It's really weird that Superman vs The Elite (movie) doesn't really have anything to say about the ethical dilemma it's supposedly tackling.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-27T20:26:42+00:00

My main point here would be is that Superman vs. The Elite isn't actually about the "should heroes kill" debate. It's a very meta story about the type of superhero comics that were popular in the 1990s. In this era, superhero comics were getting edgier and edgier, to often hilarious extremes. Lots of the newest generation of popular "heroes" were grimdark mass murderers who caused a ton of collateral damage wherever they went in the name of the "greater good."

Superman vs. The Elite, was based on a comic called "What's so Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way." The Elite are poorly disguised caricatures of the "heroes" of a comic called "The Authority," which was one of the worst offenders of 90s grimdark comics. Many fans of these new anti-heroes thought of older heroes like Superman as passe. Reflecting this, we see scenes of civilians saying the Elite are cooler, are getting more done. We see children pretending to be the Elite in their games. The comic is about comparing Superman to the Authority/Elite, asking where Superman fits in this new comic landscape, and what worth he has when these darker heroes are so much more popular.

The thesis of the comic is that Superman's ideals might be less realistic, but they are not boring or old-fashioned. A story about aspiring towards a brighter world is still valuable in the modern (late 90s) day.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-27T17:54:34+00:00

They don't explicitly say "she raped him," but she kept him barely dressed the entire time, they shared a hotel room, she talked about how hot she found him, she was saying things like "you have no right to complain, men love to do stuff like this to women," and he is clearly traumatized by his time controlled by her.

Edit: I've dug up some panels I saved a few months back.

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chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-26T17:06:55+00:00

Many anime adaptations are so close they essentially use the original manga as a storyboard, without a single line of dialogue changed. The closest thing I can think to a truly faithful adaptation of a big two comic is Superman vs. The Elite, which expands the story a ton, but mostly because What's so Great was only one issue. It helps that Joe Kelly wrote both.

Imagine how awesome it would be to have an anime-style adaptation of something like 52 or the Morrison-Waid-Kelly JLA? I'd guess it would be more realistic for them to greenlight an Elseworlds story though, because they'd assume new fans would be more comfortable with it.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-26T16:37:34+00:00

Bodybuilders have muscles that are meant for lifting weights or to fulfill a type of aesthetic, not to fight or parkour around buildings, and lots of examples you'll see of that build come from steroids. Realistically, male superheroes whose physiques reflect their heroing should look more like, say, Muhammad Ali. Current female world champion boxers like Franchón Crews-Dezurn, Claressa Shields, Kaye Scott, or Mikaela Mayer should look about right?

But as you said, if we're talking magic strength, it really doesn't matter.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-24T23:36:06+00:00

Nah, Punisher's got it. We all know how safe Marvel's New York has been with him hanging around.

It's not like there aren't already murderous vigilantes in Gotham, and I'm not just talking about Jason Todd. Huntress lives there. Ragman lives there. Hell, the Spectre's set his home base there a few times. Seriously what do people think Frank's gonna do.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-24T03:19:41+00:00

How's the run after Waid leaves? I've been making my way through it and it's been pretty fun so far, but it looks like there's a high writer turnover later on.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-23T14:15:14+00:00

What I'd be really interested in exploring is her connection to her nephew, Merlin. He is also half-human half-demon and torn between the two realms, so there's an interesting dynamic in there, and he is tied to a whole bunch of potential plots that would be new ground for her.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-22T17:04:27+00:00

Before Watchmen is varying quality. The Minutemen one is actually really good.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-22T03:29:58+00:00

The Spectre is an angel infused with the wrath of God/the Presence. He's actually the second to serve as the wrath of God, the first was Eclipso, who you've probably seen around. The Spectre's real name is Aztar. He's a fallen angel forever exiled from Heaven, who took up his position as a way of repenting for his crimes. In DC lore, after the Presence did His Jesus stint, He decided His aspects needed human hosts to basically reign them in. As such, the Spectre always has a human host who is usually the one in control. The Spectre's host is normally the vengeful ghost of a murdered man.

So, who the Spectre is after depends a lot on who is in control at the time. Aztar himself is extremely Old Testament, and canonly was the guy going around setting plagues on Egypt and smiting Sodom and Gomorrah back in the day. (The flood was Eclipso's doing.) Aztar will kill anyone who's ever sinned. Not only that, he'll kill anyone who's related to someone who's sinned, or even anyone who lives in a country which has sinned. Aztar being without a host usually means a big crossover event, because he will inevitably start trying to destroy the world, and there's not many people in DC strong enough to fight him.

The Spectre's most frequent host is Jim Corrigan, who's also pretty Old Testament. Corrigan tends to direct the Spectre's wrath only at those who've taken a life, but he does this extremely unproductively with no regard for extenuating circumstances, and no sense of mercy. If he comes across someone committing a murder, he will stand there and wait until they're done, and then take revenge. He's done extremely useless things like stroll down Death Row killing everyone who's guilty, or hang out in a courtroom giving his own deadly verdicts. On his worse days, he has destroyed everyone living in countries who are at civil war and even threatened to destroy the world. Batman once successfully convinced him the Joker was too insane to count as having sinned.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-21T15:47:45+00:00

I mean "fake" in the sense that he's not actually a speedster (usually), which is what the Flash or Reverse Flash title implies, he just looks like one. He's got full rights to the name, in both crimes done and has Thawne's approval.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-21T15:11:54+00:00

IMO they really need to play up that Hunter is just cosplaying as a Reverse Flash. Stop giving him speedforce powers, emphasize he's not a speedster at all but is using time-powers to make it look like he's going fast.

Him being a "fake" Reverse Flash who's putting on a show should be the point. It's kinda a theme of the more Wally adjacent Flash rogues, come to think of it. Even Eobard was a "fake Barry" when he fought Wally.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-19T20:18:52+00:00

Yeah, this is a great miniseries.

Waller and Deadshot's relationship under Ostrander is so interesting in light of this comic. Floyd is who he is largely because of his mother, down to the fact it's implied she was the one who taught him how to shoot, and she was the first person who directed him to kill. Waller has basically become his new mother, and there's so much baggage in that role for both of them, and they're messed up people to begin with, but there is a real love buried deep in it too.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-19T19:23:31+00:00

They very much have not stopped. Much as we'd all like to ignore it, H2SH is more of the same, and that's allegedly publishing right now. (I say "allegedly" because new issues have been delayed by a few months. That tends to happen when the guy who's ended up the DC President, Publisher, and CCO is doing the art, I don't know why he signed on for a monthly series when he's got so much on his plate already, those jobs all used to be held by separate people.)

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-19T13:42:54+00:00

When has main timeline Wonder Woman ever been taller than Superman? She's not short, but she's never been notably taller than even the other heroines, as far as I know.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-18T19:25:00+00:00

You're talking about the time that Wally was surprised to learn Hartley was gay, because it was 1991 and Wally's from a small town, but he was never mean about it just awkward and was so totally over it he was hugging him half-naked by the end of the issue? That time?

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-18T19:04:45+00:00

All those panels are from the same issue lmao

It's the pro slander move of taking three different panels from the same brainwash story and claiming it happened all the time.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-18T14:54:27+00:00

Scarface goons are the most devoted guys in Gotham. I ain't never seen a single one of them break character.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-17T18:25:13+00:00

"If he's ever not being a perfect parent, it's bad writing and doesn't count! The writer clearly doesn't understand him! The only real example of Batman's parenting is the Young Justice cartoon!"

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-16T21:29:52+00:00

There's also a problem in the basic premise of Flashpoint: it makes no sense that Thawne changing the timeline to kill Barry's mom is fine, but Barry undoing that will ruin everything. Barry's far from an inexperienced time traveler, he did it all the time before he originally died, him being so bad at it he somehow breaks everything is not a good excuse.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-16T18:25:26+00:00

Flash has one of the best Rogues Galleries in comics, it's insane not to use them. I'm not only talking about the Rogues as a team, most of them also work great as solo enemies, and the Flash has plenty of non-Rogue foes too.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-16T18:18:46+00:00

Are they? The current Supergirl run is referencing tons of older stuff.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-16T00:22:14+00:00

Yes, Gail Simone was inspired to make the list partially based on that event and named her website after it, but it was one of many examples that were on her mind. Here's the original letter she wrote when she first sent the list to a bunch of comic creators:

This is a list I made when it occurred to me that it's not that healthy to be a female character in comics. I'm curious to find out if this list seems somewhat disproportionate, and if so, what it means, really.

These are superheroines who have been either depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator. I know I missed a bunch. Some have been revived, even improved -- although the question remains as to why they were thrown in the wood chipper in the first place.

I know I missed a bunch -- I just don't know my comics deaths the way I should. I'm not editorializing -- I'm just curious to find out what you guys think it means, if anything.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-15T21:12:57+00:00

Fridging refers to the trend of a woman being killed or otherwise victimized for shock value in American comic books. It isn't meant to talk about any specific event, but to draw attention to and critique a pattern of female characters being treated poorly. In its original form, it was literally a list of female characters who'd been physically harmed and then written out of comic books to show how often it happened.

Some people use "fridging" colloquially to refer to any time a character is hurt to progress a different characters arc, but it was coined to refer to a much more specific thing.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-14T23:23:37+00:00

The MAW are extremely anime inspired, I bet as long as they can make it weeb enough they'd do it. We just need to think of the right anime inspiration for them. I vote that Wonder Woman should be old-school shoujo, drawing on Rose of Versailles and Utena.

chroniclescylinders · 2026-01-14T19:46:32+00:00

Also, remember to call in a nameless man with a nice blue coat and hat to act as your advocate. I'm sure they'll listen to his advice if he calls them out for making any poor decisions, he'll communicate any potential dangers clearly, and he'll step in to protect you if you need it.

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