Justice League War - New Wonder Woman costume + other pics!

[MIB41]

I think it's a foregone conclusion that the age I grew up in is no longer viable today. In my time I could read an ongoing storyline throughout my entire childhood about any of my superheroes which kept some degree of continuity with what came before. Better yet, few changes were made to their outward appearance. These days anyone involved in working or reading comics must suffer from A.D.D. because there is no demand to keep continuity. Everyone forgets what happen yesterday and only focuses on what is blowing up in their face today. And that can be changed tomorrow. There's just no soul to this stuff anymore. It's mindless images with this nerdy insistence on changing costumes constantly for fear of losing the audience.

[palitoy]

Ugh! I have no interest in this nonsense. I've officially grown old and jaded...

I'm starting to feel similar, i always enjoyed these movies and felt they were a little oasis. I even enjoyed "Batman/Superman" which was based on a comic i loathed.

Then Flashpoint showed me that it wasn't' so, I'm now leery of anything they put out.

I don't care about costume changes at all frankly, it's the tone that I'm seeing, gratuitous over the top violence and gore, misogyny and a real lack of character and story development that worry me.

[Earth 2 Chris]

^Yeah, I didn't care much for Loeb's Superman/Batman run, but I did like the animated movies...go figure.

And yes, it's more the general nastiness of the New 52 that turns me off more than any physical or continuity changes. DC was heading in this direction since Infinite Crisis, at the very least, but now it's just full bore "mature" material all the time.

Man, I REALLY miss Batman: The Brave and the Bold now.

Chris

[palitoy]

^Yeah, I didn't care much for Loeb's Superman/Batman run, but I did like the animated movies...go figure.

I think it just lent itself to the medium, I wouldn't mind seeing a live action movie of it. Toning down the art helped me a lot, I originally found it way too cartoonish.

And yes, it's more the general nastiness of the New 52 that turns me off more than any physical or continuity changes. DC was heading in this direction since Infinite Crisis, at the very least, but now it's just full bore "mature" material all the time.

"mature" should be always in quotes with a lot of this stuff.

I'm not sure which crisis i gave up on anymore (although I was very let down that the bighter days never really came) but somewhere in the heads flying and giant breasted women getting abused, I just stopped.

I'm far from a prude (more in the "creep" category) but I don't go looking for that in my comics. Younger men do I guess and that's who they want. To me, it's exploitation.

Man, I REALLY miss Batman: The Brave and the Bold now.

Me too, I could watch it with my kids, they adored it. I don't know why the door is shut on a generation.

After letting them watch Flashpoint (My bad!) they now hate the DCU. Tiny Titans are needed now more than ever.

[MIB41]

Man, I REALLY miss Batman: The Brave and the Bold now.

Chris

Amen. That is the one show both my grandson and I can watch and get equal enjoyment from. And as Brian stated, Flashpoint was just a complete shocker on the violence level. That forever changed my level of trust with DC where it applies to animated features. That DVD shouldn't even be allowed in the children's section of a store.

[EMCE Hammer]

When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was watch Super Friends, Batman '66, Spider-man 67 etc. and then go act out the episode with my Megos. If my kids want to do that now, we need to dig into the DVD library and then break out the Imaginext/Super Hero Squad bin of toys, or the JLU/BTAS bin, or the Brave&Bold bin. (yeah, we got some bins) If it wasn't for Imaginext and Lego, there'd be very little on the shelves that is kid-friendly, and it makes me sad.

[Earth 2 Chris]

"mature" should be always in quotes with a lot of this stuff.

Yeah, I've said it before, but many modern comic creators equate mature with mutilation, boobs, sadism and tons and tons of gore.

I did not purchase Flashpoint, based on the reviews I read here. I think I'm glad I steered clear of it.

chris

[CaptainTrenchcoat]

I bought Flashpoint and actually enjoyed the story, but not the art. Too generic. This JL:War will be my first pass. And after hearing that they will probably be switching over to all 52 storylines, I will not be buying any future DVDs as well. Too bad too. I was a buy on the first day available kind buyer too. The whole concept had such potential.

[Earth 2 Chris]

^I read they are adapting Gotham by Gaslight. Now, oddly enough, that story DOES involve gore and mutilation...but I don't mind, because it is handled tastefully, and based on real historical events. I don't think that film is for kids, any more so than Batman: Year One or Dark Knight Returns. I just hope they don't OVER do the darker aspects of it.

Chris

[palitoy]

^I read they are adapting Gotham by Gaslight. Now, oddly enough, that story DOES involve gore and mutilation...but I don't mind, because it is handled tastefully, and based on real historical events. I don't think that film is for kids, any more so than Batman: Year One or Dark Knight Returns. I just hope they don't OVER do the darker aspects of it.

That's a mature comic in the truest sense. I'm not excited about it's adaptation because I worry that they'll go all "Spawn" with it now.

[MIB41]

I think the comics are certainly a reflection of where the demand seems to be trending. I dare say all of this "Dead" zombie nonsense has certainly played a big role in why the graphic nature of comics and cartoons has risen. And I'll be honest. I don't get it. And I'm proud to say I don't get it. I don't want to know what the appeal is seeing rotten corpses running around turning other people into rotten corpses. It's a strange fascination with today's youth (and older folks) that I personally find a bit alarming when it creeps into our heroes. Add the graphic nature of video games and the comic industry probably feels the heat to conform to get those dollars.

[The Toyroom]

I still don't see why they aren't publishing a DC Universe that is accessible to a younger crowd as well as any old-timers who don't want what's "new" and "current".
Walking Dead is one of the biggest comic books out there and yet the TV version doesn't necessarily follow the plotlines of the comic. There's room for all valid interpretations instead of jettisoning one in favor of another. The digital first Batman '66 seems to be a success for them. So it stands to reason they should be able to have room for a DC Universe that springs out of the Silver Age, the one that existed up until Flashpoint. They're handling the digital platform the wrong way IMO.

[PNGwynne]

...I don't know why the door is shut on a generation.

Because the Big Two can have it both ways: The completists will continue to by everything, while the young fans will continue to buy tickets to films and comics du jour, and we older fans will spend $$$ on high-end collectibles & glossy reprints.

[ctc]

>Man, I REALLY miss Batman: The Brave and the Bold now.

I do too, and it's not 'cos I'm put off by the nastiness of the current stuff (I'm an underground fan from AWAYS back....) but because they didn't keep doing the same stories, with slightly different versions of the same characters over and over. Sure; back in the day you'd get COMPLETELY messed up versions of the characters when they jumped to new media, but they had the decency of producing new stuff with new bad guys for it. The Hulk might have been reduced to catching cattle rustlers but dadgummit, they were NEW cattle rustlers.

*sigh* No.... those shows were stupid too. Who wants to see Marvel's most powerful hero leaning on small time hoods? Or Spiderman throwing ropes at generic gangsters? B&B did it right by presenting some of the weirder parts of the DC Universe. In some ways it feels like we've gone back to those days.... but for different reasons. Back then they didn't have the technology or budget for real supervillains. Nowadays they don't want to take the chance on an unknown; so we get Darkseid trying AGAIN to take over the Earth. (At least he's persistent. Gotta give him that.)

>That's a mature comic in the truest sense.

Y'know.... I gotta disagree. Sort of. I don't think "mature" has anything to do with gratuitousness, gore and questionable material. I've read a lot of stuff that'd curl folks' hair and found it perfectly fulfiling because there's CONSEQUENCE to such things. "Gotham by Gaslight" felt forced to me, mature-wise.... but it had the HUGE advantage of being a contained story; which allowed for some consequence. You can't do that in a regular DC book, and I think the longterm fans are running into that wall. Hence why the inevitable reboot, and the inevitable sort-of new continuity with each cartoon is so jarring: cognitive dissonance isn't strong enough to override the knowledge that anything occuring in the story.... no matter how big a deal it SHOULD be.... won't be.

>I don't know why the door is shut on a generation.

File sharing.

Okay; some explanation: if you remember WAY back to the 90's there was a HUGE hooplah from the music industry about the horrors of file sharing. The result was a mad dash to tie up not the rights to various songs, but the format and means of distribution. 'Cos the music industry learned content doesn't matter. DC and Marvel fell into the same trap around that time, with their buying of major distributors, and shoring up the comic shop markets. The idea was to control distribution, over content. ("Slap a Jim Lee clone on it!" was the rule of the day.) This ended in disaster for them 'cos they got greedy. Since the 80's the major percentage of their buyers were speculators, not readers. "X-Men #1" didn't sell a million copies 'cos a million folks bought it and read it; 100,000 people all bought ten copies to put away. (In that regard I think their current sales numbers are more representative of the actual numbers of readers.) So they startedf with the multiple-ashcan-#0-glow in the dark-autographed-chocolatey-super awesome cover thing.... collect them ALL! ('cos the set is worthless without the special left handed version of the cover.) Once the speculators realized EVERYBODY had ten copies, and the book.... whatever book.... would be worthless in the future, the bottom fell out. DC and Marvel had squeezed themselves out of the old distribution methods....news stands and book stores.... which is where the guys that took over went. MUCH larger potential audience. Add to that the stigma attached to the old, rigid definition of comic books and you got a formula for a genre isolated in the market. The Big Two-ish closed the door on a generation by first extracating themselves from where all the action is, and then going over the same stories again and again. Stories with limited appeal to someone who's not already versed in them.

>I still don't see why they aren't publishing a DC Universe that is accessible to a younger crowd as well as any old-timers who don't want what's "new" and "current".

No matter what they do, the oldsters won't be happy. But you're right about the young'ns. They need to seed a new generation of fans; a younger one that'll stick around for a few years. But they're still stuck in the 80's. I suspect in part 'cos the folks working on the books today were the fans of yesterday; so what you get is a distillation of the old stuff. You've got a lot of folks with little to add to the formula, so you get exagerated, cartoony versions of things form the olden days. That's one reason you need new readers; to bring in a new perspective and ensure that the next generation of creators aren't just gonna redo the X-Men, but now EVERYBODY'S Wolverine! (I'm looking at YOU; every superhero team comic from the 90's!) This'd be a good time, too. Comics seem to be approaching another transition period and we're due for the "next big thing." (Which is almost looking like it'll be Archie. Weird.)

>After letting them watch Flashpoint (My bad!) they now hate the DCU.

Wasn't it rated PG-13?

Don C.

[Operation:Mego]