>>216050
>DC what happened to you goddamn.

WB took more of an interest.
Bob Harras came in.
Eddie Berganza's still there.
Identity Crisis was held up as example of how to write comics.
They declared war on everything that made them fun in the 90s.
"Legacy" has gone from being one of the company's selling points to being something they despise.
And yes, Tim O'Neil over at whenwillthehurtingstop hit the nail on the head with his essay on the homogenization of DC.
And really, the Nu52 in general has just been a clusterfuck of terrible terrible TERRIBLE ideas. The few good things do not make up for all that bad. Not even remotely. Change can be good, but change purely for the sake of change can go suck a lemon, and that's the foundation of this new universe. Change everything you can because you can.

>>216041
While tumblr's user interface makes it excellent at magnifying things (for better AND worse), I don't think it's the reason for Simone's quality nosedive.

Put simply, over the years she fell into a habit. DC would hand her lemons, and she would make lemonade.

DC has stopped handing her lemons. These days they hand her shit. Actual handfuls of fecal mater. And she ends up making shitade out of it.

She's a socially minded writer, when very few other writers are, so she feels responsibility I think. And have a look at what she's had to deal with. She poured a lot of love into The Atom only to have Choi killed off in an incredibly stupid way then sidelined for good.

She was given a fucking horrible status quo on Wonder Woman and tried to make the best of it. The run had other problems too, but in the end she tried not to seem like she was tearing down the work of the last couple writers, when really they just needed their work torn down hard. And now the Perez incarnation of WW has been wiped out and instead of WW's two moms getting married, one of them doesn't exist, the other one's a criminal that turned a blind-eye to bigotry-fueled massacres and slave trade, and the Amazons have been turned into the most sexist thing in comics. That'll weigh on ya.

Her Firestorm was dreadful, but the premise she was handed - okay, take the mantle away from the black guy and make him share it with the white dude - was pretty damn insulting and wrongheaded.

And Batgirl, well, Batgirl might be the most discriminatory comic ever launched.

Her current output reeks of "trying too hard" and I feel like that's because NO amount of trying is going to make up for what's going on right now, and in trying to counterbalance ridiculously stupid things she ends up looking ridiculous herself.

>>216069
A horrible premise doesn't mean it has to be fucking horrible. You could you know try to do something good with it. I'll give you Wonder Woman because she came on at a really awkward spot. The rest is on her head.

Also the new 52 Amazons are sexist?

>>216073
There's a massive difference between something that's "a horrible premise" because it's just bad writing, and something that's a horrible premise because it's discriminatory. If a socially minded writer finds themselves having to write for a book that's the latter, it's highly likely they'll attempt to make up for the things they can't change through excessive hand-wringing elsewhere. I would say that the fucking awful "race relations" nonsense in Firestorm was Simone's way of trying to deal with the inherently regressive idea of taking the black character that had inherited the Firestorm mantle - one of the few minority characters DC had in a solo book - and making him half-give it back to Ronny. A better job could have been done by someone not so sensitive to what was wrong about the idea in the first place. Similarly Batgirl might've been better in the hands of som... no, Batgirl would've sucked no matter who was on it, nevermind.

And yes, the Amazons are painfully sexist. Azzarello merged the most sexist myths of the Amazons (some myths about them weren't as bad. He didn't use those myths) with the sexist myths of the Sirens to create some sort of hybrid ubersexism. Not that the book doesn't have strengths elsewhere, but damn, the Azzarello Amazons currently make the Amazons in Amazons Attack look good.

>>216077
Honestly, there wouldn't have been any problem with Firestorm because Ronnie was back and sharing the name with Jason if the lead up to that happening in Blackest Night/Brightest Day was so fucking awful, and if Simone hadn't turned both of them into racists.

Jason regularly bonded with white characters while he was the 'main' Firestorm, including Professor Stein, Firehawk, and even Ronnie himself, having partially survived being exploded by virtue of being part of the Firestorm Matrix.

But then they decided to bring Ronnie back to life fully. By way of Blackest Night. By having him murder Jason's girlfriend in one of the most horrible ways I've ever seen in a comic. And then they jammed them together as the NEW Firestorm and WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANYONE WANT TO FUCKING READ THAT? ONE OF THESE TWO CHARACTERS FORCED TO SPEND TIME TOGETHER TURNED THE OTHER'S GIRLFRIEND INTO SALT!! Seriously, forget any kind of race issue. When your characters are starting out with that kind of baggage, you have nowhere to go creatively, ever, that could make up for it. It would be like a buddy cop movie about a Nazi and a Jew, or a sitcom about a rapist and his victim. You just fucking can't turn it into a workable premise, because no reasonable audience could possibly accept the characters willingly spending time together. And forcing them together repeatedly to get the story rolling will always feel artificial.

>>216077
She's so hamfisted with trying to appeal to this group or that that she forgot to write a story. Look at Ryan. He was an awesome hero that just happened to be Asian. We didn't have to be constantly be reminded of it. Conversely look at the trans character in Batgirl. Had nothing to add to the story, just an empty gesture to look progressive. And she's patting herself on the back do what she thinks is the first trans character in DC. It's like she didn't read Doom Patrol.

Also the Amazons aren't really that sexist. I mean look at how the ancient Spartans acted. They were assholes. They owned slaves, the killed weak offspring, they considered combat the only reason to live. Now give them vaginas and isolate them for centuries. The Greeks were dicks. They were progressive in some respects but for the most part they were not the nicest bunch. Then you add in the Amazon's typical distrust of men then their behavior is understandable. I mean did people expect another Mary sue utopian society?

Dropping my dc comics. The jh Williams thing was the last straw. I don't even read bat woman but this is like the 15 high profile writer\artist they chased off with executive meddling and arnt showing any signs of improving. The only dc books I follow now are ww, flash, and asw, all which have become mediocre anyway. Was holding out thinking they'd improve

>>216084
Flash is SO PAINFULLY mediocre too.

>>216085
>someone else who dislikes new52 Flash

Oh thank god, the sycophants were getting nauseating.

>>216086
I've just started that series. It gets bad?

Someone I've wondered is will we get Matches in Beware the Batman?

>>216087
Oh god yes, it starts out awful too, giving the Rogues powers being a disgusting example of how the book misses the point.

Where it gets just...not even terrible but just completely a chore to get through is the Grodd battle.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/09/07/batwoman-shouldnt-have-a-happy-personal-life-dan-didio-at-baltimore-comic-con/

Damn, sucking to be Kate.

>>216090
THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS BOOTED THEM OUT EVEN EARLIER THAN ISSUE 26 SO THEY COULDN'T GIVE THE ENDING, MODIFIED THOUGH IT MAY HAVE BEEN.

Quadruple fuck you DC.

>Today, Dan DiDio told a packed hall at Baltimore Comic Con that heroes shouldn't get married. And he explained how heroes have to sacrifice their personal lives. And that is why Kathy Kane wasn't allowed to marry Maggie Sawyer in Batwoman. But of course, Aquaman is married to Mera. Isn't he? She's referred to as his queen, and before the New 52 relaunch of the title two years ago, they were a married couple... but actually in the series so far since then, he has never once referred to her as his wife, only as his queen. You might have thought the two would go together. Apparently not. I was just assured by a senior DC executive that, quite deliberately, "Aquaman is not married in New 52". And never was. No Mephisto needed.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/09/07/aquaman-is-not-married-to-mera-in-the-new-52/

And the hits just keep coming.

>>216081
>Also the Amazons aren't really that sexist.

The Nu52 Amazons really are incredibly sexist. The Spartan comparison doesn't hold up. Obviously, the Spartans are not in any ongoing comics, but more importantly they were a male dominated society on a planet where male dominated societies are the norm, not the exception. That is a crucial context. If the Spartans were in an ongoing comic right now, it would not be a comic published in a society where men have historically borne the brunt of gender inequality and discrimination. We aren't talking about what a real-world group of women did thousands of years ago, we're talking about a modern depiction of a female-dominated society in a culture where that's nigh unheard of. And while it's frankly inaccurate, the modern perception of the Spartans is that while they may have been brutal, at least they were honest about it. The Spartan stereotype may try to kill you, but he would be openly hostile, without any attempt to mislead and betray. The nu52 Amazons show up naked, seduce men, have sex with them, then slaughter their unarmed victims. Women that just want your seed then stab you in the back to go live in a sexist anti-male society where men are sold into slavery because it's either that or kill the boys as infants for the crime of being male. Like something out of an MRA handbook.

Not saying the book doesn't have other strengths, not saying it was deliberate or indicates Azzarello is sexist himself (like I said, he just crossbred two sexist myths and got something more sexist than the sum of its parts), but it's still probably the most sexist thing currently in comics.

>>216092
Shit like this is why it boggles my mind when you people actually give DC and Marvel money for their rags. Its like they go out of their way to crap on you.

>>216079
This. We can argue until we're blue in the face about whether or not someone else could've done a better job, and maybe her writer's well really has run dry, but every one of her last few assignments has been "Hey Gail, here's a turd. Polish it."

>>216088
Probably. I mean how else will Wayne keep personal tabs on crime.

>>216089
I didn't actually mind Cold having powers. ll admit I haven't read Flash since Waid's stuff so I'll owe up to not being the biggest Flash fan. The Grodd fight was bad though? I was kind of looking forward to it.

>>216093
I sort of see your point. Didn't these Amazons come from women who were oppressed by men? Or am I confusing it with the animated movie? I mean they have to keep the population up and the fact that Diana was shielded from it ment on some level Hipolyta knew it wasn't right. They were isolationists though. Which sometimes breeds some very hateful thinking.

However Diana doesn't want anything to do with it. Which I think makes her more heroic. Still I could see how it looks from another perspective. It makes the Amazons look like femnazis as opposed to their normal peaceful way of life (well peaceful for a group of warrior women)

>>216087
I wouldn't call it terrible, but Barry is a boring straight man and the plots move really, really slowly. Plus, it seemed like the writing team wanted to build up Barry's world bit by bit, maybe for a longer mega-arc, but then came Rogues/Gorilla Warfare and things seem comparatively generic now. Like, the Gorilla Grodd one-shot showed a Central City with super-intelligent gorillas and people working together in the aftermath of an invasion. None of that was seen in the series itself, which disappoints me, because nothing about Central City stands out as a setting. And it irks me when I'm supposed to just accept that heroes and villains have this longstanding relationship as rivals, but none of that is established in the story itself. Grodd is a stronger antagonist than the Rogues for this reason alone.

The deal with The rogues is that they are intended to be akin to Batman, that is human beings who can hack their way in a super powered world and rather then being lame are stronger for it, rising to the challenge of their adversary and banding together each a threat to him on their own, an organized force that even the Flash has trouble staying on top of.

In keeping with this theme they have a set of established rules which minimize risks to their organization like not killing the Flash since rather then getting him out of Central it would bring the whole Justice League down on them.

Given them powers diminishes a number of unique facets of the DCU, It diminishes human accomplishment parameters, it makes the Rogues and drastically smaller threat since they no longer have a cornered dog sentiment and really the list gets larger with each rogue.

Lets take Captain Cold for example, where once he would kill people for calling him Mister freeze he now FUCKING IS MISTER FREEZE, so you have two characters who are exactly the same? Guess which one no one is ever gonna give a fuck about.

Hint: It's not the one who is considered one of Batman's most famous enemies.

>>216102
Barry is such a fucking non-entity it makes me really miss the actual Barry would do Disco night with Bruce Wayne and Karaoke with Diana.

but hey, it's a no fun allowed universe so it could be worse.

>>216103
Ok I'll admit that does take something from them. I dug the part of Blackest Night with the Rogues pinned in the prison with a bunch of Black Lanterns on them. Didn't they try giving them powers before? When the demon was offering deals to supervillains?

>>216105
Yup, and they told him to go blow.

>>216101
>Didn't these Amazons come from women who were oppressed by men?

No. But writing a story about victims of abuse turning into radical anti-male bigots really wouldn't help. Mind you, from the real world perspective that's what happened. Prior to Azzarello's run they were victims of abuse and they were rebooted into violently anti-male bigots. Cowardly ones, too. But this is beating a dead horse, suffice to say prior to the reboot Simone was given the task of redeeming the Amazons following Amazons Attack. She didn't do a very good job, partly because she didn't want to look like she was insulting the other writers' work. And after her run, the Perez incarnation was canceled, and the story about Wonder Woman's two "moms" finally getting engaged (something that had been building for years and years) didn't happen. And instead the Amazons are not in a good place at all. Throw in the fate of Choi, the setup of Firestorm, the fact that DC took away its most successful minority hero (who takes something away from handicapped people? Honestly?), the thinning of Waller and Etta, hiring Orson Scott Card, and everything else going on right now... I think it's fair to say that the nosedive in Simone's quality is at least partly due to the fact that DC is no longer a healthy working environment, particularly for someone that tries to be socially conscious.

>>216029
To be fair, the version of the Creeper most people seem to be aware of is his animated incarnation, and he was basically Freakazoid.

>>216106
Ah. I remember Killer Moth becoming some retarded giant monster and Joker selling his soul for cigars. They were really good cigars. That's about the only other thing I remember from that event.

>>216108
BTAS Creeper was awesome.

>>216107
Oh ok. Honestly the way I see it then is the Amazons are just a hostile isolationist nation. If Azz had just left the immortality part in we could have avoided this. Then again since he's drawing from myth, well myth wasn't the nicest thing in the world. I mean compare comics Thor to the sociopath that was the myth. There's no real way to positively spin what happened to Arachne. I mean with the Amazons you take culture filled with hostility and hatred and put it in a bubble, well its not going to progress much.

Amazons Attack was such garbage. So much so that Incredible Herc did it better.

I'll agree that she had been dealt some shitty hands (why the hell couldn't there be two Atoms is beyond me). I just feel she tries too hard to be progressive. At the end of the day Ryan was a hero, we didn't need to be reminded he's Asian all the time. Just like how Alan Scott, possibly more Superman than Superman, just happens to be gay. Or Sir Ystin happens tobe trans. It doesn't become their whole character is what I mean.

>>216113
Turning Alan Scott gay was completely retarded.

>>216113
Alan Scott being gay is REALLY dumb for a lot of reasons so you should leave that out of your examples.

>>216114
Did you see what they did to him before Flashpoint? Like right before?

Right now Alan is awesome. Loses the love if his life? Soldiers on because he doesn't want it to happen to anyone else. Offered the power to help? Immediately accepts and makes his engagement ring the way to focus his power in honor of what he lost. Tempted with the opportunity of reuniting with his dead love? Tells the Grey to fuck off because he's a stronger man than that. Stuck in the middle of two group of heroes ready to fight each other? Tells them to stop fighting because there's a villain to fight instead of each other.

>>216108
But an Oni? I mean that's really out there.

Seriously I know a lot of people dislike what happened with Earth 2 getting rid of history but the JSA was pretty much FUBAR before that. I mean Guggenheim fucked it up so much.

>>216116
Jade was the only human woman to ever canonically be a Green Lantern.

Obsidian was one of the first openly gay characters in comics.

Rebooting the JSA in such a way that they no longer exist, and coming up with a new version of their dad that's gay (after promoting that a Green Lantern would be gay, and leaving out that it'd be one in an alternate reality, and the least relevant of the lot) was pretty much DC somehow managing to find the least progressive way possible to reintroduce a long-running character as being gay.

>>216118
Would I have liked them to be back? Yes. However I think Robinson did a good job with what he had. Alan is pretty much a composite of both Alan and his son. Frankly I think it could have been way worse.

I wouldn't have minded a new Infinity Inc. with the same focus on legacy. Take John's approach with having a bunch of new blood but have it work off Earth 2' formula if separate teams so we don't end up with the clusterfuck that JSA turned into.

What's the opinion of the theory that Earth 2's Batman is Hourman pre-formula?

>>216120
Nick are you being deliberately obtuse? How can you be missing the point being raised by the other poster so badly.

>>216120
No one is arguing it didn't turn out as well as it could have, but that it's fucking garbage in the first place.

>>216121
What do you mean? I mean I know losing Jade and Obsidian sucked but Earth 2 was very different from JSA when it comes to age. Alan was no longer the old warhorse. That's why no kids. Honestly I think Alan being gay is fine. It's certainly not the worse thing Alan went through.

>>216113
>I just feel she tries too hard to be progressive.

I already said I felt she's "trying too hard," but I feel that the reason for that is that she's extremely bothered by the fact that DC is fucking up royally when it comes to social issues, right across the board. You brought up Alan Scott as an indicator that it's not THAT bad, but it is, because "gay Alan" only came about by getting rid of DC's most prominent gay male character, AND it was the tepid anticlimax of a publicity stunt about rebooting a Green Lantern as a gay character, AND he's off in an alternate reality where he can't meet the rest of the DCU or anything. "It could've been worse" doesn't change the fact that the closest thing to a step forward from DC in years was actually one step forward one step back. Meanwhile they're completely screwing the pooch just about everywhere else, managing to pull defeat from the jaws of victory. Hey, remember when Mr. Terrific, leader of the JSA, was a big deal OUTSIDE that book as well as in it? Well don't hold your breath waiting for him to appear elsewhere ever again.

I give it a year before Milestone chars get used as cannon fodder in some "event" book.

>>216130
Why does a Green Lantern have a gun?

>>216132
Because 80% of Green Lantern stories have a point where "OH NO, THE RING'S OUT OF POWER/DOESN'T WORK/IS MISSING"

>>216130
Ok I get what you're all saying.

I can still like Alan and Earth 2 right? I love that book. Although I will admit I'm hesitant with Robinson leaving, not due to the new writer (I've seen some of his other stuff and he's not bad) but due to what kind of control editorial will exert.

>>216132
He's a criminal Muslim from Detroit.

>>216132
To go with his "I'm gonna rob you infidel" ski-mask.

>>216133
It's pretty disappointing that one of the more consistent elements of Geoff Johns' impact on the Green Lantern mythos was the establishment of the most powerful weapon in the universe being even worse at holding a charge than my crappy laptop is.

>>216144
Green Lantern losing his power like, every day, is a pretty consistent element of Green Lantern.

Johns just took away "Yellow" as the excuse they used to justify it half the time.

>>216152
"Having to recharge the ring" being a long time thing does NOT justify the near constant announcements of "9% charge" "3% charge" in EVERY Green Lantern fight scene. Particularly with the increase of decompression in comic book storytelling, there should be at least some fights where Green Lanterns AREN'T running on fumes. I mean, there have to be some fights where they can take the time to make sure they aren't going to run out before they start fighting, right? But since Johns took over not only is that not the case, there's a basically a blinking friggin' light announcing ahead of time that it's going to happen.

>>216118
This STILL pisses me off.
First because I loved both of those characters, but it also set Kyle Rayner back to ridiculous lengths which just makes me gag on top of everything else.

>>216118
This STILL pisses me off.
First because I loved both of those characters, but it also set Kyle Rayner back to ridiculous lengths which just makes me gag on top of everything else.

>>216086
They are. And Christ that series is bad.