Now despite of how wrong I think DC is on this, so far I have restrained from getting on my soap boax and letting my opinions get the better of me which was extremely difficult after that MAN OF STEEL abomination.
But I thought I can let that slide, because I don´t want to be so negative and I will let my views on that topic be known in my posts anyway so there´s no need to specifically talk about that subject. Which worked until I wrote a comment on this blog about it an as the comment got longer and longer I realized that maybe I still hadn´t gotten it out of my system. So because I want to concentrate on future posts and there is something I think people should be warned against here´s my little Sunday rant while I wait until I can see the newest Doctor Who episode.
The reason why this whole thing started and which I feel it is my duty to warn people against is that DC released a new movie called NECESSARY EVIL - SUPER VILLAINS OF DC COMICS. Which is not an animated movie but ..... well, they call it a documentary but unlike good documentaries like the excellent SUPERHEROES - THE NEVERENDING BATTLE by PBS which I heavily pimped on this blog, it´s not really a docu but rather has the feeling of a DVD extra that got a little bit out of hand. It feels like they where doing this and collecting more and more material and Dan Didio said : " Keep going, we can stretch it to a 90 minutes feature. "
With which I have no problem. They can even make it two hours and then slap it on a DVD as an extra for all I care. What I do have a problem with is that instead of doing that they sell it as a DVD and charge you, I don´t know, 20 or 10 bucks for it. I don´t know the exact price for it.
And that´s what infuriates me because this is 90 minutes of DC pimping the NEW 52 and you should not pay for watching a commercial. No, really.
I would have no problem if DC included this in all their books duing one month but the fact that they don´t shows you their current mentality. You can be sure that somebody somewhere said that they can´t give the fans something for free which looks like a feature film. Somebody said to make this longer and get more money out of the stupid fanboys who still buy the crap they call comics. It´s all about their great NEW 52 stories with villains as the main focus of the stories with a few spoilers included ( thanks DC ). I have seen it and I´m glad I didn´t pay for it. What´s more I have the feeling I should have been paid by DC to watch this dreck.
The fact alone that DC is making a special about the villains INSTEAD of the heroes just tells you everything about where DC is going in the next few years ( check out their latest solicitations ) and that they have no idea about what being a hero means and especially who Superman is.
They sure don´t know what Superman is supposed to look like.
Now I know that they have changed Superman´s costume before and I´m not against that per se. As long as they remember who Superman is and what defines him. I really liked the ZAPP Superman because he showed you that it´s not the clothes or the powers that maketh a Superman.
The Superman from the DC ONE MILLION storyline also had a different costume, but it still looked good. It still looked like Superman´s costume.
And there have been so many different ELSEWORLD stories over the decades where Superman had a different costume that didn´t suck. Which I think is my main requirement for designing a new Superman costume. That it doesn´t suck. You can make it more futuristic.
Or you can go totally old school with it if you want to.
Heck, you can even get rid of the underpants and have it still look good.
But it seems that was not the main goal here. I have the distinct feeling that they told Jim Lee to get as far away from the classic costume as possible so they won´t have to pay royalties to the heirs of Superman´s creators. This reminds me of when Marvel made the new costume for Spider - Man and to convince the readers they had one page full of alternative costumes which all looked WAY better than what we ended up with so they added a bandana or a pouch or a cape to make it look bad.
The funny thing is that while this costume never really worked with Spider - Man and the readers never really warmed up to it, it sure as heck gelled like peanut butter and jelly with Spider - Girl. Now here was a great series with a female character that went to number 100 and was popular with the readers ( no wonder since it was better than the regular spider books that came out at that time ) so naturally Marvel did everything they did to sabotage the book and even cancelled it a few times. Thanks to massive complaints by fans - and REAL letters written on paper they sent - Marvel had to always bring it back but in the end they managed to shoot six bullets into its head. It´s still one of the best book out there, especially for female readers or people who have enough of all this grim and gritty stuff that´s overflowing the market right now. Spider - Girl : I allow it !
Back to DC and their " Necessary Evil " propaganda. If I hear one more time that there can´t be a hero without a villain I´m going to throw up.
Of course there can be a hero without a villain.
Because being a hero is NOT about fighting villains. That may be part of the job and while some say the villains define the hero I think it´s more the actions who define a hero. If you think that a hero´s existence is fixed by how strong or invincible his opponents are then he´s nothing more than a prize boxer to you. Being a hero is NOT only about fighting evil. It can also be about preventing bad things which may not have anything to do with fighting persons. Because sometimes things happen to people which we may label as bad and there is no single person behind it you can punch in the face. Being a hero is about fighting for good.
Especially with Superman.
He´s not a hero who should fight super villains. And that´s the reason why his rogues gallery sucked for such a long time. Because Superman doesn´t need a rogues gallery, he´s not about fighting super villains. Superman is about catching planes that fall out of the sky, stopping a volcano or a tsunami. Superman is about fighting against bad people which can be the father who beats his child, the landlord who evicts a poor family or a man who can´t find a job to support his family.
Superman is what we aspire to be, the potential of what we could one day become, he is hope personified and this is what his stories are about.
No wonder the NEW 52 sucks when they can´t even get Superman right.
That´s all I have to say on the subject for now because dinner´s just about ready and I want to watch Doctor Who. Just remember not to pay for DC´s newest 90 minute commercial. And if you do watch NECESSARY EVIL pay attention to the truckload of crap the MAN OF STEEL director unloads. I bet he never read a good Superman comic in his life.
Sorry for my little rant. I´ll get off my soapbox now and we´ll be back to objectifying comic babes as sex objects in our next post. Only kidding.
Today I want to start the video part with something that relates to the topic of the post, the Making Of the best Superman movie of all times.
A great superhero television show from my misspent youth was THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO which I only saw in Spain because I´m not sure if it ever aired in Germany. Like basically all the good stuff.
It´s another fine example of what dicks the guys at DC were because like with SHAZAM they filed a lawsuit because they said it infringed the copyright of Superman. It´s almost funny how they always sue even if they have no grounds but when it´s time for them to pay their dues they even go to the lengths of flushing 75 years of continuity down the drain.
We´re also continuing with Usagi on the Turtles. I think I have finally found the first guest appearance with episode 32 : USAGI YOJIMBO.
New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest / best of the best
2 comments:
Just wrote a LONG response to this...blogger deleted it. I give up.
Yeah, I´ve had some problems with that too. Which is why I usually copy my comments before posting them. Sorry.
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