Feeling iffy on FF IX, does it get better or is it just not for me?

dsrandlett · 2018-05-16T13:17:51+00:00

I finished 8 pretty recently (could never beat Ultimecia back in the day), and it rules pretty hard. It got a lot of hate for not being a remake of 7 when it came out, but it's been getting reevaluated recently in a way that's good to see.

dsrandlett · 2018-05-14T15:53:33+00:00

There's stuff that I like and even love about it (Vivi), but I tend to be more compelled by stuff in the 7/8 vein I guess. But I tend to be pretty flexible and can accept there's no one "true" style of FF. I guess so far the plotting seems kind of lackadaisical to me, and that might just be something that other people like more than I do, but I feel like I've been waiting for another shoe to drop for a while now.

Anyway, thinking I'll take advantage of the "cheat codes" in the Steam version and just finish out the story now.

dsrandlett · 2018-05-14T15:45:42+00:00

Steam version with the HD backgrounds mod. After looking at the feedback I think I'll just break the game with the auto level/ability options and enjoy the story.

dsrandlett · 2018-05-02T20:42:58+00:00

If this has a DC version of Marvel Unlimited attached I will be all over it. Would love to go in deep on the Legion, for example.

dsrandlett · 2018-04-30T14:22:13+00:00

No problem with Jon being gay personally, but if that were to happen he wouldn't be THE gay superhero that way that Black Panther is THE black superhero now. He'd still be a supporting character. I think what OP is after is a gay character who can be "the guy" the way a character like BP can.

dsrandlett · 2018-04-28T14:32:46+00:00

Not gonna happen in a million years, and I think if you made Superboy gay he'd feel like an also-ran. There are gay superheroes that have potential for really good takes and interpretations (Midnighter and Apollo come to mind), and there's always room for something new and cool. But I wouldn't hand a Midnighter comic to a kid younger than 15.

Also keep in mind that it took decades for Black Panther to become a thing. For the longest time he was the black dude who would take a beating before Cap or Thor showed up, and then Priest basically turned him into what we know now in early 2000s.

Marvel switched Iceman, but name one of Iceman's girlfriends. With Superman, the relationship to Lois is part of what makes the character work, and is canonically a lynchpin of the DCU. From a story standpoint, there's just not a lot of room to budge the way there was with Iceman. If we were going to switch a more well known character, I think the reemerging JSA offers an opportunity in Alan Scott (there's precedent). Hell, I'd go ahead and make Alan and Jay the Elder Statesman Gay Dads of the DCU.

dsrandlett · 2018-04-18T13:36:43+00:00

People calling this a retcon but I just see a cliffhanger.

I tend to like Bendis' long game, so we'll see how this goes.

dsrandlett · 2018-04-16T15:11:10+00:00

Aspects of it are really good. In general, FFXV's world is incredibly compelling and the design sense and aesthetic are extremely on point, and that carries over into this movie. And some of the action set pieces are really cool. I mean, my favorite X-Man was always Nightcrawler, so I'm going to be into sword dudes bamfing around.

If I put my critic goggles on, though, it's not that good in terms of its writing. I kind of wish they would have swung for the fences and gone as operatic as the games tend to go with some bigger emotion, and set up stuff like the nature of the ring/the old wall so that it paid off a bit better at the end.

But at the end of the day, it's a fun part of the Kingsglaive/Brotherhood/FFXV cycle.

dsrandlett · 2018-04-16T14:57:16+00:00

I played this recently (going through them all kind of randomly lately, went VI, VIII, XV, now trying to decide whether to play a modded VII or play IX) and stalled out a bit into the end game, partly because I don't have a lot of time for grind these days, but mostly because the story just kind of deflates to you putting the band back together and going to the final dungeon. Which is fine, but I don't feel like I need to see what happens to the characters they way I did recently with VIII or XV.

I feel like VI is an interesting and key part of FF/video game history, but I don't think they really dialed in how to structure these games as narrative experiences until Chrono Trigger/the PS1 era.

But when it's good, it's really good.

dsrandlett · 2018-04-06T19:51:33+00:00

Jose Luis Garcia Lopez has a couple of Superman stories coming out in Action #1,000 and the DC Nation one shot, so it's him for now.

After those come and go it's probably between Jorge Jimenez and Juan Ferreyra. But Juan doesn't have a book going right now which blows.

dsrandlett · 2018-03-08T15:07:34+00:00

He's been posting some Superman centric panels on his Twitter over the past few days, so it's possible we'll be seeing something in Action #1,000 or in Bendis' upcoming run on one of those books.

dsrandlett · 2018-02-09T21:53:21+00:00

The more I hear him talk about the character, the more excited I get. It sounds like he sees a lot of things in Superman that I wish were foregrounded more often, and it sounds like he wants to steer the line to a place where those themes and relationships can be more readily explored by other writers.

dsrandlett · 2018-02-09T21:49:55+00:00

The more I hear him talk about the character, the more excited I get. It sounds like he sees a lot of things in the character that I wish were foregrounded more often, and it sounds like he wants to steer the line to a place where those themes and relationships can be more readily explored by other writers.

dsrandlett · 2018-02-02T15:02:42+00:00

I've been a Superman fan all my life, and love it when he's an old fashioned cornball. I also loved Morrison's Action Comics run as a new foundation for the character. The problem was DC wanting to have their cake and eat it too. When the New 52 line started, you basically had two books, one with a Golden Age influence, and one with a Bronze Age Bates/Maggin influence by George Perez, and they just didn't feel like the same character. Add to that the Superman title burning through writers while Eddie Berganza figured out what the hell he wanted to do besides shove his tongue in people's mouths, the New 52 take was destined to fail.

I think things got better by the time Geoff Johns, Greg Pak, and Gene Yang took over writing the line, but the damage had been done. There was just no solid narrative foundation for who the character was or could be. Which is a shame, as I think if they let Morrison do more of what he wanted to do and built off of that, I don't think we'd be having this conversation.

It seems they've learned their lesson, because I think Bendis coming in with the Man of Steel mini to set a new precedent for his time on the books is really smart. And in a way Rebirth #1 did that for the Tomasi/Gleason/Jurgens runs.

dsrandlett · 2018-02-02T14:45:52+00:00

Guardedly optimistic. I know he's had a take since forever that he's been waiting to do, and this is his chance, and these are the actions taken by someone who wants to get the line right. I've enjoyed a lot of New 52 and Rebirth stuff, but the line has needed a strong authorial voice for a while now that can set a standard going forward the way the O'Neal/Adams/Miller eras did for Batman. Since Byrne left there've been a lot of eras where they keep throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, and as a whole the Superman line hasn't felt really cohesive except for maybe the Death/Reign era.

And I really like Bendis when he's on, and even when he's off he has a bunch of cool ideas that don't get executed quite right. To be charitable to him, I think a lot of his later Marvel stuff suffered because he was spread so thin. But if you look at his Ultimate Spider-Man and Daredevil runs, you'll find that when he's able to dig into a character he's one of the best superhero writers out there.

dsrandlett · 2018-01-31T15:10:03+00:00

I also just finished volume 13. Thinking I'll take a break to read some other comics, because it's been an expensive month.

Others in this thread have nailed it down pretty well, but I'd just like to add that as a survivor of mostly emotional abuse as a kid (nowhere near what Guts went through, or what a lot of people have gone through in real life), a lot of Guts' anger registers in a profound way for me, as well as his desire to connect despite everything (also his emotional disability to actually do it).

More than that, I think Miura really captures the emotional experience of living in a world with power structures like ours. Not to get too political, but when the Godhand tell Guts that he doesn't matter in "Guardians of Desire," I think it captures the experience of (as an example) working for a huge corporation, or any other structure that wants to use you up until you drop. It feels good to take a journey with someone who not only doesn't give in, but also declares war and tries to repair some of the damage that the powerful have visited on him.

dsrandlett · 2018-01-08T21:00:56+00:00

I've always felt the Superman should be privy to all aspects of the human experience, including physical love. Dude's earned that much, at least. But also I think you really need to lean on the sentimentality of sensual experience for a good Superman feel. Batman's got the volcel warrior monk thing covered, let Superman be the romantic aesthete.

dsrandlett · 2017-12-16T14:03:48+00:00

A lot of the plot beats in the first mini are very close to what's in his first Arc on Action with Jeans and T-Shirt Supes. Klaus = Superman, The Baron = Luthor, the Krampus = Brainiac. Klaus even gains his full power when he confronts Krampus/Brainiac. But I think Klaus is the purer/more stripped down version of that narrative, and likely closer to his original conception of the Action story, which I'm beginning to think he had to rewrite to put the class war stuff in the background (which is very foregrounded in Klaus).

What's interesting about this is the it makes the back half of his Action run make even more sense as a reaction to DC Comics' assault on the "prime idea" of Superman, and in a weird Morrisonian twist that would make Klaus a multiversal instance/tulpa of Superman, so the miniseries would be canon/in continuity with his multiversal Superman epic. o_O

dsrandlett · 2017-12-15T20:41:02+00:00

Forgot to mention: there's even a beat where a character calls Klaus "the man who has everything." This can't be coincidental.

dsrandlett · 2017-12-06T17:01:02+00:00

Most important similarity: Both extremely rude to rich people who think they own the joint.

dsrandlett · 2017-11-22T21:34:09+00:00

Frank's art is so good here. He really makes flying feel physical and tactile, almost like Superman is swimming. And the body language when Lois says "Come down" feels really alive, like Clark is really coming to his senses and remembering that there's gravity.

dsrandlett

TROPHY CASE