The Big Picture: Super Single

[Rakor]

Well, I don't think it was a horrible thing for superman to get hitched, but i agree something should change because of it.

I see two main ways to do it:

A) Superman retires, happy little life with louis a while, meanwhile superbaddies pop out left and right, superman realizes this ain't gonna work so he breaks it off himself, maybe breaks himself off from humanity a bit.

B) Superman does the 90% of the time superheroing and louis gets right pissed about it, maybe breaks it off herself and he goes into depression mode a while.

Oooo, third one, no one would see this coming (sarcasm):

C) Louis dies, brutally. In the superhero's not allowed to have a happy little life mindset, he just gets punished pretty quick. Not so much if readers think he's not allowed, but in a universe like this with so many enemies and responsibilities, does he really think he can keep an ounce of normalcy.

Now I don't read comics, enjoy hearing such a synopsis from a knowledgeable source but I don't know jack about how it all went down canonically, but i certainly agree that the only difference being now superman occasionally kisses his wife goodbye in the morning is kinda silly.

 

[Latslask]

Got to say i don't like the comic book episodes (because i don't like comic books), i prefer it when MOVIEbob talks about MOVIES.

 

[SilverHammerMan]

That was a really good argument and Bob has actually succeeded in making me see the whole single Superman thing in a slightly less negative light, though it'll still be a while before I put my faith in DC again.
He couldn't be more wrong about the overpants though. First off, they're iconic, even if you wanted to get rid of them they've been ingrained into the public consciousness by 70(?) years of continuous publishing, it's the sort of thing that people just associate with Superman. It'd be like Batman without the scallop thingies on his gloves. And speaking of Batman, he too has moved away from the overpants, which I don't have a major problem with, they were never that vital to the whole look. Superman's Kryptonian overpants on the other hand, are a lot more vital to the image they tie the costume together, otherwise it just looks like a janitors jumpsuit. Not that I've put a lot of thought into this.
I'm surprised Bob didn't tackle the Batgirl issue though as opposed to giving it a cursory mention, to me that seems like a more interesting issue than whether or not Superman is going to pursue a variety of painfully generic love interests for the next few years.
Oh well, I'm just happy Bob did another "Comics Are Weird" installment.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

The problem is both Marvel and DC try to introduce new characters all the time. None of them are as popular as either comics regular Superheroes. Very few created in the last 20-30 years have stuck

The ones who do stick either have niche or cult followings (Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, Deadpool) or are legacy characters connected in someway to existing franchises (Damian Wayne (Robin 4), Tim Drake (Robin 3), Batwoman, Superboy, Kyle Rayner (Green Lantern 4) ect)

So, it's all the fans fault then.

No. But it is partially their fault.

The comic book industry really is eating itself alive partly because of the comic book fan base. They're usually 30 something year old guys and up. And that fan base isn't really interested in new exciting ideas and looking for comics books that explore the protential of the medium. They're interested in reading about their favourite guys in tights they red about when they were kids. And they don't want anything to change.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

Most stable couple in comics?
The Dibny's.

Maybe. But they're dead.

Really the most stable couple in comics are Buddy Baker (Animal Man) and Ellen, simply because he has a status quo as a married man.

 

[SilverHammerMan]

I'll read comic if the DC reboot happens. I don't want to have to deal with head up the ass continuity issues.

It's not an if situation, it is going to happen, though people really do have the wrong idea about comic book continuity. You don't need to have read every Batman book for the past 20 years to understand what's going on (Okay, you do if it's being written by Grant Morrison, but he's the only one, I swear)
If you want to read comics you can do a few things;
1 - Peruse Wikipedia or a wiki, it'll tell you all the basics as to characters and their relationships.
2 - Use a scans site, they usually give you a sort of bullet points version of the latest stories.
3 - Wait for a jumping on point or a new series, publishers are always looking for new readers, and if you check comic sites you can usually get a heads up as to a good time to start reading a title, as long as it's not heavily serialized you shouldn't have too much trouble getting caught up on the status quo.
Sorry to go on so long, but I think comics are great and I find that people have a lot of misconceptions about them.
Also sorry to be off-topic.... MovieBob is great.

 

[Farson89]

Grant Morrison, the writer of All Star Superman, bringing back an angry, socialist golden age Superman who fights currupt corporate buisness men and politians and represents the working man in the new great depression?

A thousand times yes.

And on top of that unbelievably delicious cake there's the damn tasty icing of Rags Morales' art.

Should be one of the best books of the relaunch in my eyes.

Damn right, there are no words for how excited I am about Morrison's Action Comics. Usually I go to my LCS at about midday on new comics day, when AC#1 comes out I'm gonna be waiting outside the doors for the place to open.

 

[head desk tricycle]

There is no reason Spider-Man can't be married. Spider-Man's whole bit is that he just isn't capable of keeping people safe in any way. Not only are his powers so unimpressive that absolutely nothing comes easy to him, but he's all these personal responsibilities that he can't realistically ignore, things like school and career, and of course loved ones. Even without MJ he's still got Aunt May, although I suspect that once MJ's out of the picture the editors will affix the bullseye squarely on her. They'd probably even hold grudges against anyone who resisted them, even if it was the actual readers. It's been known to happen.

 

[Aisaku]

The problem is both Marvel and DC try to introduce new characters all the time. None of them are as popular as either comics regular Superheroes. Very few created in the last 20-30 years have stuck

The ones who do stick either have niche or cult followings (Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, Deadpool) or are legacy characters connected in someway to existing franchises (Damian Wayne (Robin 4), Tim Drake (Robin 3), Batwoman, Superboy, Kyle Rayner (Green Lantern 4) ect)

So, it's all the fans fault then.

No. But it is partially their fault.

The comic book industry really is eating itself alive partly because of the comic book fan base. They're usually 30 something year old guys and up. And that fan base isn't really interested in new exciting ideas and looking for comics books that explore the protential of the medium. They're interested in reading about their favourite guys in tights they red about when they were kids. And they don't want anything to change.

SBD, you may be on to something there: The only case in DC where a successor truly replaced his predecessor was Wally West, the soon to be written out of existence Flash. And it was only after Barry's death, his continued absence that he was able to build some support. So, to make a long lasting change they would need to get rid of the originals, or somehow separate them from the continuity, and go from there. It's sort of what Marvel did with May Parker and the MC2 line, that lived long beyond most people's expectations.

 

[Hungry Donner]

Themyscira Olympics, now premiering on Starz!

I really liked this episode, not so much for the details but for shining a light on the issue comics have with being extremely serialized on one hand and trying their hardest not to change on the other. I still don't know how they manage it, maybe all of the tight outfits have a mesmerizing quality that make us forget this dissonance.

 

[RJ Dalton]

No. But it is partially their fault.

The comic book industry really is eating itself alive partly because of the comic book fan base. They're usually 30 something year old guys and up. And that fan base isn't really interested in new exciting ideas and looking for comics books that explore the protential of the medium. They're interested in reading about their favourite guys in tights they red about when they were kids. And they don't want anything to change.

Which is basically what I said.

Except . . .

Niel Gaimon's "Sandman." That was pretty much new and it was good and it did well, didn't it? Perhaps the comic book industry just isn't coming out with *good* new material. I actually wouldn't know. I'm not a huge comic book fan and I don't know what new heroes they've come up with in the last decade or so.

 

[Avistew]

Also, I always found the marriage weird, mostly because there was really no way to consummate the marriage without killing her...just saying...

Mind explaining that one to me? I've never read the comics.

I don't know about being a superhero, but when you're with a soldier, usually that's when you WANT to be married to them. Because it's much easier to be waiting for them as their wife (or husband) than as a girl/boyfriend. If you say "My boyfriend is away for a few months" people will think you're either a fool for staying with the guy since it's not even serious, or that you're cheating on him while he's away. When it's your husband, you become a respected person who has to struggle with their spouse being away often but carries on bravely.

So... if you mean single as in "dating nobody at all" then sure, I get it. Otherwise, married or in a relationship, does it really make a difference? At least if he's never there and they're married, there is a guarantee he's coming back. She knows she'll see him again. There isn't all the uncertainty or anything. And by getting married it's basically saying "since divorcing is a pain, that's how sure I am that I want to be with you despite how hard it's going to be".

So really, in my opinion, if a superhero is in a stable, committed relationship, it makes more sense for them to get married (plus I fail to see how not getting to see him at all is any better than getting to see him very rarely).
However I do agree that superheroism and relationships are probably a bad match. But is Superman really the kind to play the field? I don't know, he's such a sweet guy, he sounds like the kind to be in love. And he's not Batman, deciding he has to sacrifice everything and never be happy and so on. I think it works for him to be in a relationship.

This being said, I'm not outraged that they changed that. It's not even in the real continuity, so why not?

 

[KirbyKrackle]

The move makes sense since it's a reboot back to the silver age or the '90s or whatever time period DC editorial has decided on today, and in the new universe Superman has only begun operating recently, I think, so of course the marriage wouldn't have happened yet.

Also, I agree on the whole Wonder Woman thing. I usually love Morrison's work, but if he pairs up Wonder Woman with Superman I will be pretty disappointed because, while individual instances can be written okay, I'm pretty sick of this overall attitude that Wonder Woman simply must be tied down to a man because a proudly single woman? Oh my, what a scandal! Cripes, the original comics managed to be more progressive than that!

That said, I am bothered by some of Bob's reasoning here in that it seems to be implying that Superman should avoid marriage because Lois Lane, Intrepid Reporter, would just be too damned stress out by the marriage. That the marriage would sometimes struggle, like any marriage, and there would be stressful periods, like any marriage, is something that should probably be explored more in the comics (as opposed to "hi honey, I'm home from the alien planet I spent months away from you on, and now I'm going to go Forest Gump my way across America yet somehow this isn't a problem for our marriage, see ya!"), but to use poor, delicate Lois as a reason against the marriage seems a bit patronizing in that basically it implies that "Daddy, er, Superman knows best" and Lois's actual feelings on the matter shouldn't be taken into account. Also, the flip side of saying that Superman is too good, noble, and selfless to marry someone when he has a dangerous career is saying that anyone who does do that is bad, ignoble, and selfish. Or just poorly raised, apparently.

And while I'm aware that narrative convention is wedding=end of the story, happily ever after, that doesn't necessarily have to happen with the marriage (obviously, as that's what the last few decades worth of Superman comics have done) and the fact that Superman marries and doesn't settle down and be happy is fruitful exploration for the comics, and this does occur quite frequently with married couples in which at least one half is a superhero.

Oh, and Jim Lee is a shit costume designer.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

No. But it is partially their fault.

The comic book industry really is eating itself alive partly because of the comic book fan base. They're usually 30 something year old guys and up. And that fan base isn't really interested in new exciting ideas and looking for comics books that explore the protential of the medium. They're interested in reading about their favourite guys in tights they red about when they were kids. And they don't want anything to change.

Which is basically what I said.

Except . . .

Niel Gaimon's "Sandman." That was pretty much new and it was good and it did well, didn't it? Perhaps the comic book industry just isn't coming out with *good* new material. I actually wouldn't know. I'm not a huge comic book fan and I don't know what new heroes they've come up with in the last decade or so.

Well, if your talking non Superhero stuff like Sandman there are TONS of fantastic material out there right now that is so worth reading. I'm not just talking good comics, I'm talking works of literture that apsolutely must be read.

Preacher, Chew, The Walking Dead, Y the Last Man, Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, the Invisibles, Shade the Changing Man, Scalped, The Filth, The League of Extraudinary Gentlemen, Sweet Tooth, Essex County Trilogy, American Vampire ect ect ect. I could go on all day. You just don't hear about it, do you hear about all great novels that are published?

It is true that comic companies struggle with new Heroes, partly because the publishers havn't made anything that really sticks, partly becuase the Superhero crowd isn't interested in new heroes and partly because the crowd interested in new things arn't interested in Superheroes.

That isn't to say they don't do exciting things with the guys they've already got. Legacy characters (characters who take on another characters costume) are a great way to change things up for instance, like someone mentioned above with Wally West who was actually the Flash for 20 years after the original died before DC fucked that up and brought him back. Hell, even Batman was replaced a couple of years ago by Dick Greyson (the first Robin) with Damian Wayne (Bruce's evil son he has with Talia Ghul) as Robin and it spawned easily the best Batman & Robin team up stories ever, period. Marvel are doing something exciting with Mile Moralis becoming Utimate Spiderman.

I think the main culprit of falling comic book sales are cheaper forms of entertainment mainly. Also comics not being aimed at kids anymore.

 

[Okysho]

Darn, I was hoping this one would be about our new Black Spiderman. I wanna hear more about Marvel's decision to kill off peter parker.

They're not killing off Peter Parker though. They're killing off the 'Ultimate' version of Peter Parker which is basically an alternate universe version that was made up 10 years ago or so. The regular Peter Parker from the 60's is still alive and well.

Regardless (how is that different from superman hooks up with wonderwoman in an alternate universe anyways?) I still would like to hear how Marvel reached this decision. I'm not going to try and understand what the point of the alternate universes are for (especially not after reading marvel zombies) I'm just curious, besides it'd make a good episode.

Books like that aren't as designed by committee as DC is. Usually, the writer (Brian Michael Bendis) pitches it to the EIC and such, and if it makes sense and it could be interesting, they approve. If it's a big shift - such as the Black/Latino Spider-man - they put some marketing power behind it as well.

Even the big events began as simple pitches by the writers, not necessarily directed by a marketing department.

As for why it happened, well -

Likely they're planning on separating the Ultimate Universe from the regular universe even more. Killing Ultimate Peter Parker - the first Ultimate character - signifies that, but they've been talking about it since Ultimatum. They want more original stories with original characters more so than derivative stories with "Ultimized" characters. This new Spider-man is indicative about it.

If that's the case, why wouldn't they just make a new character instead? They on a tight budget and need to re-use old characters to put a new twist on things now?... I dunno...

Maybe I'm fan-boying out here, (though I don't actually really read spider man so would you call it fan-boying?) but something about the whole thing just seems off...

 

[daxterx2005]

getting rid of the "red undies" good idea imo

 

[vxicepickxv]

What about the marriage of Green Arrow and Black Canary ? that was stable.

So, how long has Lois Lane been a superhero exactly?

 

[JaredXE]

Except Bob, Superman and Lois WERE already married before they were married. She knew who he was and worried about him going out before the ring got on her finger, so that "Army wife" analogy doesn't work. Their lives never really changed because all the marriage did was give them a title. Supes and Lois still went out, still were intimate, still talked about their problems. Marriage never changed that. So getting rid of the marriage is ridiculious if DC doesn't get rid of the relationship, or better yet....the Lois.

Besides, didn't DC see the fan reation to OMD and BND?

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

I don't think Louis typically has to worry about Clark getting killed or seriously injured. Yeah every now and then a villain comes along that can potentially kill Superman, but otherwise he's completely invincible.