DC Comics General

Other Side was at least well received for tackling very heavy themes relating to race and taking a very realistic depiction of the DCU.

But since then its been a lot of diminishing returns with his work, with Black Panther being the absolute nadir of his profile and absolutely destroying his reputation in comics from how unforgivably terrible it is.

It may be controversial, but I maintain that Other Side is just as terrible as the rest of his work. There was nothing good or "realistic" about it. It was mostly positively received by people whose politics and social views it flattered from my experience. It may have tackled heavy themes, but it didn't do them well at all.

Edited by immortaleditor on Apr 29th 2024 at 6:40:10 AM

I think Other Side is more liked because it's Ridley drawing within the lines of stories already told.

Everything else is all from his own mind, and none of his other books really follow up on anything done in other runs.

we finally see who wallers mysterious benefactor who took her off earth-3 is. its brainiac

Edited by Deadpoolrocks on Apr 30th 2024 at 9:58:05 AM

That is an excellent typo. XD

I now wonder if Earth-3 Brainiac is more 'misguided good guy' or is evil there too since the various Brainiacs are a Hive Mind.

it was the main brainiac who got her off of earth-3 and he seems to want the brainiac queen to be his weapon against walller

Ooooh, gotcha.

Is the character in question one of the Omniscient Council of Vagueness she’s been talking to?

yes he is all of them. she says how she did digging and found nothing of the light on earth and how the signal comes from space and demands to know who is giving her orders and its brainiac and his alternates

Not sure how to feel about that because on one hand, I liked the idea of a conspiracy of normals who hate supers and try to manipulate the public against them, but on the other hand, the plot twist that Brainiac has been pulling Waller's strings the whole time is really good.

What's weird is I've seen people saying this is possibly to synergize with the Suicide Squad game cause that also has an alliance of Brainiacs.

Oooh, interesting Not His Sled twist.

If that's the case, it would be a truly hilarious instance of a change to the comics for synergy being vastly better than the thing being synergized with.

Mark Waid recently did a wordballoon interview where he shines light on some details.

For a good deal of it he's slagging Roy Thomas pushing to be credited as the co-creator of Wolverine despite him being the editor.

He says he left Shazam cause he knew Dan Mora had to leave to do Absolute Power, and didn't want to get the book cancelled cause of the artist change.

The Absolute Power bit is revealing that the whole Waller plotline was editorially mandated. Zdarsky was the first one to tinker with AP, and at different points Snyder, Taylor, and King had taken shots at it but "couldn't wrestle it to the ground" until it all fell to Waid.

Also Waid says Mora's art rivals George Perez's/

@22664 Superman: Space Age had a similar thing so it could be something from the 5G stuff.

Uggh, just read Brian Azzarello’s Hellblazer. It’s not good yo. Too Bleak, Stopped Caring at its finest.

For starters, there’s virtually no magic. John himself only uses it a couple times (once being an admittedly cathartic scene where he sics a golem on some skinheads), and the villains are entirely ordinary people - you’ve got gross prison inmates, gross hillbillies, gross Neo-Nazis, and a gross billionaire. Wow, much scary. John himself is also a much bigger asshole - gone is the implication that the cynical misanthrope is at least partially a mask that he puts up because It's Not You, It's My Enemies, and deep down he really does care a lot about helping people. Like, remember how reluctant he was to use lethal force against even a serial killer? Apparently Azzarello doesn’t as he dishes out all kinds of gruesome fates.

As well, there’s no moral core of the story, no genuinely good person you root for John to save, which is very apparent when you compare the other long runs. Delano had Zed, Gemma, and the hippie commune, Ennis had Kit, Ellie, and Brendan, Jenkins had Dani, Richie, and their families, and Astra Logue was in all three. Azzarello has… a smartass FBI agent? He’s kind of a dick too. Legitimately, the most interesting character is a Hooker with a Heart of Gold who’s only in one issue.

Without those elements, Hellblazer seems like… a mediocre-to-bad generic noir about a douchebag wandering around bumping off bigger douchebags.

At least Mike Carey’s next.

Edited by HamburgerTime on Apr 30th 2024 at 5:19:10 AM

you know if you need to go through 5 writers to make an idea work, maybe that means the idea is bad and shouldnt be done

So the Flash annual that came out yesterday. Probably the single best comic book I have ever read. I am a changed person.

Spurrier's run feels so jarring after Jeremy Adam's run. Adam's emphasized all the good Wally has done and can do as well as how great of a hero and family man he is.

Spurrier's run seems intent on ripping all that apart. It's good that the villains are threatening but... I can't really bring myself to care about these plot points when I was looking forward to Wally and his family moving forward rather than backward.

The thing with Linda is infuriating. She’s clearly suffering from postpartum depression but she has not been getting any help or even acknowledgment from the rest of her family about it.

9 issues in it’s barely progressed, at this point it’s basically just each issue reminding you that she still doesn’t care about anything.

I'm also really frustrated with Jai's regression. His arc in Adam's run is all about getting over his frustration with his powers and finally claiming control while building up his confidence. Heck, his big moment in Beast World has him taking on and defeating Godspeed after finally channeling the Speed Force completely and willingly. Then there's the Future Badass part and Wally embracing the whole "Flash Family" once again after initially planning to retire.

Then Spurrier immediately walks that back and says Jai doesn't want to be a superhero anymore.

Edited by reppuzan on May 1st 2024 at 9:43:20 AM

Just finished Mike Carey's Hellblazer. Holy shit, that was, bar none, the single darkest comic I've ever read. I'd rate it even higher than the likes of Berserk. Don't get me wrong, it was a good dark, not whee-look-how-edgy-I-am like Azzarello's was, but still, never knew Carey had it in him. The whole murder montage where an assload of minor characters from earlier runs reappear just to get hacked to pieces by demons was legitimately disturbing to me, though admittedly that's in part because I have mixed-at-best feelings about writers killing off characters they didn't create (blame what Kyle and Yost did to Wallflower, IYKYK).

I know it continues on but I can't help but wonder if this was intended to be the Grand Finale at one point. Virtually every character appears or is mentioned at some point, and it concludes with a depressing but utterly fitting ending of John deciding once and for all that he hurts more than he helps, giving up magic for good, and being left with absolutely nothing.

Not to dump on anyone who likes it, but I've always really struggled to perceive the appeal of Hellblazer. Maybe it's just because it hits a lot of buttons that I dislike, but everything I hear about it makes it sound like a miserable-to-read slog about a smarmy "aren't I so cool and better than you" asshole who ruins everything for everyone and never succeeds going around being a bitch to people and fighting depraved assholes who are mostly just stand-ins for people the writers hate so said writers can stroke off about their political opinions.

The better runs play the "smarmy superior asshole" thing as a mask Constantine feels like he has to wear, but he really does care for others a lot deep down.

With that said, Azzarello's run was exactly what you described, smug asshole going around slaughtering worse assholes.

But I get if it's not for you overall, as well.

On this note, Linkara reviewed Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits. For someone who self-admittedly didn't like Ennis' work (which seems to be a lukewarm take for tropes, imo) he actually liked this storyline a lot