Comic Book Resources

Aah, the good old days...

these kids today, they don't have any idea what it was like back in my day. HEY! YOU! Get off my lawn!

Surely you're joking. When did they find time to fight each other?

who cares! sing lucy in the sky again!!

Or alternate reality space gods?

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/The_Mutt_pics/dennycrane.jpg

Denny Crane!

This coming from a guy with mad cow.

Was that back in the ages of the mythical handwritten letter too?

Personally, I prefer it when superheroes fight aliens. There are only so many ways to watch Batman beat up a mugger.

Why would you be a mugger in Gotham, anyway? Might as well just wear a big target on your shirt with a sign saying, "Take me out now, Batman".

Whereas ironically, actually wearing a sign on your shirt saying "Take me out now, Batman!" gives an entirely different impression. (But is no less likely to get you beaten up.)

Hey, remember when Kang and Marcus pretty much kicked the earth's ass - and the next month, everything was fixed again? Wacky world these superheroes live in, eh?

The only mistake bigger than being a mugger on Gotham's streets is being a night watchman at any Gotham museum.

"We just got in a bunch of priceless cat, bird, and clown artifacts? You want me to hang around here third shift by myself? I quit."

And the only mistake bigger than being a night watchman at the Gotham Museum of Cat, Bird, and Clown-Related Antiquities -- and wow, wouldn't that make for a comic at least as good as Gotham Central? -- would be taking that high-paying new job as a guard at the Asylum just outside the city.

On the upside, it must be impossible to get fired from there. If you survive, you're a pretty good museum night watchman.

I really have to assume that Gotham's job market is perpetually suffering from an lack of opportunities. Why else would one work for, say, the Joker? Don't laugh at the Groucho bit and you're getting the 20,000-volt joy buzzer. You probably don't even get a grease paint stipend.

I'm so old, i even remember a time when super-heroes used to take time out to raise money for charity and *gasp* help out normal people!

I know it is uncool to like inventory issues but I thought the latest issue of Superman was a nice callback to heroes helping fight crime and inspire others.

Hey, remember when superheroes spouted ethnic slurs and beat up bad caricatures of Japanese?

So... Levantine... you're relating "fighting crime" to "being racist"? I don't think "fighting crime" is something superheroes should outgrow over time, considering it's part of the core of, say, the whole superhero concept.

These days, it's all fighting other superheroes or having super-baddies come after the hero because of old vendettas. I mean, Batman will still fight some crime, and Spidey will stop the occasional mugger (I think), but who else really bothers? It's all gods and revenge and other heroes. Weird.

There should be some kind of crossover event where the heroes are in a standoff with a bunch of villains who have robbed a bank and taken hostages.

For seven issues, the heroes can try and negotiate with the villains via megaphone, walkie-talkie or telephone, and talk with each other about how they wish there was something they could do, and if they'd been more focused they could have prevented it, and dammit, the world just isn't the way it used to be anymore.

In #7, the heroes finally find a way to burst into the bank and get the drop on the villains - only to have the villains surrender as soon as soon as they burst in (for that extra special Marvel Anticlimax taste). In the end, the heroes learn absolutely nothing and nothing changes (for that extra special DC BS taste), but for a few scant months, they try and convince us it has.

And naturally, a few months after #7 hits the stands everything changes back to normal and they're just fighting each other again, and then...well, here we are.

...what was I saying again?

-M

"So… Levantine… you’re relating “fighting crime” to “being racist”?"

No, actually. Honestly I'd been thinking of that old cover which says 'Superman says you can slap a jap!' so that was in my head. I realized after I'd commented thought that that's what it seemed like I was saying. I apologize for that, as I too miss the time when superheroes fought crime.

Cool, man. Sorry if I came off harsh. Fist-bump!

"No, actually. Honestly I’d been thinking of that old cover which says ‘Superman says you can slap a jap!’ so that was in my head. I realized after I’d commented thought that that’s what it seemed like I was saying. I apologize for that, as I too miss the time when superheroes fought crime."

I don't suppose you have a link to that cover?

http://www.headinjurytheater.com/article27.htm

...the cover, plus a whole lot of other weird stuff.

also, has Shatner sung it yet? that's all I'm waiting for, bay-beh.

That was a funny read.
Kind of shocking that 'Slap A Jap' is pretty low key compared to the other stuff though.

Civil War: The crossover that wants us to be worried about made-up people in a made-up America that where there are big superbattles, while simultaneously advertising itself as seven issues of big superbattles.

And my problem with the "realism" remains that Marvel's editors keep saying, "Oh, if you really lived in the Marvel Universe, you'd distrust super-heroes, because they're sinister mysterious masked men." While leaving out, "Oh, if you really lived in the Marvel Universe, you'd distrust EVERYONE, because the Federal Government has been infiltrated, controlled, replaced, duped, suckered, and overridden so many times that the second you hear about government officials trying to 'regulate' super-heroes, your [U]first response[/U] would be to assume that the Red Skull was mind-controlling the freaking President AGAIN."

This is a world where Nixon committed suicide because he was secretly running a branch of HYDRA called the Secret Empire, and you're telling me people are more inclined to trust governments than super-heroes?

My problem withg Marvcel's realism is that at a certain fundamental level, superhero stories are not realistic. And that level almost has to be closer to the surface of the text than in many other forms of fiction, comics or otherwise.

Oh, if you really lived in the Marvel Universe, you’d distrust EVERYONE, because the Federal Government has been infiltrated, controlled, replaced, duped, suckered, and overridden so many times that the second you hear about government officials trying to ‘regulate’ super-heroes, your first response would be to assume that the Red Skull was mind-controlling the freaking President AGAIN.

Indeed, that's ridiculous! The freaking president doesn't need to have his mind controlled by the Red Skull, he's perfectly capable to commit heinous crimes by himself.

Remember when comic books not only cost a LOT less, but were a hell of a LOT better?

Remember when a quality story was defined by more than shock value and cheap thrills?

Bah. Get off my lawn, indeed.

Remember when comic books not only cost a LOT less, but were a hell of a LOT better?

I certainly don't remember when comics where a hell of a lot better

Ditto DanCJ. I'm not sure I can come up with a time when comics were even slightly better. No one is forcing you guys to read things like Civil War, you know.

I know this place is called "Comics Should be Good" but kvetching about how superheroes don't stop enough muggers seems like maybe a really inane way to go about calling for better comics.