The Big Picture: Done With Dark

[mikev7.0]

Comics are lost to me, I never really go into them past the funny pages of the sunday news.. If it were not for cartoons then I would know nothing about the Xmen, Superman or Batman. That being said why does every one feel the need to squeeze everything to fit a certain mold or market. Varrying tastes with different maturity levels are fine. Hell last night I watched some MLP, then finished the night off reading a novel about the fall of the Roman Republic.

I think with comic books and a lot of other intellectual property there is no need for a solid linear chronology. Not all batmans are the same. Darknight batman is not Arkham Asylum and I like that. Different takes on the same great source material.

Hee hee Nice! Reminds me of playing Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 and then grinding through a couple of more chapters of the Fountainhead! (thanks heaps for that by the way bob, seriously. Tough but good read, and definitely shows me where Ms. Rands head was.)

I also couldn't agree with you more about just tossing chronology as WELL as continuity, I love DC but if I have to hear them call their own work (Crisis on Infinite Earths) genius just ONE more time.... man I hate it when people blow their own horns (a lot) and expect it to have some credibility. It was a dodge. Plain and simple. It didn't even solve the problem of continuity or we wouldn't have Countdown, Infinite Crisis, 54 (named after the number of times they've used this dodge OR number of retcons per month take your pick) and who can forget the masterful compilation: No, really we mean it this time and we aren't laughing at you! It makes me glad that I learn about all of this stuff in second hand conversation and loans rather than spending my own cash on it, god I'd feel stupid! That can (and does) go for games!!

 

[jackpipsam]

"it came out in Australia first, for some reason"

is there an issue with that bob?

 

[TheEnglishman]

I'm sick of you ragging on the 90's. Especially their comics.... Especially, especially Spawn.

News flash.

The golden age of comics sucks donkey balls. The silver age sucked more of the same.

Completley wrong. As Batman: The Brave and the Bold has shown, shark-repelant and Detective Chimp rock!

Spoiler: Im not really sure if thats sarcasm

Sarcasm doesn't translate well in text.

I know, good thing I wasn't trying to be sarcastic this time.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and it's spiritual predesesor Adam West Batman are in my opinion brilliant, showing a character that is still definitly Batman and producing entertainment that is of top quality, proving that while dark can work, its not that neccesary and fun golden age camp can work just as well, if not better, as it will always lack Uncle Sam punching out aliens and Bat-Ape the crime fighting ape.

 

[TipsyPeaches]

I still don't get why people take superhero movies so seriously (bear with me on this one).

As Bob pointed out, there is usually some sort of underlying message in there; the relevant example to me would be Iron Man, as I am a complete Tony Stark fangirl. Yeah, in the comics he was a complete drunk, screwed everything up, and had to make a dramatic comeback. That's fine in a series that lasted ages, they had time to tell it.

and yeah, there is the underlying message in the movie too, and that's great and all, but I have never watched that movie and been concerned about that message. it was all about the overindulged playboy making a flying suit 'cos he had nothing better to do with his time and money, and it rocked. Fair enough if you wanna watch it for the message, but for me at least, these sort of films should be taken at face value, and be enjoyed for the spectacle that they are.

Now, someone, PLEASE, get Transformers away from Bay before he decides to make another one.

 

[WolfThomas]

This week; Bob contorts more of history to fit in with his opinions on the 90s! The US comics industry didn't "Almost kills its self" (well DC did) and i don't really think you can blame Todd Mcfarlane (actually the HBO series of Spawn from season 2 onwards is actually pretty special, worth a look IMO)

Umm yes it did. Marvel filed for bankruptcy and Valiant went under. The industry hasn't made the same amount of money in years.

Tv tropes has a pretty good article on it:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheGreatComicsCrashOf1996

Your quoting TV tropes? Really? o.0

No, I'm simply stating that they have a surprisingly concise summary of the entire thing.

But the facts are there was a speculator boom, Valiant comics is no longer around, Marvel did go bankrupt and sales are no where near they were before.

But if I were to blame one person, I'd blame Rob Liefield not Todd Mcfarlane.

 

[OutforEC]

But if I were to blame one person, I'd blame Rob Liefield not Todd Mcfarlane.

Precisely this. I actually liked a lot of McFarlane's work on Spiderman, a bit of the early Image stuff, as well as his toy line. However, other than his co-creation of Deadpool, I wasn't a fan of Liefeld's work, and I look at his art style as everything that went wrong with the comic industry in the 90's.

 

[lokiduck]

Bob thank you. I have been mad at you recently... but Thank you. THANK YOU.

Not every comic and movie has to be Batman people. It can enjoy itself and be campy and comical.

 

[Mark Chapman]

I saw Thor yesterday, and it did not suck - it was fun. I was a little worried having seen an interview with the director (Kenneth Branagh) which sounded like it had been played entirely for laughs, but whilst some of it was funny, it was not farcical. It worked.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Ka-Snip!

Ah, I stand corrected. Thanks for pointing it out.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

I will admit that I didn't particularly enjoy either of the Iron Man movies, but my uncle and dad love them. Perhaps because they can relate. But with Thor just being smashy smash Space Viking I might just love it.

Bob, we get everything last here in Australia, enjoy feeling like one for once, because this is how we feel all the damn time with everything else. (Thor was surprisingly not horrible.)

Yeah, you hear the slight bitterness in his tone when he said that? How can Americans complain when they get almost everything first...

 

[DTWolfwood]

Speaking of Transformers anyone who hasn't seen the Old animated Transformer: The Movie NEEDS TO GO SEE IT NOW. its got more ruthlessness and grit in the veneer of a kids cartoon than any of the bayformers movies.

OT: Isn't that what they call Irony? XD

 

[johnnnny guitar]

"it came out in Australia first, for some reason"

is there an issue with that bob?

Yeah Bob Is there Why cant we get somthing first instead of a week or 2 later
OR A YEAR ROCK BAND ANYONE!!!
OR NEVER ROCK BAND 2!!!

 

[FlitterFilms]

Since when is Transformers dark? It's silly and there's plenty of action. Even Sam trying to get laid is done with humor. Of all the movies to pick, THAT is the one you go with?

I think his point was that the subject of Megan Foxes tits is hardly child friendly. The Transformers movies are stupid, not lighthearted, they're presenting grown up situations in an extremely immature manner, which (at the risk of sounding extremely prudish) potentially draws small children into a situation they can't yet understand and exposes them to mature content or concepts that they should not be exposed to. It's irresponsible. Fuck I sound like moaning old woman.

Thor's out in the UK too (advanced showings but basically out), I'm going to see it tonight hopefully, is it not out in America at all yet because that is kind of weird.

I agree that "gritty" is different to being "grown up". Toy Story is a thousand times more mature than most supposedly grown up storylines. There's nothing wrong with plain unsubtexted fun, Sam Raimi's Spiderman was camp as hell and all the better for it. I'd guess Bob's not looking forward to the new "dark" Spiderman movie, although to be honest neither am I.

 

[Titan Buttons]

I a agree wiht what your saying, though IMO Batman should stay on the path of being aimemd at a more mature audience as aposed to Ironman, because it is about a child who watched his parents get shot dead in front of him and as a means of dealing with his depression and revenage he goes around beating on bad people don't get me wrong I loved the cartoon growing up but Batman just has always had that 'dark enough to be for adults' atmosphere around it.

YAY SOMETHING CAME OUT HERE 1ST FOR A CHANGE
No spoilers
Thor was good, the aim was more towards kids and it works, magical rainbow bridge included. Oh and wait untill after the credits, as always for both a sneak peak and such a rediculously obvious statement that I actually believe the idea was picked with the opening line of "You know what would be funny?"

"it came out in Australia first, for some reason"

is there an issue with that bob?

Yeah Bob Is there Why cant we get somthing first instead of a week or 2 later
OR A YEAR ROCK BAND ANYONE!!!
OR NEVER ROCK BAND 2!!!

Lets not get mad this is a time for rejoyic after all we where finally picked 1st, lets savour this moment as it might be the only one we have.

 

[curintedery]

Chris Hemsworth is ours, hence we got Thor first... simple as that. For the record, I loved it . But yes, it was more innocent than Iron Man... which worked, very well. Iron Man couldn't be aimed at children, because they were attempting to make the audience relate with Stark... It wouldn't have made any sense to make people relate to Thor, therefore making children (and adults alike) be inspired and look up to him was a much more productive strategy.

 

[Wolcik]

I won't go as far as saying "I love you MovieBob" but I fell in love in your way of thinking

 

[angel85]

Due to budget constraints and traits of my own fanboyism I only collect one comic book series, Sonic the Hedgehog. A point to which I get no end of grief. I've been collecting it since I was ten and people tell me that it's a kids comic, and someone my age should be collecting a man's series like My reply is always the same, I like Sonic, I like the comic because it does the same thing the old SATAM cartoon did, market to younger kids, but paint with broad enough strokes that older folks can enjoy it too. All the cool stuff works like that. Besides, am I going to abandon over a decade of collecting because I reached some arbitrary cut off age that no one can agree on?

 

[nath_78]

I usually enjoy checking out Bob's reviews and only came across The Big Picture recently, gotta say this one struck a cord. Just saw Thor tonight and we were talking afterwards about how the overall effect of the movie just worked for us. It was a superhero movie that wasn't afraid to wear it's comicbook roots as a badge, it was entertaining, it was funny without taking the piss, if you read Thor when you were younger it hit all the right nostalgia buttons, hell it even had all the obligatory teasers that tell you 'coming next on The Avengers...' which really does the job of getting people (well me at any rate) psyched for the way this franchise is pulling together. It takes a lot of skill to accomplish all this in a way that appeals to a wide audience without trying to reimagine the genre in a way that people think will help others take their superheroes seriously by injecting the 'gritty realism'.

As a side to the whole Alan Moore/Frank Miller/Todd McFarlane argument - I remember seeing or reading some stuff a while back that gave some insight into what those creators were trying to acheive... Moore (and I'm paraphrasing very loosely here, without being able to remember where I heard it) has talked about how Watchmen ended up being used as a template for modern superheroes when all he was trying to do was explore what can be done within the medium which had focused itself on costumed heroes at the time. In an interview, Miller talked about getting into comics because he wanted to make them more cinematic, later saying he stays in comics to make them less so. Unfortunately Image happened around the same time everyone cottoned on to old comics being worth big $$$, Those were the books that sold which later turned out to be worth about the same as toilet paper and the industry never quite recovered... As a plus, Erik Larsen still puts out Savage Dragon, which he has no problem telling people it's a character he created in high school and obviously gets a hoot out of writing and drawing the book, which goes to show every cloud has a silver lining. At the end of the day they were popular creators exploring their medium that the business arm of the industry saw as a means to increased profits and everyone suffered as a result.