Unpopular Opinions You Hold About Comic Books

[gunswordfist]

I have a mouthful to say:
Superman has better comics than Batman. From what I read, Superman has more high level stories (All-Star, Red Son, Birthright, Secret Identity, etc.) while a lot of Batman's most recommended books are mid-level (Long Halloween and Dark Victory).

Frank Miller rocks

Geoffrey Johns Flash sucks

Emerald Twilight>Rebirth

Justice is the greatest JLA book.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm assuming that the Super-Man All-Star comic book is miles better than its animated adaptation that was released direct to video, because that felt too jumbled and all over the place and lacked coherency. I figure that the comic itself would be good though since most of those stories that were only touched upon in the animated movie were probably told in full (as they should be) in the comic.

[gunswordfist]

I'm assuming that the Super-Man All-Star comic book is miles better than its animated adaptation that was released direct to video, because that felt too jumbled and all over the place and lacked coherency. I figure that the comic itself would be good though since most of those stories that were only touched upon in the animated movie were probably told in full (as they should be) in the comic.

I hear that's about right. All-Star is the greatest Superman story ever.

[Avaitor]

The sad thing is, not only was All-Star Superman Dwayne McDuffie's last completed script, it was apparently the one he was proudest of in his entire career.

It really isn't that good. The comics weren't very tight on story, and it just could not translate to screen. Just stick to them.

[gunswordfist]

I see what you mean. I'll have to still watch the movie myself.
Moar:

Two-Face>Joker.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Dwayne McDuffie has done some some terrific writing for the various DC animated projects, specifically with the stuff he did for the DCAU, but I personally would have to say that I found Superman All-Stars to be one o his weaker works.

[Avaitor]

I really wish that we did a "best of" of McDuffie's animated work on the blog when he passed on. It's a little late now, plus I might need to be a little more familiar with his Ben 10 work to really make it complete.

[gunswordfist]

Jesus, no the mentioning of Ben 10 for ANY reason.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Hey, I say its never too late to honor a great writer. I wouldn't mind watching through some Ben 10 if he has done good work on it. Or to make it simpler we can limit it to his best work for DC's animated features. It could be a list of the top 5-10 episodes that he had written for throughout the entire DCAU.

[Avaitor]

He was the story editor for Alien Force and I believe Ultimate Alien before his untimely death. I'd want to open it up to his animated work in general, since all he really did outside of DC stuff is Ben 10, and he did more than just the DCAU when it comes to their work. It wouldn't be as fair to limit his work to just one side in that regard.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

In that case it wouldn't be too hard to watch the episodes of Ben 10 that he worked on for the sake of honoring his best work, as long as his work on Ben 10 was about as good as his DC work.

[gunswordfist]

Agreed. I'd love to read that.

[Avaitor]

Honestly, I tried to get into Alien Force when I found out that McDuffie was on it. I didn't like the original since I thought that Ben and Gwen were too obnoxious, the action was disappointingly fluff, and the writing was too toyetic for its own good.

I couldn't get into AF either, this time because Ben, Gwen and Kevin were just so bland as characters that I miss when they were younger and acted like little bitches to each other. The other problems still remained, but now there was this darker aspect lingering on really that did nothing to the series itself.

Maybe there's some good stuff and I jumped the gun too soon, but I dunno.

[Foggle]

Two-Face>Joker.

Agreed.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm not sure if this is really an unpopular opinion, but I have to say that I really can't stand the structure of mainstream superhero comics. What I mean is that they make it so damn hard for most of them to be accessible to newcomers. For instance, over the 60+ years that Marvel has been producing comics, they have come out with so many different iterations of most of their superheroes, and any one single popular superhero that you pick out seems to have at least a few completely different canons to go by. I mean, thankfully the classic stuff is easy enough to get into with Essential collections and whatnot, but other than that there's just so much stuff to wade through to really get into the Marvel Universe as a whole (and there are multiple Marvel Universe's, as well). I'm not singling out Marvel in general, but just using that as an example.

I suppose I've just been spoiled by reading manga for all these years. Say what you want about manga, but if manga in general has anything going for it, I feel that its really easily accessible. Most series have continuous story-lines that go in a completely chronological order by a chapter structure. Also, while cross-overs can be a fun thing, I feel like there are so many cross-overs in comic books that it can be hard to keep track of things. That is to say, even if you are reading Spider-Man in chronological order of issues, you'll still miss things if they happened as a cross-over as part of another superhero series in the same Universe featuring Spider-Man. With manga, since there are no cross-overs to begin with (except those non-canon specials that they run in WSJ on rare occasions, like the Dragon Ball and One Piece crossover), you are pretty much guaranteed a coherent story from beginning to end.

Don't mistake my post, though. I'm not putting down the quality of good mainstream superhero comics. I'm just saying that the structure of their releases and general serialization leaves much to be desired for those not already in the loop about them, IMO.