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Rodrigo castellanos
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 July 2012
Location: Uruguay
Posts: 1469
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| Posted: 21 March 2024 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | 1
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... did not care for the idea of a bat demon addition, well done though it may've been. Also dislike the Joker being the guy who shot his parents in front of him, extremely dislike that.
None of that happens in BATMAN: YEAR ONE.
I'm just trying to wrap my head around the idea that they land (arguably) the biggest name in comics to take over their flagship character, and then they completely undermined it.
YEAR ONE and especially DKR were extremely successful, I doubt anybody at DC thought that they "undermined" anything.
For some reason Frank didn’t want to tell me what he was doing, and when I asked the best I could get from him was “don’t worry, you’ll love it.”I didn’t.
Ha!
I just visualized that smash cut in a potential 80s comics documentary.
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4583
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| Posted: 21 March 2024 at 8:43pm | IP Logged | 2
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I'll have to take the plunge on Batman Year One sometime if there's no bat demon behind it all. I liked Spider-Man Chapter One fine.
A lot of those people at DC around that time were doing a lot of conventions. Marvel too. That might not have helped schedules and coordination over the entire line behind the scenes.
Watchmen, also of 1986) said superheroes get off on violence, sometimes with masks, and that rape can be a blessing, threw in a load of Philip Dick paranoid alternate-realities and some stuff on an E.C. pirate comic as some sort of homage to Joe Orlando the DC editor. I kind of liked the movie better, more concise? I wanted to rewatch it much more than I wanted to get the comics out amazing to look at as they were.
I honestly think that if you encountered some of these things in ignorance of the stuff they were influenced by (Kurosawa, Trashman, Phillip K. Dick) then you would have a greater esteem for these creators subjectively, as in 'life changing'. A bit like knowing Mike Kaluta yet not knowing Arthur Rackham and that whole scool of turn of the century illustration. I think Kaluta is amazing, fantatsic craftsmanship and care in the best Morris tradition there, definitely elevating... I'm just saying that someone coming from only knowing other contemporary comics of the '70s-'90s could mistake he was a total self-made original. I have high regard for Dave Gibbons' art, but both Dark Knight Returns and the other big moment in serious adult superhero comics literature just seem like cool experiments in bringing something 'new' from another sphere in to me, I couldn't see where superheroes could go from them specifically. I got hooked on the ongoing series and their characters circa 1979, licensed at first... Star Wars and Galactica initially, Rom, Micronauts... and then it was Hulk and Spider-Man, and once I found them worthwhile on to pretty much all the rest.
I have Miller's Daredevil run, like Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run it has some great moments while still sustainable of at least the main characters, definitely sensitizing in places (capital A art sensitizes). I wonder that they both felt the need to abandon and top those two? Ronin wasn't my cuppa, prefer straight Kurasawa rewatches, and I didn't even think the Wolverine mini was anything special (sorry again, happy to sell them). I had some MiracleMan reprints of Moore... ah look, a graphic birth, check, well ... that's now been done.
I did think Moore's 1963 things were a kick, fake ads and all, didn't realize the serious bitterness more than affection behind them initially. Part of the Stan Lee hate/blame deal? No fun there. There never was that annual promised to tie it all up... would it have been his 'Smile' album? Er, no, of course not.
I also read just way too much genre text stuff fantasy/horror/sf to find Neil Gaiman or Harry Potter of great interest to me. Give me that Gormenghast tv series on DVD with extra though! Peake, Eddison, Ballard, Tolkien; obviously great stuff! As Dick might put it why go for the skim milk masquerading as cream? Death as a cute chick is just not going to be my thing, and seemed a bit Starlin's Gamora and Thonos' beloved redux. I might get to them eventually though, I did like that Moonshadow series Epic published a lot, but don't expect me to bow down to Oasis if I'm still finding Beatles outtakes I haven't heard.
I'm glad a lot of people enjoy Star Wars, Harry Potter, Katy Perry... whatever. But I don't go for the totally self-made bootstraps hero in anything, creators or politicians. Maybe I'm just a reactionary... some people say Akira made all other Japanese animation obsolete in the way Miller and Moore made the Stan Lee style continuing superheroes stories old hat, I've found that not to be true, it's too much of an extreme or absolutist. I think comics are a visual medium and superheroes are a great visual, like talking animals. I think adults can enjoy them but that chasing an adult readership/audience at the expense of existing characters or getting readers at an early age... no future. Miller and superheroes doesn't seem to have been a match made in heaven even for him going by 300 and Sin City. He did 'adult' superheroes and left. And what has Moore been doing since, anything with powers and code names?
So we get restart after restart, people heavily influenced by people heavily influenced by people just more forgotten now? Many supposed 'firsts' or 'keys' at a frequnt rate, but profound literature with costumes and secret identities? Better printing isn't inherently wrong but a Ditko, Kubert or Kirby never needed it (or Tezuka, Matsumoto, Toriyama).
I did buy Tempus Fugitive in that DC 'prestige' format, but I missed Green Arrow and whatever else they were doing in that, I don't think I was too crazy about it, would rather have had the same content in more issues of a regular comic book format.
When it's forty years since DKR and Watchmen it will be forty four since Blade Runner to me, and that much more since Fritz Lang's Metropolis... even more since Well's Time Machine was published.
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David Miller
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 3017
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| Posted: 22 March 2024 at 12:43am | IP Logged | 3
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I still think of the series as The Dark Knight. I had been collecting comics for about a year when I saw this subscription ad, and I knew I had to have it. I am still amazed my parents wrote that $13 check. That's $36.81 in 2024 dollars -- almost twice the current Amazon price for the paperback.
My memory is fuzzy but I started reading Frank Miller's return to Daredevil with #230 and that seems to have happened in proximity to the ad running across the street. Even at 12 and new to comics I was familiar with Miller's rep.
The actual schedule I received the comics was a little whackadoo, which I now see it was more or less laid out or at least inferable in the fine print. I was initially sent second printings of issues 1 and 2, and as if it mattered I wrote letters of complaint; I received replacements of each issue -- another second printing of #1 but a first printing of #2.
Such an awesome comic. The ending may be debatable, but at twelve years old reading Frank Miller pull off the the fist two issues felt like like watching Babe Ruth point to the outfield and deliver two home runs.
The cliche is that the golden age of comics is 12, but 1986 was a golden age for Miller as well: Daredevil Born Again. The Dark Knight. Electra Assassin. Daredevil Love And War. Even Batman Year One had launched before year's end. The Comics Journal wrote that Miller dominated mainstream comics 1986 like no cartoonist since Jack Kirby in the Sixties, and it's hard to disagree. (Unless we consider one John Byrne, but I would argue that 1987 was the year of JB's dominance.)
Edited by David Miller on 22 March 2024 at 12:46am
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Peter Hicks
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 April 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 1895
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| Posted: 22 March 2024 at 12:53am | IP Logged | 4
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I loved The Dark Knight Returns when it came out, and I still love it today. So very many amazing moments and images.
“Why do you think I wear a target on my chest? I can’t bullet proof my head.”
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Rodrigo castellanos
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 July 2012
Location: Uruguay
Posts: 1469
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| Posted: 22 March 2024 at 4:26am | IP Logged | 5
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I'll have to take the plunge on Batman Year One sometime if there's no bat demon behind it all.
Maybe you're mixing it up with "Shaman" (Legends of the Dark Knight 1-4) by Denny O'Neill and Ed Hannigan? It's a "Year One" story (chronologically wise) that kinda incorporates that element.
Still, good story.
Watchmen, also of 1986) said superheroes get off on violence, sometimes with masks, and that rape can be a blessing, threw in a load of Philip Dick paranoid alternate-realities and some stuff on an E.C. pirate comic as some sort of homage to Joe Orlando the DC editor.
Well, that's quite a Watchmen take.
I mean, nuance exists. You could say those topics are kinda raised but to have "rape can be a blessing" as any sort of conclusion or message from Watchmen is actually INSANE.
I'm all for passionate opinions but in order to have one you actually have to read it and engage with the material in an intellectually honest way. No offense.
The Comics Journal wrote that Miller dominated mainstream comics 1986 like no cartoonist since Jack Kirby in the Sixties, and it's hard to disagree. (Unless we consider one John Byrne, but I would argue that 1987 was the year of JB's dominance.)
Indeed. Also both mainly writer/artists, which I think doesn't happen anymore on mainstream comics.
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Jim Burdo
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Joined: 19 April 2020
Location: United States
Posts: 356
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| Posted: 22 March 2024 at 7:14am | IP Logged | 6
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Miller, possibly joking, said that Superman tore off Green Arrow's arm by accident.
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 7649
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| Posted: 22 March 2024 at 11:23am | IP Logged | 7
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I think Watchmen did have a weird message about rape in how
it ended up handling that scene/storyline.
Seeing where Moore has gone since with sex topics I can see
why that might be so.
Where he ended up is one of the reasons I will no longer
buy any of his stuff.
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Daniel Gillotte
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 11 October 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 2599
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| Posted: 22 March 2024 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | 8
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Batman Year One is excellent for Mazzuchelli's work alone. (Miller's work is excellent, too, but the art!)
Edited by Daniel Gillotte on 22 March 2024 at 1:35pm
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132391
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| Posted: 22 March 2024 at 1:58pm | IP Logged | 9
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I was working on the Superman reboot at the same time, and every move I made was scrutinized under a microscope. (There were in-office complaints about a cap I had Clark wear!)Meanwhile, Frank changed the backstories on Barbara Gordon, Alfred, Catwoman, the Joker and even Jim Gordon. Never heard a whisper of complaint. At the time I said I wished I could get the number of the devil Frank had sold his soul to!!
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 22 March 2024 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | 10
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“Why do you think I wear a target on my chest? I can’t bullet proof my head.”••• Why not? That whole armored chest emblem was one of the least logical cards Frank played. Assuming all the badguys in Gotham to be marksmen, would they not be likely to choose as their target the one part of the bat-suit they could be SURE wasn’t protected: the bottom half of his face?
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Jason K Fulton
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Joined: 23 September 2016
Location: United States
Posts: 703
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| Posted: 22 March 2024 at 2:30pm | IP Logged | 11
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I came into pre-1988 DC books entirely from back issues, I was just reading Marvel books from 1985-1988). I think the biggest roadblock for me, when I tried to branch out to other DC titles outside of JB's Superman, was that the majority of the characters didn't really seem like the same characters from book to book? It wasn't something I really ran into in Marvel books. The Captain America that showed up in his own book sure seemed like the same Cap that showed up in FF or Avengers.
With DC books? I could encounter Booster Gold in his Action Comics appearance, then I'd find a similar version in his own series, and a completely different character in Justice League. It just threw me off.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 22 March 2024 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | 12
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I turned pro in the years when the singers were starting to become more important than the songs. The rise of the Direct Sales Market only added to this. The rock star writers and artists were becoming what collecting comics was all about. (Walt Simonson has said he considers me to be one of the first such rock stars.)By the time I was recruited to handle the Superman reboot, the paradigm of the industry had shifted, and it seemed increasingly that being assigned to a character/title was carte blanche to “clean house”—often with absurd results.
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