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BaD 2017.4: heroes punching each other.


On 02/05/2017 at 02:53 AM by Julian Titus

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It’s after midnight, but I haven’t gone to bed yet. That means this BaD entry counts for today, right? RIGHT?

Anyway, my girlfriend and I went to pick up our comics today, and I was reminded how drastically my pull list has changed in a year. See, I got back into comics in a big way with the New 52 from DC, but constant crossovers and reshuffling of creative teams soured me to the company. I went from collecting 7 or 8 DC books all the way down to just one: Scott Snyder’s soon to be legendary Batman run.

Last year, I got super invested in Marvel again when they relaunched their entire line. I loved the lineup of the New Avengers (Iron Man, Vision, Sam Wilson Captain America, the new Thor, Miles Morales Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, and Nova), what Brian Michael Bendis was doing with Iron Man, and Jason Aaron’s amazing Doctor Strange book (to add to his already great Thor run).

Then, Marvel screwed it all up, as they tend to do, at least as far as I’ve been able to tell as an outsider looking in on the past 17ish years. Simply put, I’m beyond tired of super heroes punching each other. It seems like this has been the status quo since Civil War. After that was House of M (X-Men punching each other), Secret Invasion (heroes punching each other because they think everyone is a skrull), AvX (Avengers punching X-Men), Civil War 2 (moar heroes punching each other), and now IvX (Inhumans punching X-Men). Oh, and the prelude to Civil War 2 was a little Avengers crossover gem called Standoff, which had a bigger story, but made sure to have the Avengers punching the Uncanny Avengers.

It's exhausting. It’s rare for me to find the super heroes I love being, you know, heroic. That’s why Invincible remains my favorite hero comic, but it’s sadly coming to an end with its current story arc. I have tried multiple times to reconnect with the X-Men, who were one of my favorite teams as a kid/teen, but at this point I can’t tell them apart from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Instead of being a team of mutants sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, they’ve become a segregated group of mutants protecting themselves from a world that hates and fears them, by doing some really shady stuff, from what I’ve seen. Don’t even get me started on what they did to Cyclops, my favorite X-Man of all time.

Today, I picked up four comics from my file: Doctor Strange (Aaron’s run has been excellent so far), Paper Girls, Josie and the Pussycats (I’m currently reading every damn one of the new Archie books, including Reggie and Me), and Champions. Champions has a great creative team, and I love teen super hero books, but so far, not much has happened, and the team loves to argue a lot. Oh, and they greeted young Cyclops by, yep, punching him. I’m giving it a few more issues, but I can see myself cutting it soon. I’m interested in the new X-Men reboot (X-Men Blue and X-Men Gold), but both books are double shipping with a $3.99 cover price, so I’ll wait for trades if I hear good things.

I just want heroic heroes again, is that too much to ask?


 

Comments

asrealasitgets

02/05/2017 at 03:12 AM

Oh, I'm with you on the New52 debacle. After a while all the crossovers got abnoxious, and also the artwork within the books were not always consistent, which soured me. I love Capullos art and Snyders story telling and you're right, New 52 Batman definitely got me back in a big way. I went back and got Gates of Gotham and Black Mirror from Snyder, and he's so good. 

As for xmen, I do love cyclops, and actually he was turning for a while. I especially loved when he went off on Capt. America for not helping the Xmen in the past, and then expected them to just hand over a mutant to the avengers because they asked. It was during a the big XMENvAvengers a few years ago, where Phoenix returned. I'm more about classic comics now, like revisiting/rereading stories from the 90s which I loved. I can't see myself getting back into new comics today. I get overwhelmed walking into a comic shop and they're like $5 ea. I've been reading digital for quite a while.

Are you watching Archie show by any chance? How about that new Xmen show Legion debuting this week on FX? I'm gonna watch for sure!  Do you watch the CW DC shows? They're pretty fun.

The last time I bought a physical comic was when Captain America was a secret nazi and the internets went bananas.

Julian Titus Senior Editor

02/06/2017 at 01:54 AM

I recently moved and no longer have cable or an antenna for my TV, so I'm behind on Flash and Arrow, but they are my favorite shows right now. I wish I could enjoy Supergirl, but I think the acting is dreadful. I'm not even a big DC fan, but I geek out at how deep and wide the Arrow and Flash TV universe has become. Rumor has it that Batwoman is showing up on Arrow, which should hopefully confirm that Batman exists in that universe? Fingers crossed!

I haven't seen the Riverdale show for the above reasons, but the guys at my comic shop said they nailed the characters, and as long as that is true, I don't mind if they try and make the show "CW sexy". I'll be surprised if they can surpass what's being done in the Archie and Jughead books right now, though.

asrealasitgets

02/06/2017 at 05:58 PM

There have been rumors of Batwoman on Supergirl for a while now and Supergirl has already crossed over with Flash and Green Arrow, although they established that Supergirl is from another Earth seperate from Flash/GreenArrow. They also turned Supergirls sister gay very quickly and she is a prominent character on the show, and also is kind of a bad-ass cop. I don't know? Superman appeared in the first two episodes of the Season2 premiere and never showed up again, so I don't know that DC would allow the use of her (Batwoman) characters, or others from Gotham unless they take creative license with it. You can read it here:
https://moviepilot.com/p/supergirl-is-alex-set-to-become-batwoman/4142877 

Unless you meant Batgirl/Barbara Gordon, who is part of Birds of Prey, in which case would fit better into Flash/Arrowverse, but I haven't heard much about that rumor. 

As for Archie, I've read ppl comment that they made Archie and Jughead really horny teens?

Julian Titus Senior Editor

02/06/2017 at 06:17 PM

Hmm. I mean, Archie IS a really horny teen, but in the comics Jughead is firmly asexual, and cares more about food than dating. There was a great story arc recently in his comic where Sabrina the teenage witch was working at Pop's and dressed as a burger mascot. Jughead kept talking to her because talking to a giant burger is like his dream, but she liked him and asked him out on a date. He didn't know what was going on until he was sitting down with her for dinner. 

asrealasitgets

02/06/2017 at 07:28 PM

oh. Also, Sabrina might show up on Archie in the future. I think they added Josie, from the Pussycats recently. 

Matt Snee Staff Writer

02/05/2017 at 10:01 AM

Actualy I like DC Rebirth. Very cool.  I love Marvel TV shows and movies, but I find their comics very gimmicky with poor writing to back it up. I used to love Marvel though.  I just bought the Wonder Woman omnibus by George Perez, should get that for my birthday and I'm very excited. 

You don't have to BaD on weekends if you don't want to.  

Julian Titus Senior Editor

02/06/2017 at 01:55 AM

I bought my first omnibus last year for the Infinity Gauntlet, and it's been great to be able to re-read all the Silver Surfer books leading up to the story, and all of the important tie-in books, too. They are expensive, but I'd like to get a couple more. Maybe one a year.

Super Step Contributing Writer

02/05/2017 at 12:43 PM

BaD is only required on weekdays so either way you're good.

I liked the Civil War movie, but I'm also glad llego Batman has a trailer treating batman v superman as a joke. I'd say DC has Marvel beat for animated and broadcast TV, while Marvel owns movies and Netflix originals.

As for comics, i tend to buy graphic novels only, cause i can't keep up with all the different storylines. I do still have a Zero Year compilation i bought for $5 though, and I'd definitely say I've bought more DC comics than marvel.

Cary Woodham

02/05/2017 at 05:21 PM

Yeah why can't those super heroes get along?  Also, they need nametags in the movies because I usually don't know about three-fourths of the characters in those movies.  I end up having to make up my own names for them, like "Purple Lady Who Shoots Out Pink Bubblegum Things and Was Also in Marvel vs. Capcom 2."  And that's a long name!  Never been able to get into comic books, though.  Most of my knowledge of these characters comes from the Marvel vs. Capcom and LEGO games.  That's why Mrs. Hulk is my favorite Marvel character because Phoenix Wright was in her ending in Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

Julian Titus Senior Editor

02/06/2017 at 01:58 AM

One of my biggest beefs with the MCU movies (and I love every movie so far) is that they almost go out of their way to avoid using the super hero names. I think Captain America is the one exception, but they always just call him Cap. They have yet to call Wanda Maximoff the Scarlet Witch, and I think the only people to use the name Black Widow have been bad guys. I'm not surprised you don't know the character names!

KnightDriver

02/05/2017 at 09:45 PM

I had to stop my comics buying because it was: a. costing to much, b. too many crossover issues. You can see how these two are connected. I can only follow my favorite characters through so many issues. I can't even begin to restart now. It'd be way to frustrating not being able to get all the issues I want. 

Ranger1

02/06/2017 at 12:01 AM

I had to give up collecting comics after I graduated from college for financial reasons and I just never got back into it, with the exception of the short-lived most recent Doc Savage series put out by (I think) DC. I still have all my old comics, though, including an almost unbroken seven year stretch of Daredevil comics from the mid 80s to the early 90s, including the Frank Miller ones.

Julian Titus Senior Editor

02/06/2017 at 01:59 AM

I recently borrowed the Frank Miller Daredevil run from my friend, and it made the Daredevil TV show even better, because I was familiar with smaller characters like Stick and Turk.

daftman

02/06/2017 at 02:23 PM

Angst! Infighting! That's what the kids want these days, right? The best comic I've read recently is Darkwing Duck. It's really good!

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