods of Vermont. I was hooked, like everyone was. I realized that for the last 35 years of my life, Star Wars has been there in the background of my mind, in deep storage, waiting for something.

So I said yes to the job, thinking that if I were ever to write a Star Wars comic, this would be it, one set in the original trilogy using these characters I knew, dealing with continuity I was comfortable with, and would have the simple and iconic title of Star Wars. My original pitch document tapped into that deep storage, bringing up phrases like “the Kuat Drive Yards” and “Lancer-class frigates” and the knowledge that X-wings were built by Incom and TIEs by Sienar and that R5 astromech droids are the ones with the flowerpot heads and the bad attitudes. I didn’t know I knew all that, but I did, and I relaxed into the job.

The story I’m writing sits in the narrative space between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. It actually starts days after the end of Hope, with a homeless and rather diminished Rebel fleet searching for a world upon which to establish a new base. The Empire, also wounded from Yavin, is doing whatever they can to keep the Rebels on the defensive. One Imperial officer, a new character called Bircher, seems to have a line on the Rebels’ plans and is making a habit of deploying squadrons of TIEs right where the Rebels drop out of light speed. Leia is tasked with creating a “stealth squadron” to figure out who’s selling them out to the Empire, and why.

This is a series heavy on space battles and snubfighter dogfights. A series that gets into the emotional states of our post-Tatooine, post-Alderaan, post-Yavin characters who have lost so much yet press on in their fight for freedom. Leia, especially, a very young woman with the burden of responsibility as the figurehead of the Rebellion, finds a lot of catharsis behind the stick of an X-wing.

From Yavin to Coruscant to Tatooine to Endor, from the hangars of the Devastator and the command decks of the massive Executor, this is the Star Wars I know best, the one that I’ve known for virtually my entire life. It’s a rare honor to receive a job like this, and this fan is giving it all he’s got.

Any of you guys picked up a copy or two?

Thought you were all sour on Star Wars. Guess they keep pulling you back in.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/01/29/young-justice-the-cartoon-the-toys-and-the-fans/

Does anyone have a copy of Batman #15 they'd be willing to part with? My local shop sold my pull copy because it had apparently been 3 weeks when I told them I wasn't going to be in the store for a few weeks, and to please hold everything I'd buy it upon my return last Friday.

Sadly I missed Action Comics and Batman #15, though I'm more concerned about Bats than Super

 reds8n wrote:
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/01/29/young-justice-the-cartoon-the-toys-and-the-fans/

Thanks reds! Say it ain't so! I love YJ. It's the best animated super-hero show I've seen in a long time. At least as far as DC goes.

Killed by poor toy sales ? Seems a bit odd.

Ah well, least there's the animated DVDs, Dark KNight returns part II is out soon IIRC.

Air time is like agricultural real estate. It's not enough that you want to spend time on the farm. It's also got to grow something. With cartoons, this means merchandising and especially toy sales. Did you ever see Ninjago? The series ran for two years ... and not because it was such a great show.

That just burns me, that they would do that. It's one of Cartoon Networks top shows but it doesn't matter because of toy sales! Sarcasm: Don't blame the boring toys, it must be the TV show.

Just heard about it hours ago and it makes me quite angry. Young Justice is brilliant and I would gladly buy it on DVD, (heck, I'd buy it on blu-ray) but it didn't get a release outside of the states.

Would I buy the toys? That really depends on the quality. There's also a really nice looking Nightwing figure from the Arkham City line.