Drunken Comics Rage

After about a week of feeling like complete and utter dreck, I'm finally getting back to feeling human again. Given my recent track record with posting I can't really claim that it is what kept me from keeping up on posting, but obviously it didn't help. There's been a bunch of stuff comics wise happen in the last few weeks that I thought about commenting on and have probably since stopped being relavent. But fuck it, here's some quick hits on things you've probably already formed your own opinion on.

#1. So the whole Robert Kirkman thing. So maybe "saving comics" was a bit overstating it. But I do agree that I don't think there is enough going on and DC and Marvel that are age appropriate for the younger generation. I know now that I'm a parent and my son is rapidly discovering the characters I grew up and loved, I struggle with finding books that I can share with him that are not more mature in nature.

"Well see son, the Hulk is kicking the snot out of all of the heroes because they shot him in to space and basically left him for dead"

"So Spiderman just made a deal with the devil and insured his daughter would never be born. But it's okay because he did it to save Aunt May's life"

"Well, the reason Superboy is punching the heads off of heroes is because he's mad that they aren't heroic enough."

"See, it was wasn't really Wonderdog at all. It was a demon dog that ate Wendy and Marvin" (Okay, on this last one. Seriously Didio, what the fuck is wrong with you?)

Setting aside whether those stories were good or bad on any level, they just really aren't the kind of thing you can expect a 5 or 6 year old to grasp. So while I don't know that The Big Two should turn completely away from adult oriented stories, I would love to see more "family friendly" type stories appear. Now of course the question is, can you get those kinds of stories to sell? I would like to think so assuming they didn't insult the intelligence of the reader.

So in regards to the rest of Kirkman's comments, I think what's likely most important is that it got people talking again about creator owned (AKA "Indy") books versus established books and characters. Which I think is really what Kirkman was shooting for all along.

#2. So it's been announced that Warner Brothers is going to rebooted the Superman franchise, which I think is great. But they also want all their comic movie properties to be darker in theme, which I think is basically insane. I'm sure it's a knee jerk to "Damn, look at how much money Dark Knight made us!" but it is really a stooooooopid move. Not all comic movies should be dark, because not all comics should be dark (see item #1 above).

Dark Knight works because it's the fucking Joker and he really can be a scary bastard when handled well. But more than anything, it works because it's true to the material it is about. On the other hand, there is nothing really dark at all about Iron Man and it made an assload of money this summer as well. But agai9n, it was true to it's source material. Not all heroes are dark brooding types. Iron Man is not that guy, and Superman really shouldn't be either. Or Green Lantern. Or Wonder Woman. Or practically any DC big gun not named Batman. So please Warner Brothers, learn the right lesson from the success you had this summer. Being true to the character is what sells, not being dark or "adult". This isn't rocket science folks.

#3. Little DVO and I have been on something of a superhero video game tear as of late. After beating Marvel Ultimate alliance, we hit the local used game store and snagged "Spiderman: Friend or Foe". I knew next to nothing about the game, but it was two player, it involved Spiderman, we were good to go.

I am a little surprised to say the game was really fun if not a little bit short. We pretty well buried is of the course of about ten days. It is (sort of) set in the same world as the Spiderman world as the movies, as the costume designs for the Goblin(s) come straight from the movie and they got Thomas Haden Church doing the voice of Sandman in it. The story is pretty straightforward, someone is creating technological "phantoms" that are gathering pieces of a meteor. Nick Fury has sent Spidey to gather the pieces. Along the way he runs into some allies (Back Cat and Iron Fist as examples) to help him, but every even numbered map ends with a classic Spidey villain that once you beat him, agrees to help out and the second player can choose to be that person.

Game play was pretty simple but still fun. Without going into detail, think Double Dragon but three dimensional at about a 3/4 view. Everyone gets special powers along the way that were pretty awesome to witness as Little DVO figured them out. Pretty much once he mastered the art of picking guys up and throwing them off of cliffs and such, the game just blazed towards the boss levels. The dialogue in the cut scenes and the little pieces of banter between Spidey and the villains were pretty funny as well. Like I said, it was kind of short, but all in all, well worth the $13 I dumped into it.

We followed that up with Xmen: Legends, which we've played only a little bit. I think we are both a bit disappointed in it, but mostly because it is so obviously a predecessor to Ultimate Alliance and shows how polished they've made the game play in the years between the games that it just isn't near as fun. So on Little DVO's insistence, we are now playing through Ultimate Alliance again, this time as a team full of Xmen. Oh yeah, were playing through Spiderman: Friend or Foe again because he apparently didn't get enough of it the first time around either. I've got the Justice League game for the Xbox sitting and waiting for him to get bored with those two titles.

#4. I still owe a review on the latest ediion of the $2.99 experiment. Or in my case, the $3.50 experiment. I'm still committed to doing that in the next few days, but as a quick tease, let's just say Shark owes me $3.50 and probably a half dozen Jack and Cokes for the mental anguish that comic caused me.

Filed under: DVO Reading Rage, Games!