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Comments
Malkavian claims that I, Vampire is really confused about who it's marketed towards and not really worth reading.
And Cain being the first vampire is just really dumb. Tie him to the Spectre, tie him to the Emotional Spectrum, tie him to the Crime Bible and the Religion of Crime and Darkseid: but vampires? At this rate, Cain's going to be responsible for more evil than freaking Hitler.
Well, that's why I asked if it's a Vampire: the Masquerade ripoff. Caine is the first vampire in V:tM.
I knew that. I guess that wasn't clear.
Oh, okay >.>
I thought Cain was Vandal Savage.
Last year he was.
In the New Fifty-Two...who knows?
The guy it showed in JLD looked like he'd walked off the set of Twilight, so likely not.
Well, describing people as they are not in comics is a common device to mislead. Not saying that it necessarily is Vandal Savage, but it's a possibility.
Cain is most definitely not Vandal Savage.
In any case, I'd advise skipping to issue 9 since I found the arc to be pretty unfun. In 9 writing switches over to Jeff Lemire and it becomes more Indiana Jonesy and a slightly different roster.
My problems in more detail in the box.
has ign lied to me
I mean in JLD/I, Vampire.
Also with that said if you are jonesing for some actually good vampire stuff, American Vampire by Scott Snyder is pretty amazing.
Also good to know.
Batman Annual #1: So what do you guys think about [
Snyder wrote it man, not Daniel. And it doesn't remove depth from Freeze I think, so much as make him vastly less sympathetic. Instead of a guy who wanted to heal his wife, he is now a guy who decided some girl in a cryo tube was his waifu and became obsessed with her. He still has that cold calculated sadism I like and there was some nonsense about the Court of Owls wanting his formula that didn't really make much sense considering what I was following in the Batman book. I dunno maybe it tied in to that Detective Comics issue where Batman went to Arkham.
W/e as far as annuals go at least it was vaguely plot relevant. Still the Animal Man annual was great and the Spider-man annual was... seriously guys, another It's a Wonderful Life plot? Still apparently Jonah makes a damn fine president.
Honestly, that direction isn't so illogical at all. Freeze has tugged my heartstrings from time-to-time, but he hasn't done that in a long time, so a change isn't so bad.
I am ambivalent. On one hand, it's nice for Snyder to try something new with the character, especially when there's not much to work with Heart-of-Ice Freeze since that story had been mined to death. On the other hand, the revised origin sucks out all of Freeze's redeeming quality. Instead of a tragic villain, now he's just a delusional creepy stalker dude. Heart-of-Ice Freeze has a real tragedy to him, since much like Batman, Victor Fries had a wholesome life before the death of his loved one drove him to unhealthy obsession.
Yeah, Heart of Ice was grand and everything, but it really limited the stories you could use with him.
Not that it's a bad thing, it's just a limiting thing.
There's a problems with sympathetic villains convicted to one single goal such as Mr.Freeze, Mad Hatter (the DCAU version) and in some occasions, Two-Face.
Those characters are interesting to write and read, but their potential for good story-telling opportunity is quite limited. There's only three types of stories you could do: the origin, the first few outings as a supervillain, and the end (either death or redemption). Villains of this particular nature are not made to be steadfast members of a superhero's rogue gallery, since they are not as versatile as, say, Joker or Penguin. Those guys are likely to become frequent victims of severe Motive Decay, since they are no ordinary villains, something just exists for the hero to punch.
Now, because of the nature of the DCAU, it's very good and well for the writers to make complex characters with a concrete ending in mind. But comic books are long runners, and they cannot afford to lose a profitable character. As such, this type of villains is harmful to the medium, and they've got to try something different.
So, we have got our DCU bi man's identity
It's Alan Scott
Just read Batman Annual #1 It's good... I'm just conflicted about the change to Freeze. I really hope this isn't a trend of removing ambiguity from its villains.
So, got JLD 9.
So...for the stuff I missed, Shade and Mindwarp appear to be gone because they're both nuts, and this Bennett guy appears to be guest-starting...as far as I can tell, just so DC can tell me to buy I, Vampire. If the crossover didn't work, this certainly won't, especially since what I've seen of Bennett just now makes the series look like some unholy Vampire: the Masquerade/Twilight crossover fanfic. ARGUS seems a bit generic (a secret organization that keeps magical artifacts in storage? Never heard that one before), but I can roll with it. Anyway, onto the good stuff. The new team member is pretty cool and her powerset fits in with the team well. The intro was really good, and made me feel like skipping some issues wasn't really a problem. Constantine's reaction to hearing the series' title was hilarious. From there on, it's all action and setup for the new story arc, which seems promising. I'd say it was a bit of an unnecessary increase of stakes, but apparently they fought Caine Cain in the last two issues, so meh. I'm nitpicking a lot, but I really did like it. The team has a pretty good dynamic going, even though they don't actually want to be a team.
OK, so read the Annual and...well, I'm really as conflicted as you'd think I'd be. I think it really depends on what Snyder and future writers will do with this, at the core of it all. But personally, I'm not too excited about turning Freezer into a stereotypical Prince Charming wannabe
It gave us Iron Man describing whoever dropped some ice cream as "The World's most dangerous man", though.
Angel & Faith 9: Angel & Faith has been a consistent treat, seeing the two title characters interact with different aspects of British culture and tonight's issue deals with idle nobility in the form of two of Giles great-aunts who used their magic to stay young and beautiful, which is problematic since traditional witchcraft doesn't work anymore and all the demons they've made contracts with are now coming to collect their debts. It's funny and it progresses the plot well. It's always a joy to see how this series illuminates the late Giles' years before he became the Watcher.
Future Foundation 18: Hickman's been working on the sister program to Fantastic Four for almost a year now and with the sister title and Hickman's building up to his last hurrah which seems to be focusing more on the revived Johnny Storm and a more comedic bent. It's worth noting the art is much better and being Hickman you either dig his big-idea-meets-melodrama writing or you don't so you're probably already reading this anyways.
Wolverine & The X-men 11: I really can't wait until this AvX nonsense is done. I really really can't. Much like the previous two issues for it it's mostly tie-in nonsense with a few nice moments, but nothing as amusing as the Danger Room giving Captain America a B or as emotional as Idie begging Logan for Hope's safety. I don't see what the point of these tie-ins are since it's really just filler in case you really were all that curious how Wolverine and Hope's flight went. Why yes, there is an inconsequential fight scene, how did you guess?
Amazing Spider-man Annual 39: Comics have formulas and their annuals are no different. Generally annuals have a variety of options. Like Iron Man annual reintroduced the Mandarin. This issue takes the laziest route, a rehash of Peter Parker's past with time traveling shenanigans as the catalyst, or rather being erased from time shenanigans with nary a lovestruck centurion in sight. It'd be an okay story if we hadn't seen the same thing done a million times before.
Animal Man Annual 1: Animal Man's been rocking and this issue takes a break to fill us in on the past of the Red, Green, and Rot. It's a fun story and it's basically a horror western in Canada and that's just awesome.
Batman Annual 1: Okay I'm of two minds here. So on the one hand Snyder is a great writers with solid characters, great action, realizes his ideas well yadda yadda. After American Vampire and The Court of Owls he doesn't get points for that. The thing is I dislike taking the tragedy and nuance out of Mr. Freeze and replacing him with a delusional murderer. Granted, he wasn't a character you could tell so many stories with but I'd rather have those few fantastic ones than numerous mediocre ones. So basically, it's a good story, but I disagree with the principles.
Batman Annual 1: Hmmmm...having read it...I'm not going to say I exactly approve of this new direction, but given that there are interesting places this version of Mr. Freeze could go without being too far removed from the original, and that it's Snyder, who I'm going to assume knows what he's doing until proven otherwise, I'm going to tentatively say I'm okay with this. I mean, caring about one thing to the exclusion of all else was kinda already his thing, as far as I'm aware, so this...again, not necessarily good, not necessarily bad. It's workable. We'll have to see more. Also, now we know why the Court of Owls didn't wake up all the Talons until just now. So one less plot hole.
Animal Man Annual 1: And here, we finally get our first genuine Animal Man/Swamp Thing crossover. Just...not with the current Animal Man and Swamp Thing. I really loved this. The art took the best elements of both series, and the story was really interesting. I noticed that there were only two hunters working for the Rot at this point. I'm sure we'll learn where the third came from at some point. Also, the time-travel trippiness stuff was odd. I mean, it was interesting and all, but given that it showed the entire Justice League killed by the Rot, I'm guessing that's going to be non-canon after all's said and done. Looking forward to seeing how that happens though.