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Author Topic: Ruins  (Read 4201 times)

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Koah

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Re: Ruins
« Reply #20 on: July 20, 2008, 08:42:14 AM »

Actually, if his prior work is any indication, I think Ennis does suck Superman's dick.
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Brentai

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Re: Ruins
« Reply #21 on: July 20, 2008, 10:28:01 AM »

He'd have you believe he's sucking Superman's dick while giving Miller the finger, yeah.

All Kryptonian sperm dripping off his chin as he stares and growls FUUUUUUCK YOU
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Thad

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Re: Ruins
« Reply #22 on: July 20, 2008, 02:14:39 PM »

(Although, tangent: you should have said "superhero comic books" or "mainstream comic books" or some variation thereupon.  Comics is a medium, not a genre.)

I could have said that, but it would imply that the rest of the medium doesn't take itself too seriously.

Oh, okay.  You were making a stupidly broad generalization DELIBERATELY instead of accidentally.  That's okay, then.  ::(:

My problem is that nobody would say "Film takes itself too seriously," "TV takes itself too seriously," or "Books take themselves too seriously."

Well, let me possibly contradict myself and go on record as saying I have nothing wrong with the genre maturing.  It's just the way it goes about it that bugs me sometimes... you know that one Shortpacked! strip where Frank Miller writes a page that's just "WHORES WHORES WHORES WHORES WHORES" etc?  Yeah, it's like that, except the epilogue is that Shortpacked! and all the other webcomics then turn around and start doing the same thing.

I'm not sure who you think is arguing with you.  Though I would add that a number of creators have gone to some lengths to scale back the Dark-and-Gritty nonsense of the 1990's.
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Bal

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Re: Ruins
« Reply #23 on: July 20, 2008, 03:48:09 PM »

Even Miller seems to find the excesses of the 90's to be a bit repugnant. Of course, then he goes and writes gritty fucking drivel like All-Star Batman & Robin.
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Thad

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Re: Ruins
« Reply #24 on: July 20, 2008, 04:13:08 PM »

And you can replace "Miller" with "Lee" and "writes" with "draws" and that holds, too.

I think it was Millar-with-an-A who pointed out some general schizophrenia at DC on this point -- they said Infinite Crisis would make the DCU less dark, but then it featured Superboy Prime punching people's fucking heads off.

(But it's STILL less dark than before, on the "no on-panel rape in JLA" rule alone.)

Anyway.  There's still plenty of crap out there.  But on balance things are loads better than a decade ago.
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Mongrel

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Re: Ruins
« Reply #25 on: July 20, 2008, 05:44:26 PM »

All Kryptonian sperm dripping off his chin as he stares and growls FUUUUUUCK YOU

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Thad

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Re: Ruins
« Reply #26 on: July 29, 2008, 03:36:29 PM »

Putting this here, because why the hell not.  Maybe we should repurpose this as a general Ellis thread.

Anyway.  Black Summer's over, and the last issue puts it all into perspective.

The series takes the idea of superhero vigilante justice to a reductio ad absurdum: superheroes act outside the law to do what they can for the greater good when the law does not prevail.  The series takes current events -- a criminal President who Congress refuses to hold accountable for his crimes -- and asks the question, is a hero then obligated to take the law into his own hands and kill the President himself?

The answer finally given in the final issue is simple, and comes like a splash of cold water: of course not.

In the final analysis, John Horus is simple-minded, childlike.  He ascribes to a black-and-white, good-and-evil outlook that, while it may serve as a good backdrop for Superman, rarely works out in real life.

I linked an Ellis speech a few weeks back where he half-joked about his concern that he'd be put on a terror watch list for writing this story, that it had been mentioned on Fox News and he had gotten hate mail for it.  Of course, if the angry Fox viewers had waited to read the damn thing, they probably would have agreed with its ultimate message.  And of course the real irony is that the reason they had such a knee-jerk reaction is that they themselves are like John Horus -- people with a simplistic worldview who are incapable of understanding nuance.

The denouement recalls Dark Knight in its contrast between its two would-be heroes, one bright and one dark, one a vigilante and the other a government employee.  Like Dark Knight, it asks the question, "What is a hero?"

The answer, in this case, is perhaps a bit disappointing -- it's not only obvious, it's downright cliche.

But in the end, it makes a great bit of superhero deconstruction.  While I'll agree with Cannon that Ellis tends toward excess in his criticism of the genre, I'll admit that I love the way he analyzes it, the way he plays with it.

This is, at its core, a story that contrasts the simplistic morality of (traditional) superhero comics with real-life concerns.  And it does it well.
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Brentai

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Re: Ruins
« Reply #27 on: July 29, 2008, 08:37:21 PM »

The series takes the idea of superhero vigilante justice to a reductio ad absurdum: superheroes act outside the law to do what they can for the greater good when the law does not prevail.  The series takes current events -- a criminal President who Congress refuses to hold accountable for his crimes -- and asks the question, is a hero then obligated to take the law into his own hands and kill the President himself?

The answer finally given in the final issue is simple, and comes like a splash of cold water: of course not.

The Sam & Max have to this a great better answer.

(Still the book sounds like reading is worthy.)
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Cannon

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Re: Ruins
« Reply #28 on: July 30, 2008, 09:19:02 AM »

Just in case I wasn't clear, I think Ellis is a talented writer. I will not deny this. He's made an effort to produce comics of other genres, and by some small degree, further the medium. He deserves a little more than a pat on the back for that. I think it's easy (and, in some cases, expected) for a vocal veteran of the industry (where seventy-percent of it is dominated by two publishers, even) to disparage the superhero genre, but it's another thing to back it up with brilliant stories such as... Oh... Watchmen. So he talks the talk and walks the walk, with Thad's recommendation being a good example, seemingly.
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