[ SECRET POST #2109 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2109 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 023 secrets from Secret Submission Post #301.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[truxillogical]

I dunno, DC had a lot of beautifully flawed heroes. You won't get it as much from Supes and Batman, because they have to be the flagship heroes and all.

But Flash? Well, Wally West? Gloriously flawed. Started out as not-really-that-fast, somewhat selfish teen jerk, who was almost constantly in danger of passing out because he was broke, and if he didn't eat often enough, his super-metabolism mostly just screwed him over. And I mean, really, he was an immature prick. Watching him grow and mature was one of the best character arcs ever.

Ted Kord? Booster Gold? Just a couple of guys that no one takes seriously. But they do buckle down and try their best when the going's tough--it's just that no one's looking then.

Impulse? Tim Drake? Conner? Roy? Heck, Roy is an unpowered former heroine-addict single father, raising the daughter he had during a very ill-advised tryst with a villainess. He's pretty much the definition of just some guy trying to do the best he can.

[(Anonymous)]

You just named every single reason why I, even after renouncing DC and going full on Marvel, still occasionally peek into a DC comic to see how those guys are doing :(

[truxillogical]

Sigh. I can tell you how they're doing--they're gone. Every single one of them.

Even the ones who are still around in name aren't remotely as interesting as the characters before. And while some of that, I'm sure, is because the others did have years to build a complex person out of, primarily I think it's because we're being given very surface-type heroes. If you skim off the top of what makes Booster Gold memorable and a cult hero, you don't get "Same Booster, half the continuity!" You get...a really boring guy.

[patch592]

I was really getting into the Bat books while Bruce was dead. Dick was struggling to find his version of Batman, Stephine was struggling to re-invent herself and Damien was struggling not to be an utter ass. My interest disappeared when the Bruce 'The World's Greatest At Everything' Wayne started to come back.

[truxillogical]

Yeah, I feel that. I mean, on one hand, I don't quite mind seeing Bruce back, because it was pretty clear from the beginning that he wasn't actually dead (as opposed to legit killing a character, and then just deciding to bring them back later). But as much as I love the Bat Family, my interest in Bruce (in the comics, anyway), is mostly as the guy who pulls all of these other characters together.

Dick and Damien were truly touching and amazing. I love watching childish jerk characters gradually become decent human beings (one of the many reasons I'm more than a little disappointed with what's happened to Flash's Rogues. Back in Blackest Night, it looked like maybe we'd watch Axel go through a similar, if villainous, transition). Watching everyone, from the heroes to the villains, struggle to fill in the giant Bruce Wayne-sized gap that was left was a seriously interesting direction (I always liked the bit where Riddler figures out withing two seconds "Welp, that's not Batman, he's too nice. Guess I'll play along.")

Sigh. What I would give for some more Streets of Gotham.

[(Anonymous)]

Yup. Bruce is basically the reason the Batfamily exists. I love the Batfamily. Dick is practically my hero, no pun intended, Steph was one of the best young females there was, Tim was amazing when he started out and it was heartbreaking to watch as the writers just piled more and more shit on his shoulders (not sure how I feel about said shit, but it was interesting to watch) and his conversation with Kon when he was looking for the lab legit made me cry. Cass was fascinating. Jean-Paul could have been fascinating but writers kept forgetting about him.

So, yeah. I didn't actually like Bruce. But he had one hell of a group of characters around him.

[(Anonymous)]

Original anon with the long-winded post.

We...don't talk about Roy. Favorite character for so very, very long. Deserved more than he got under so many authors, and then Cry for Justice happened, and the the fallout. And then, in the very last damn issue of The Titans we got to see him back, just for a moment. And then he ended.

And we have...whatever Lobdell's abomination is. I lasted four issues.

So, yeah. I'll admit DC has flawed characters, but with most of them it's a different kind of flawed. Basically I used to view it as DC being the optimistic characters. The paragons of what we COULD be, if we tried hard enough. Which I love.

And Marvel was more...what we might be. Some of them are complete assholes. Some of them are total idiots who need to be clobbered over the head. It's not pessimistic, and usually the good guys win the day, but it's been darker for quite some time. More like reality, if reality included mutants and supersoldiers and insanely awesome tech.

Don't get me wrong, in my comic reading "reality" isn't always what I want. I have equal love for various titles and characters from both publishers. I grabbed onto and fell in love with the optimism of Lemire's Superboy run and the final run of Power Girl. Indeed, both of those final issues made me cry. Superboy realizing he had a home and that he was weird, but so were his friends and everyone else, and Power Girl saying "fuck this noise" about having to make a choice and defeating all odds to save EVERYONE*. I cried. And then they were both dead. Kon replaced by a monstrosity that makes zero logical sense even in comic book terms, and Peej by, uh, a completely different person.

*Actually, this is exactly what I mean about the difference. It used to be that such things were what DC would DO. Everyone would live, somehow. Then they got dark, but I still think of them as the label where things will go right through sheer force of will (and then the reboot happened and I realized everyone I loved was basically functionally dead). Whereas Marvel characters WOULD make the decision, for better or worse. They'd fight against it with every scrap of their being, but in the end, if Peej was Marvel, she really would have had to choose between saving her friend, the tourists or the village.

Sorry, got long again. But, yeah. I have spent a year trying insanely hard to forget about Roy, and it's still a raw wound. ;_;