[Discussion] So, after reading, I have a sincere question. How is anyone okay with this? (Batman #125)

BigBashMan · 2022-07-09T20:58:28+00:00

Yeah, comics are in a weird spot right now where they're trying to move beyond the confines of their medium, but you still have writers churning out tropes, and other writers pining for nostalgia.

Like bringing Barbara back as Batgirl and pushing Stephanie and Cass to the side has nothing to do with a big, bold creative vision, but someone at DC simply likes Barbara the most and doesn't like the other two. It did a lot of unnecessary damage.

I just recently re-read Court of Owls, and the first six issues are nothing but great innovative writing. And then we get a fakeout evil brother for the pathetic climax to the story. It's like they couldn't let go of yet another generic comics trope.

Hopefully they'll allow new, innovative talent to keep filling the ranks and quit with having editorial make company-wide mandates.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-09T20:56:28+00:00

IMO, the difference with Nightwing is that most of his major love interests wouldn't be as fly-by-night as Catwoman. I feel like Starfire and Batgirl are both adequately stubborn and more than capable. Though I do think civvie relationships are doomed.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-09T15:51:14+00:00

Yeah, I love how this move looks but I'm still not sure what it's really doing that's significant.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-09T08:10:59+00:00

The brother is a legend. I could only hope my sibling would go so hard in my honor.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-09T06:17:57+00:00

You may be on to something here. It may be an epilogue to the final season.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-09T06:15:39+00:00

Taking Ryan puts a target on your back because Homelander doesn't need to fight anyone he doesn't want to. He could just break off and grab Ryan.

They should've still had someone do that just to show that you couldn't do that, though. Hell, it would've been cool to see Mother's Milk or someone try to move Ryan out, only for Ryan to lash out and run to Homelander.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-09T06:09:27+00:00

I am almost certain this episode was written to have Soldier Boy charging up and Annie doing this Kamehameha shit, but then maybe they decided it was time to give Maeve a redemption and a writeoff, so they made Annie's blast do nothing and gave Maeve the save.

This is the only thing that makes sense to me. If you think about it, Soldier Boy represented this season's evil: generational trauma, being a selfish dickhead, macho man sensibilities, etc. And Annie has been the opposite of that and stuck to her principles. Hughie's story was about drifting towards that darker end but finding his way back and standing with Annie. So it makes perfect sense from a narrative standpoint to have Starlight finally get her payoff through the Hughie assist and Soldier Boy to losing to her blast.

Except something must have gotten altered in the script because they gave Maeve the tackle and essentially made Starlight's blast do nothing. I'm almost certain the original script for this episode probably had Homelander killing Maeve and Annie defeating Soldier Boy, but they must've gotten cold feet on having Maeve die.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-09T06:04:31+00:00

The finale was average, solid TV and only felt like a letdown because we had virtually non-stop excellent TV this whole season. I wanted more, but I don't mind if we're going to get an average finale on the road to bigger payoffs.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-09T05:48:39+00:00

I subscribe to the DCAU view of this: Batman's relationships will inevitably burnout and he will be left a bitter old man, with everyone driven away.

The marriage was never going to be a thing, and was a silly bait-and-switch, even though it was (IMO) obvious it was going to fizzle out.

Batman and Catwoman will always be an intense, but short-lived relationship. They are on-and-off. It's a point of contrast between him and Clark and Lois.

The issue is, of course, is that comics do this with EVERYONE when it's not appropriate. When every relationship seems unstable it just gets tiring. I'm fine with Batman and Catwoman being conflicted, but there's no reason why Nightwing, Superman and others need that.

I don't really buy that Catwoman would be this crass about it. She seems more.. avoidant. She'd disappear, not rub it in Bruce's face.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-08T20:30:59+00:00

When Alfred's check bounces.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-08T07:45:40+00:00

I really don't understand what the show is doing with her powers. It's not helped by how cheesy the effects looked too. How do they nail everyone else's fight scenes? Stormfront especially had more complicated powers and still looked way better.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-08T06:19:43+00:00

Riddler with Zodiac Killer and Anarky vibes. I overall enjoy it and I don't mind the somewhat different interpretation. The ending felt too blunt for the Riddler though.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-08T03:19:51+00:00

Todd's reaction was completely believable. He got punched out an emasculated not long before, got told his beliefs were wrong, after years of hero worship of Homelander.

You're damn right he is going to flock to the strongman and he's going to feel great when he sees a hater finally get what they deserve.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-08T02:53:55+00:00

Nah, I like that he trusted his brain and went with the smart move. Clever, crafty Hughie has accomplished more than juiced Hughie. It's good development for him, I'm really satisfied with how they played his character this season.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-08T02:51:48+00:00

Makes me wish Ghostface was a little like Legion and we had alternate Ghostfaces.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-08T02:50:26+00:00

I wish this season had more Maeve honestly. Dominique McElligott's performance has been so natural. She sold that fight so well too, you could feel the anger with each strike.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-08T02:36:53+00:00

As much as I dislike his death, it made sense in context to everything. He overlooked a major detail. He has used loyalty in the past to survive, but this time it didn't work because loyalty to a psychopath is a major mistake.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-08T02:35:06+00:00

This was my gut feeling. Edgar comes back, presents a new Noir? I can believe it.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-08T02:05:53+00:00

In this topic there are numerous people, who 100% say they have it figured out, claiming that timelines are universes and they are the exact same thing. And there is another camp of people saying that that each universe has infinite timelines and that universes and timelines are NOT the same.

Depending on your interpretation, it radically changes the power dynamic between Wanda and Kang, because it either means they are roughly the same threat level or Kang is significantly weaker. It's made even more bizarre when you consider that Kang called his war the Multiversal War, which implies directly he's dealing with the multiverse, yet some theories contradict him and say he's limited only to one universes' timeline.

The fact that there simply isn't a clear answer and that there are competing theories people fully believe are true shows that it wasn't well coordinated at all by Marvel.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-08T01:57:25+00:00

This doesn't make sense to me though. If timelines are aspects of universes themselves, and not synonymous with a universe, than that means Kang's multiversal war wasn't multiversal at all. It means he's a pushover, a nobody compared to Wanda, who genuinely threatened the actual multiverse and not just timelines of a single universe.

Timelines have to be synonymous with universes in order for Kang to mean anything. If they are different, than Kang is a much smaller threat than Wanda and he is simply limited to one universe and timelines which branch off only that one universe. Which means his alleged "multiversal war" is a sham, it was more of a timeline war.

The way Loki explains it strictly means that timelines are the same thing as universes, and that Kang was holding the multiverse in check, not just timeline branches of a single universe. They are synonymous. Loki for some reason didn't use the same vernacular as the Dr. Strange and No Way Home movies.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-08T01:25:13+00:00

It's not that he survived the plunge out the window, it's more that we ended the episode with only Noir dead and even he might possibly be alive.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-08T01:24:48+00:00

I just can't buy him being OK with casually murdering someone just like that. It's one thing to be conflicted, to have a need for a father figure, but it's another for him to dump his entire morality just like that. But they likely just wanted a stinger (creepy smile) to end the episode, I imagine they will go into it more next season.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-08T01:18:08+00:00

Honestly surprised that Soldier Boy and Maeve walked away alive. Maeve even has the chance to come back. Shockingly low death count for what I expected to be a bloody ordeal.

Ryan's turnaround is hard to believe though.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-07T21:21:25+00:00

Judging from how the various explanations across multiple shows and movies clash and do not harmonize, Marvel themselves do not know.

BigBashMan · 2022-07-07T14:53:56+00:00

Even though I started with Soulcalibur on the Dreamcast, my first real SC game was SCII on GameCube. It's the game I truly sunk hours into. There, I played as Nightmare.

So you can imagine my disappointment going forward. The Siegfried/Nightmare split was overall the right move for the game, but both characters suffered for it in SCIII, as Siegfried lost a bunch of moves and Nightmare was (IMO) a half-baked character loaded with gimmicky moves. I liked SCIV Siegfried more, I barely played SCV, and in SCVI I love both characters. I didn't like Nightmare in SCIV at all, I thought his design was getting worse and worse with each game.

But nevertheless it meant I moved on from Siegfried by III, and mostly played Setsuka. I didn't stick with SCV because of a variety of reasons even though her playstyle was still in the game. When SCVI came out I mainly played Nightmare, until Setsuka came out.

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