Together, we can be justice!
NOTE: Okay, people aren't understanding how the time shield of Vyce's ship works, so let me explain it in more detail.
Inside of the time shield, time is moving faster than how we perceive it. However, outside of that shield, time is still moving at our own regular pace. As such, since time is moving faster ONLY INSIDE OF THE SHIELD, they see anything else outside of that shield as going slower than them. Thus when their sensors look outside of the shield, objects moving towards them appear to be going slowly.
Or, put in another way, if I were to suddenly develop super-speed powers, from my point of view, everyone else would appear to be going much slower than me.
It ISN'T a ratio thing, like one week passes for every minute there or something.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Justice League: Cry for Justice #3 and 4
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91 comments:
JJJUUUUUUSSSSTTTTIIIICCCCCEEEEEE!
That’s going to be my new battle cry from now on! It’s the only thing this comic will ever probably contribute to people outside of being used as firewood.
Hal’s opening question to Supergirl instantly made me facepalm, even before seeing this review. That was perhaps the dumbest thing I have ever heard said by one of my favorite heroes. Well done Robinson, well done.
Oh Hal, what have they done to you!? Now you engage in torture yourself!? NOOOOOOOOO!!!
You raise another interesting point about Promethous (or however you spell that), why does he want to make everyone pay when the guys that screwed him over are already dead or gone? This is as bad as Hal having no reason. Logic, who needs that?
I’m surprised you didn’t talk about the Global Guardians. One of the members that was killed was from the New Guardians, Gloss. You remember her from the comic that had Snowflame right? What a strange concidence!
Hard to believe this comic was nominated for Best Writing at the Eisner Awards. Luckily, Ed Brubaker won that one.
Question that is a bit off topic, but looking at your opening theme, I spot the JLA Deluxe editions vol. 1-3. Have you got volume 4 yet? It’s pretty from what I’ve seen.
Justice!
Had to be done, because I am that corny! Something that occurred to me after reviewing the last episode. DC did look at things to say what if the League became "proactive" They called the concept the Justice Lords. How did that end up… oh wait, It ended with a police state, where silly concepts like freedom, hope democracy went the way of Judge Dredd.
For God's sake Dredd was a deliberate parody of the American Dream. Pointing out that without laws freedom becomes chaos and that without freedom laws become suffocating. Dredd takes it a little too far, declaring caffeine, sugar and even real meat as illegal because it is declared bad for you.
The Justice Lords were the way of saying what happens when the League goes too far. How there is a very thin line between enforcing justice and police dictatorship. It's a slippery slope alright but one that the League knows far too well.
Right, now that I've buried the point of this awful, terribly bad, comic… I have nothing more to say. The plot twists come out of nowhere, ignore continuity (going as far as ignoring the race and nationality of several heroes), and on reflection have little motivation behind them, let alone sense. Any moment now Granny Goodness will capture the Greek Gods, Peter Parker will turnout to be the clone rather than Ben, SuperBoy Prime will punch reality and Vyce will turn out to be Linkara's mother…
Given the amount of times heroes have come back from the dead months even years later in the DC universe for the most ludicrous and contrived reasons hasn't some hero with the intellect of a common house fly said:- "Well just give it a week, they'll be back as good as knew… By the way has anyone else realised that Batman should be like 80 by now, I know he doesn't have super powers but there's something screwy going on there, shouldn't some one look into it?"
I guess we'll have to wait for the exciting conclusion to this story, or just wiki it because god knows I ain't going to spend money that could be wasted on far better 80's comics or 90's DCAU instead
As for Vyce, this isn't the first time he's played with time manipulation technology. Is this foreshadowing or just one more weapon in his supposedly vast arsenal
Thomas
AKA Mountain King
PS:- At the 18 min mark I was waiting for 90's Kid to come on and cry "BLOOD JUSTICE!" I miss 90's kid, I hope he hasn't been kidnapped by Vyce and tortured for the past few months. I mean that's just too predictable.
(I've posted this twice because it said It didn't work the first time, feel free to delete this is it did)
Gitmo, Green Lantern? 9/11 happened in the DCU? How does 9/11 happen in the DCU?!
Justice!
Congorilla seems like the only good character in this mess... well aside from his script mandating him being a complete idiot, but still.
Uh Also, not that I'm one you point out flaws, but if weeks pass in our world while minutes pass on Lord Vyce's ship... doesn't that mean that time appears to go FASTER for them? I.E: If you shot a missile at the, they might just see the explosion on their shield for a couple seconds... or am I missing a point? I always get confused with time differences in parrellel universes...
Anyway, I'm worrying about the Titans getting dragged into this... but nonetheless, excellent review and great buildup for Vyce's entrance.
The more I hear the more depressed I get. This used to be my favorite comic universe.
The person you call Bizarro is actually Composite-Superman, who looks like half of Batman and Superman glued together in the middle. He is lyin on his Batman side, but you can clearly see the ear of Batmans cowl, plus his cape and pants have two colors. That doesn't make the situation any better though, since not only does he possess Superman's powers but also those of the whole friggin' Legion of Super-Heroes, so no idea how GA and GL took him out (Anti-Legion arrow maybe?)
I don't know what's worse. The bad dialogue or all the out-of-character portrayals.
I think you made a few mistakes on some of the classifications. Isn't Supergirl suppose to be 47 or 48 chronically, but only 17 or 18 mentally?
With Hal's actions as Parallax he can't be held accountable for them because he was possessed. It's like someone possessed by a ghost being sent to jail for those crimes, when everyone knows they were possessed. They can't be blamed for what they did.
Last thing. Batman wasn't mind wiped like they keep saying. All they did to Batman was remove some memories of his, which isn't a mind wipe. A mind wipe is an altercation to someone's personality, so technically Batman wasn't mind wiped. Zatanna even said in Identity Crisis that removing memory wasn't a problem, so wouldn't that mean what she did to batman wasn't a mind wipe?
Hope I didn't come off as rude with this. Hard to give tone over the computer.
Supergirl should've worn a piece of tinfoil on her head to keep the "stupid" out of her.
GL & GA probably used the awesome power of "plot coupons" to defeat all those villians.
I have my own question on this book.
Why isn't Superman stopping them? Superman knows what their doing, he's the leader of the Justice League, and out of all the superheroes he has the most naive concept of "good" and "evil".
You'd think he'd see all the death and torture going on, and be a little upset at them. Instead he's just sat in the space station twiddling his fingers?
Hey, that arrow looks familiar...
It's weird that this leads into Green Arrow going rouge as of Blackest Night and Brightest Day when he seems the more sensible right now of Hal and Atom, given he wasn't the one torchering the people.
And, given the Manhunters and all that that the guardians made, as well as all the other horrible moves that have occurred because of those blue midgets, I doubt they'd give a rats backside over what Hal's doing.
You may need something stronger or easier to swallow after such an explosion. Perhaps some Extra Justice Tylenol or Justice Chewables, now in fun shapes like Jet Packs, Gorillas, Aliens and Static.
isn't what the green lantern doing the same thing that got sinetro kicked out of the corp.??? do the writers even read comic books?
Good review Linkara, but at one point you mention how the heroes are violating civil rights and due process. While it's true that they are, civil rights and due process are not absolute moral laws. They're general rules to achieve justice, and they can protect villains and allow evil just as well as protect the innocent.
JUSTICE!
The better question about the Atom inside Clayface is:
Even if Clayface were only "acting" tortured, when was it ever established that his shape-shifting abilities included mimicking internal organs with such precision and accuracy that the Atom is fooled?
Also, at the 14:55 mark: Prometheus has a sonic screwdriver attached to his helmet.
"It came to me in a moment of story contrivance." I'm sorry, but I'm stealing that for something. I don't know what, but I'm going to, and I apologize in advance. It's just too perfect.
Something you missed...Green Lantern and Green Arrow right in front of Prometheus use Batman's real name...they say "the sting of J'onn and Bruce's deaths." Seems like a rookie mistake to use civilian names in front of the enemy.
They're all so stupid in this book.
Normally the sexualization of female characters in comics is a concern of mine, but I think you're being a bit hard on the first panel with Supergirl: it might not be focusing on her chest because of her... well, chest, but because of the S symbol. I dunno, I just didn't think of it like that at all.
That said, I cannot conceive of the sheer contrivity (so bad I had to contrive a word for it) of the "explosion that changes elemental structure. Couldn't they just, you know, have made a bomb that mixed up those ingredients anyway, rather than having that ludicrous concoction?
Have you heard my new band, Tylenol Of Justice?
How can Vyces time shield work bi-directionally? If weeks turn into minutes on the ship, wouldn't a missile that was traveling mach 3 only take microseconds or nanoseconds of their time?
Nanobots actually can work that fast, faster even. that is the power of parallelism.
Great calamity kittens! Congorilla is AWESOME! He should have his own comic series with Snowflame as the main supervillain!
Wait, wait, wait... Green Arrow and Green Lantern defeated Bizarro without any problems? Green Arrow??? I'm not a big comic expert, but isn't he kinda of a useless super hero? Isn't shooting goofing arrows his only power? I know he worked with the Green Lantern for a long time, but I always imagined all he did was hold Green Lantern's coffee as Green Lantern beat the crap out of criminals. And he defeated a guy as strong as Superman? Sorry, it doesn't compute.
Will we get to listen to Metallica's "...and Justice for All" in the future video? That's my Cry for Justice!
You know, I remember last week how you said that you hated this series more than "Amazon's Attack" but at the moment, I'm just not feeling it.
I've only watched the "AA" reviews twice and every time, I can share your pain in how brutally awful those comics are.
But with this, I'm just not seeing how it can be worse than "AA". Although I have a feeling I'm going to eat my words next week.
And now I really wanna watch Apocalypse Now for some reason...
I can't say Supergirl's boobs offend me as much, considering that they aren't overinflated and, well, that is where her symbol is placed. Of course it would have been a lot better had the artist not covered her face with her hair. (interesting that her hair and cape are flapping in the wind, but Captain Marvel's cape seems unaffected)
Green Arrow's condesending remark was probably meant as a joke, the problem being that you can't exactly convey tone in a comic unless you phrase it right. Speaking of, he is going to kill Prometheus? Since when does Green Arrow kill people?
So you're telling me that a scientist who frequently goes down to subatomic size can't tell the difference betwen actual human bone and tissue and artificial cunstructs of clay?
Thanks Linkara for bringing JUSTICE! To this comic
J-I'm sorry, I'm sure you've heard that far too many times.
Sigh...What a horrid little comic. Though, Kong Ga Rilla is probably the best character here. Hey, any gorilla that jumps out of a plane to smash robots has my respect.
One thing I am slightly curious about, and would be honored if you answered, I understand you not liking the torture the Atom did in this comic, but if I'm not mistaken, hasn't Batman beaten criminals for answers, breaking bones and such. Heck, in the movie, he dropped a man from so high up his legs were broken, I believe.
I'm just curious if this level of torture is more acceptable for you.
Great review, and can't wait to see you punch Vice's ship out of the sky.
You know that thing where you hear a word repeated over and over and over again until it doesn't even sound like a word anymore, it's just a random conglomeration of meaningless syllables?
Yeah, that's what "JUSTICE" is sounding like to me after seeing these reviews. Dear God in Heaven. D:
That being said, I totally agree with you that this comic would be completely awesome if it just starred the roaring rampage of revenge of Congorilla and friends. I have no prior familiarity with him or the blue-skinned dude (as you can probably tell), but that fighting sequence was ELEVEN DIFFERENT KINDS OF AWESOME.
Okay, I know probably a million people are gonna point this out, but...
"Days or weeks could pass and it would only be minutes on that ship!"
So basically... while a lot of time passes on the outside, only very little time passes on the inside... meaning people on Earth would have weeks to plan while Vyce (is that how you spell it?) only has a few minutes to reach... isn't that the exact opposite of what you say right after that? ><
It seems to me that this would have made more sense as a Marvel book. Not that the characterization is anything approaching decent, but more you could have
"We're the Avengers, but we never avenge people."
It's be dumb, but there wouldn't be the same degree of confusion.
I can't take this! I can't stand seeing some of the iconic dc characters acting like dicks. Seriously, Robinson is a great writer, but it is like he has never heard of some of these character's back stories and their reasons for some of their attitudes. Hal acts cocky and sometimes like a smart mouth to try to show that he isn't afraid of anything after seeing his own father die in a fiery plane crash RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM!
It is like Robinson is turning him into a Dirty Harry clone. And yeah I know that in the first Dirty Harry movie, Callahan tortured Scorpio by stepping on his wounded leg but still. Like you said, in the hands of a good writer, even the silliest sounding superhero can be awesome and Robinson proved that with Starman. But here, he turns a space cop who has been trying to redeem himself of all the horrible deeds that occurred when PARALLAX possessed him into a even more morally absent version of Dirty Harry, a good scientist into a sadist who tortures people in the same way his psychotic ex wife killed one of their oldest friends, and that is pretty much all I have for mischaracterization right now. I don't know much about Freddy Freeman to be pissed.
(Also, maybe you went to far with that comment on the Parallax crisis. I know that Hal is being a massive prick but WHOA dude. Seriously, ow. I hate Walk Hard: the Dewy Cox story just as much for insulting the memory of Johnny Cash but WOW!)
It may be just me, but I think even the writers realize how ridiculous the whole series is and are mocking it. If it wasn't for characters acting wildly OOC and killing off B-list superheroes (two common themes of bad comics), it would be quite entertaining.
JUSTICE!
Part of me feels personally insulted by the reasoning behind this book, because I've lost a close friend to a dirty crook exactly one year ago. And it didn't take a vigilant lynch mob to find the person who did it; it was the guy's own stupidity that got him caught. And I'll tell ya when I say the sound barrier broke when the justice system threw the book at him.
As for why Prometheus wants to take revenge on all superheroes and not just ones who mindwiped him - hey, it's very much in character. He is a criminal and from his POV it's like that: "Two guys from this group wronged me so they ALL must die!". ''Especially'' since they're dead and he needs to take it out on somebody. Besides he just hates superheroes.
To Jesse:
Well, since Supergirl is 17-18 biologically too (suspended animation) I'd say it doesn't matter.
To Hawk:
Superman wasn't the leader of JLA at the time - that was Black Canary. Besides he had his hands full in New Krypton storyline mentioned by Linkara which explains his absence.
Linkara so let me get this straight the Entire villain plot is at its core doctor light all over again.
Wow that lazy
Oh yeah, Vice is gonna whip us all. for only he will bring us Justice for the loses of the world.
Alien and a Giant Monkey fight robots! you gotta love this power of comics.
In them everyday can be a vacation and you'll feel endless gratification. Your imagination will do anything they want any day cause you gotta love it.
And somehow... I feel this wasn't as bad as that one where they lose their super-powers.
I mean, this one is still pretty bad, but at least, I don't feel a thick wall of stupid crashing into my mind at every moment.
Or maybe, your reviews let me build a bit of resistance indirectly.
ANYWAYS, guess it would be too awesome for this comic if they had ended becoming Justice, as in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sLMqKpcvws
Was that the old Firestorm? I don't expect much in terms of logic from this comic, but, didn't he die?
Then again, why would anyone want to use Firestorm? I'm sorry, but he has one of the worst outfits in superhero history, he looks like a large, gay(for lack of a better word) torch. Not a guy I would look up to.
Couple of points I wanted to make in response to the comments here.
1. Linkara - you asked how Hal's ring didn't shut down because the Guardians used to monitor this sort of thing? Per the Green Lantern books around this time, Green Lanterns were given the right to kill in the line of duty if they were fighting an official enemy of The Guardians. Given the revelations that have come out since then regarding the importance of Earth... yeah, it makes me sick too, but the little blue buggers probably looked the other way on this one.
2. Hawk - you asked why Superman isn't doing anything to stop Hal and company because he's JLA leader. Technically, at this time he wasn't - Black Canary was. Which just makes the first issue all the more annoying because Hal is addressing all his complaints at Clark and Diana - not Dinah.
To his credit, Dwayne McDuffie actually tried to address that point in his JLA run (to say nothing of Hal and Ollie running off and forming their own team) but he was booted off the book because he voiced his complaints about Robinson's golden boy status screwing up his own plotlines and... well, you'd think they'd show more respect to the man behind JLU...
After all the obvious things I had a headache from when I first read this, and a second time when this abomination was nominated for an Eisner award...
What in the name of all torture in Tartarus is Zatanna wearing in the last spread of issue 4?
So much wrong. So very much wrong.
Bad writing and editors that apparently were occupied with coming up with ways for it to have pointless material instead of actually doing their jobb.
You know who deserves justice? The readers and the characters.
*sigh* I don't know if I should watch the review next week. I'll just get too mad and hurt at the memories.
JUSTICE!!!!!!
More and more that word is making me think of the Crimson Chin.
Moving on...
Again, I can't help but feel that this whole antihero torture thing is WAAAY out of character for Hal Jordan. Given, I don't know his character well, but from a past video of yours I get the impression that he should be the one telling the other heroes to STOP.
If that explosion killed Clayface, does that count as another gratuitous death?
Finally, I hate to do this, but I second the time-disconnect issue. If seconds inside the ship equal weeks outside, then the missiles should actually have hit and destroyed Vyse's ship before he knew what the heck was going on.
Hal is reminding me of that one issue of Secret Six, where Catman explains to the grieving father how to torture someone, and they leave him to it.
Wow...that title card.
You are inspiring fetish fuel, aren't you Lewis?
If you don't know, there's a whole section of the internet devoted to the idea of giant women...and you just sorta catered to them.
Just warning you because I saw you'll be doing AC Comics as well and their main imprint, Femforce, nowaday has a back-up comic connected to it about giantesses (the term for giant women).
As for the comic itself...it's good to see that at least some of the characters in the story are realizing the idocy of Hal's idea (even the guy that was traveling with Congorilla, who doesn't even know about Hal).
Also, I have to say that before this review, my only knowledge about Prometheus came from his bio-card you find in "Batman: Arkham Asylum". He seemed cool in there. In the comics, he seems like wasted potential. Too bad the Timm-verse is gone, would have liked to have seen how they handled such a character.
At least you get a week off from this insanity before delving into the BIG pain of all this.
D'oh...reread your schedule and it wasn't AC Comics.
I feel stupid now.
Still, my point stands about the fetish fuel.
Ahhh, I wondered what happened to the Shade's appearence in this comic. :) Hopefully you'll go into more detail next week.
And his appearence wasn't pointless, Lewis. He was informed by the fortunetelling woman from Starman and the comicbook Trinity (which I think you said in the past was good) that "Something bad's going to happen!" so he decided to be polite and warn the local superheroes about it.
Considering the majority of Opal City's superheroes (Black Condor, Phantom Lady, the Dibnys etc.) were all killed off during Infinite Crisis and the like, and Bobo was there when the Shade was warned, he decided to tell Mikaal (who mentioned that the Shade told him something was up in the scans you had in the first section) amd Jay Garrick (his archenemy back in the Golden Age, but they've since become friends) about the danger.
The other reason why he's there is that the Shade, like a giant talking gorilla and a blue alien fighting jet-powered robots, is cool. And he'll draw in the Starman crowd, like the presence of Mikaal, the fortunetelling woman (Hope? Charity? It's one of those names, the other is her sister in law) and the aforementioned Bobo.
Good review so far though. :) And I'm looking forward to the upcoming ones.
Oh, and I think that Prometheus is attacking the superhero community as a whole due to his "law enforcement as a whole is my enemy, and the JLA are representative of that ideology". That and, as they'be said repeatedly, J'onn and Bruce are dead, so he can't really get back at them personally for leaving him catatonic in a prison where the guards would beat him up for their own amusement.
Hey linkara that guy that you said was bizaro wasnt bizaro. it was composite super man
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_Superman
sterling gates was the writer for that prometheus one shot not james robinson.
I'm more confused about how you knew what the ship looked like from the outside when you were only held captive aboard it. Or Did I just miss something where someone showed up with pictures, like with Vyse smashing a bottle of champaign on it during the launching ceremony all like "This is where you'll be staying"
Maybe I'm just over thinking things. You have magical bracelets that let you talk to people in space. Man that would sound crazy in any other context.
Hey Linkara
If they had all the male characters run around in speedos, would you finally stop complaining?
It's getting really annoying.
Can't people have even the smallest bits of fanservice without you breathing down their necks?
I mean, this stuff was actually very tame compared to the other stuff we usually see, and it still ticked you off.
You have problems!
"I'm more confused about how you knew what the ship looked like from the outside when you were only held captive aboard it. Or Did I just miss something where someone showed up with pictures, like with Vyse smashing a bottle of champaign on it during the launching ceremony all like "This is where you'll be staying""
It was in the full brochure - "So you've been kidnapped!" Nah, actually that point is why I added the dialogue about "the big 'V' being a good indicator."
"Hey Linkara
If they had all the male characters run around in speedos, would you finally stop complaining? "
Maybe, but that isn't gonna happen.
"It's getting really annoying.
Can't people have even the smallest bits of fanservice without you breathing down their necks? "
Playful fanservice is fine. This is structuring a page so that Supergirl's boobs show best and making sure we know what kind of underwear the teenage girl wears.
"I mean, this stuff was actually very tame compared to the other stuff we usually see, and it still ticked you off.
You have problems!"
You're the one who likes to have upskirt shots of teenage girls in your books about superheroes kicking ass. Perhaps I'm not the one with the problem.
To Linkara:
I'm not sure how much of a rant do you have prepared for the events in the next video, the same ones that brought that open letter.
But please, if at all possible, make it your best rant ever.
I think Vyce's time shield is slowly but surely becoming the new Schrodinger's Cat. It took me a while to understand the language, but I think what's causing a lot of the confusion is the line, "days or weeks could pass but it would only be minutes on that ship," or whatever it was. I'm guessing a lot of people are perceiving that line as, "minutes as Vyce perceives it, while days pass for us," but instead, it's the other way around. It took me a while to finally get it, that days are passing to Vyce, while minutes pass on the ship as we see it.
This begs the question of what Vyce and the others are DOING on that ship. They could be spending YEARS on that ship before they attack. What, did they decide to have a game of Monopoly or something?
I'd talk about the comic itself, but if I did that, I'd have to talk about the comic itself. Ugh. The premise of this thing being about "justice" was thrown out the window once they brought torture into this...and they're still doing it.
"...You have problems!"
I want to put my 2 cents in here. To be fair, there have been a few mostly naked male heroes in the past -such as the golden-age hero: Phantasmo.
I always found his costume just as disturbing as the revealing, sexy costumes women get put in. Yes, I realize women get dressed revealingly far, far more often than men (and usually for different reasons) but either way is weird and unneeded.
If you want porn or erotica- go get porn or erotica! There are plenty of sources, even in comic form. But that stuff has no place in a comic that should be about heroism, justice, and the greatness of man (or woman, let's just say humanity in general).
Yeah, as soon as I wrote that I realized this comic tears all those things down, as well. But that is for another post. Right now I am chipping in in defense of Linkara against this weird hate that seems to be coming!
I thought the javelin breaking on supergirls boobs last issue was a bit stupid. this time we open with boobs! yay.
also aparently prometheus has nanofactories that operate on the subatomic level seeing as in-comics kryptonite is an element, not a molecule. why isnt he god yet?
the issue with the time sheild seems to be that the dialogue makes it sound like your saying that seconds passing inside the sheild would seem like weeks to us. i know thats not what you meant, but its the kind of little gaffe that people are going to be nit-picky about. Also special effect sugestion: if you want to display the ship with its sheild, light in the sheild would be blue-shifted so a blue tint would be visible around the ship.
finaly, a quick question: i have looked up sam keenan, but i cant find the awesome song you used at the end of the last video; if its isnt to much trouble, could you tell me where you got it?
Wait... is this "time shield" multi-layered? Because if things are happening faster within it, wouldn't that mean the people inside the ship would age faster as well?
Oh well, Time-proof plating or some such I guess.
I usually reserve my continuity-nazi-dom for the X-Men line, but even I have to say, this is some seriously shoddy writing. I'm not even fully up on DC to understand everything that's happening. And yet, I know enough to know that Hal and Ray are so far out of character, they might as well be in Qward.
Hmmm, Linkara is communicating using his DS... Oh my god! Linkara is a demon tamer! Screw Batman and his utility belt, Linkara has the powers of the Power Rangers and demons! Anyway, great review as alway Linkara, the fact that Hal and Ray are acting so villainous, pretty much being Parallax and Jean, is kind of icky. Making Ray do what his wife did is wrong in so many ways. Still, the worst is yet to come eh?
P.S. I recommend playing Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor for the DS, it is an awesome TRPG.
As far as the fanservice accusations go, I'll agree 100% on the Supergirl shot . That was really unnecessary and blatant. The Miss Martian bit is being rather nitpicky. She wears an extremely short skirt, and any drawing angle that dips low is gonna flash a bit. I personally think it avoids the "fanservice" tag because it isn't sensatioinalized or made "right in your face" the way Supergirls is. Nor did it display something inappropriate. She's wearing something underneath that covers everything and is the same color as her skirt. Its not like they showed her in a thong or going commando.
"finaly, a quick question: i have looked up sam keenan, but i cant find the awesome song you used at the end of the last video; if its isnt to much trouble, could you tell me where you got it?"
I got it from my parents - no idea where you can find it, but the album is called "After Grey."
I think the whole "he gets grumpy when he hasn't had a candy bar" line was supposed to be condescending towards Hal since he's the one that's acting like a spoiled child, not Supergirl, but it was so over-done that it came across as an adult apologizing to a very small child for an irritable spouse. If the line had been, "Don't worry, Supergirl, we know you're on our side but he just gets grumpy when he hasn't had his candy bar" it would actually have been pretty funny. Less is more, Mr. Robinson, less is more.
And I hadn't known very much about this series other than Lian's death but ... J'onn and Bruce wiped Prometheus' mind? Really? REALLY? That has to make the top ten list of stupidest ways to move the plot forward ever. Way to blame the two dead guys, there, Robinson.
'I got it from my parents - no idea where you can find it, but the album is called "After Grey."'
excellent with that information and his name i have tracked down the artist and sent him a crazy stalker email XD
thanks linkara, much appreciated
Y'know, conceptually, Prometheus as the villain makes total sense for this series. He wants to destroy the entire CONCEPT of Justice, because that's what killed his parents. Hurting the heroes' loved ones and getting them to confuse Justice for Revenge, having them torture and break their ethos generally, if that was really his plan, would have made sense. It would have still been stupid and pointless violence, but it at least would have made sense.
Okay, I admit — I enjoyed the mischaracterization in Amazons Attack. I enjoyed it in Countdown. I enjoyed it in Ultimates 3. Why? Because in those series, the bizarre out-of-character nuttiness was so incidental to the events and so much a part of an Idiot Plot that it was just hilariously random and entertaining, especially when Linkara was reviewing them. This? It just makes me sick, because so much attention is paid here to the characters, their motivations, and their personalities, that you know this story is supposed to be character-driven, except the characters are horrifyingly, wall bangingly wrong. It's like JLA Act of God, except way, way, way more so.
just a quick side thing, vices time sheild seems to act wxactly how something would act near the speed of light, so is he just circuling us really quickly over and over again? or i just being overly clever?
Great review as always. One mistake though and I don't know if this is you or James Robinson. That is not Bizarro. That is Composite Superman. My friend pointed out that too me but he also says it does make sense for Composite Superman to be there in the first place. But then again this comic is horrible so who's surprised.
Technically,can't you justify Mikaal killing the one villain as self defense, even though he's defending Congorilla not himself.
As he said, vengeance isn't justice. Mikaal did not kill/maim/torture/humiliate the villain for revenge. It was to save some one's life.
Is it justifiable?
Dear Detective Comics,
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!
yours,
Jannett
To be fair, Prometheus wanted to destroy all superheroes since his first appearance (it's just calling it revenge that is dumb).
That's the only credit I'm giving this thing. Because given the constant acting out of character and discontinuity (most of which you pointed out), I can only assume the writer doesn't actually care about any of these people except maybe Green Lantern and Green Arrow, who he's wrecking more because of his terrible 90's-style writing skills.
Everyone else is just kind of thrown in there, whether or not it makes sense.
And now that you've pointed it out, I do get the vibe he doesn't care for Birds of Prey. Notice Prometheus characterizes encountering them as being 'hit on'. Between this, Hal's implied drunken threesome, and Supergirl crying and then accepting being patronized, I'm actually wondering if he just doesn't see female superheroes as equal characters, so they get sexualized and treated like kids.
I'd say something about Supergirl just standing around, not really contributing, but that's Captain Marvel, too and ties back into the author just not caring about these people.
Of course everyone's out of character, but there's a weird consistency to their style of it.
His male heroes act like not just villains, but like people who traumatized them recently. It's like he read a bunch of crossover events and took the ideas out of context to make them "gritty".
Honestly, Green Arrow deciding to take everyone down with a sonic arrow for torture was the first in character moment for the main cast, pity it came ridiculously late and didn't amount to much.
If Prometheus can transform things into other things on an atomic level, couldn't he just have laced the air with nanobots and turned all the heroes into something no longer capable of supporting life? Maybe Green Lantern's ring could shield him but I'm not so sure about even Supergirl surviving that.
The timeshield is a good idea, but I do wonder why Vyce is just hanging there for now. You'd think he'd want all his ducks in a row before he entered orbit where he could be detected.
Well, hopefully that will be covered in the reveal.
Hal after reading this series:" you know what ollie,i'm starting to miss the parallax stuff at least i had a cool"last" story in final night & johns said i can blame the yellow bug for my crimes,what's my excuse in this again?"
ollie"you've got something for the chimney's fire?"
hal"sure pal..."throws said drivel in the chimney
roy harper"lian honey,look why fire is dangerous "
lian "why daddy?"
roy while litting rise of arsenal,"because fire buuuurns books to ashes, so don't play
with it ,okay?"
the joker after both books :"oooh for the humanity's sake they aren't even trying anymore!!I'll show this braindead protozoary Didio what i think of his tasteless s&m fantasies,that'll give him a smile on his face"
Sinestro with teary eyes & schocked look: "now this surpasses fear!"
I was reading through my hardcover collection of this series and noticed something in the panel where they find Lian's corpse.
Black Canary is standing there with her face in her hand grieving, but I swear it looks like she is doing a facepalm.
As if the character realized how stupid this was and was breaking the fourth wall to express her displeasure.
just found out. It wasn't Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel that created Starman like you said in your last review, it was the great Gardner Fox. Just thought you ought to know.
"just found out. It wasn't Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel that created Starman like you said in your last review, it was the great Gardner Fox. Just thought you ought to know. "
I've already made a note of it on the last video.
Don't have much to say about the comic then what you already said. :D
It's nice to see you are continuing with the Lord Vice story arc. In fact I can help you destroy him. What you need to destroy Vice's ship is a missile equiped with a stealth shield generator, an inter-phasic temporal distortion modulator and a tachyon coated warhead. And why not just for the heck of it put a Chrono Inversion Field Generator on the missile for a little extra fun.
Cheers
I Quote from Hall jordan himself in Green Lantern # 16 "We have rules to play by, We have and ethical code we have to follow."
:/ I like my superheros to have better morals and ethics and a code of honor that doesn't fall to the level of the villains they are to be fighting.
I'm not a fan of the multiple uses of torture in the comic. There should be a counter for that.It is more of the fact that they are the heros for goodness sakes.
I could see a break in the characters personality if they were to be under extreme pressure or if something unholy traumatic happened but this is the DC universe.
You would think that by now they would all realize the extreme high risk of death in doing what they are doing.
Instead of getting revenge (or "justice" as they apparently see it in this comic) they should honor the fallen and go about continuing to fight crime to the best of their ability.
wow-this comic really bugs me.
Another great review of our favorite er I don't know what to call it.
but keep up the great work.
And thus I continue to see the image of my favorite Green Lantern raped by poor writing and rather uncharacteristic portrayal. Seriously, you mean to tell me he learned NOTHING about the traps of self-imposed "JUSTICE!" after Parallax? Granted, you might be able to say that a bit of his time as Specter could have rubbed off on him, but still... this makes me weep.
I have also recently been introduced to the awesome that is Starman. Right now I'm reading the "Stars My Destination" arc too. Great stuff. Yet, he wrote this tripe?
....again, I weep.
Aside from that, great stuff, Linkara, as always!
i for one want to tell you an important information: TUNISIA IS NEARLY FREED !!! AT LAST,FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IS BACK BABY !!THANK ALLAH,THANK MAHOMET,THANK JESUS,THANK MOSES & ALL PROPHETS!!
sorry it was important news that i wanted to share with you fellow fans of at4w & you great humorist of at4w(p.s.:you all rock!!!) it was so glorious i can't keep quiet about it
thank you all!!!
Tasmania Devil, one of the Global Guardians killed off here, is alive again in the Starman/Congorilla one-shot written by James Robinson!
J.A.P.
I thought he was Shazam and not Captain Marvel. See the Trials of Shazam for further info.
And what I hated most about this run was that they killed Lian...
Anyone else getting Death Note flash backs from all the "I AM JUSTICE" type stuff?
Slightly off topic, but I have to say one thing. I stopped watching power rangers with Wild Force, so I figured I should try watching Ninja Storm before you finished your new history of the power rangers episode.
I gotta say, I never complained about you taking your time with the episodes since demanding free entertainment strikes me as highly hypocritical, but I did wonder why you were taking so long with a few episodes sometimes despite your explanations.
Now that I've actually tried to watch an entire season I was unfamiliar with, I understand why. It's not like it's a bad show or anything, but Power Rangers just isn't something you can marathon through it in one day or something.
So yeah, just wanted to say that I understand it a bit better just why that kind of thing takes so long.
And back on topic, Hal's hypocrisy aside I didn't mind Cry for Justice THAT much. It's bad, yeah. The cries for JUSTICEEEE get pretty cheesy sometimes, but it's still not that bad.
Your review did remind me of just how cheesy it was though.
"I've already made a note of it on the last video."
Just found the reply. Didn't see that note. Thanks anyway.
You know what the worst thing about this is? The absolute nadir of this out of character bullcrap?
It's not been mentioned in the video itself, but Hal has demonstrated a specific and personal distaste for this kind of retributive violence before. Durning his time as the Spectre, he was bonded to a divine (in the most literal sense) force that guaranteed the guilt of those who were punished, and that was constantly pushing Hal towards the dealing of (highly ironic) death to evildoers. He was literally in a one-body two-minds bond with the Spirit of Vengance.
Cry for Justice Hal Jordan - or 'Crazy Eric' - would lap this kind of poisition up. A chance to bring JUSTICE to evildoers, to prevent further crimes. So what does actual Hal do? He spends his time trying to turn the Spirit of Vengance into the Spirit of Redemption. Forget the hypocricy of the former Parallax giving killers what they deserve. Hal spent the years around the turn of the millenium rejecting this as an approach outright. Remember his regret after the Spectre turned Black Hand's hand into coal? 'This isn't what I wanted'(Green Lantern: Rebirth) Did five short years change him this much?
As far as I'm concerned, we've hit the All-Star Batman limit with this one. The character can claim to be Hal Jordan all he wants. He ISN'T. Hal isn't this guy. And this guy isn't Hal.
Out of character badly written bullcrap. Dear god.
It's quite depressing to see the number of people in the comments talking of turning their back on the DCU as a result of this storyline. Don't go! It's not all...whatever you wanna call this.
One last niggly point - the monitoring of GL corpsmen by ring doesn't seem to be all that. Sinestro set himself up as a dictator befoere he got caught - by Hal, not by a central monitoring agency. Sinestro's fall from grace required him to have grace to fall from, after all. I think it still cuts out if they try and use lethal force against non-Sinestro Corps members(or the ring just doesn't actually go through with it, Sinestro Corps War was kinda inconsistent on this point), but it's never really clear how it detects that. Green Lantern rings are always like that, they work better if you don't think about it.
With the whole prometheus mind wipe thing; they don't alter his personality, like they did Dr. Light; they simply put him in a loop to keep him out of the way. this isn't the first time Batman has done this; didn't he lock Ra's in Arkham and ensure he had slurred speech and zero mobility?
...wat Hal.
Actually, I think Green Arrow's patronizing Hal, not Supergirl, with all that.
The nanobots aren't too quick. They're very tiny, everything they do is very small. This doesn't change the fact they can't do this. Blast is energy, not matter. You can't rearrange it like that. You could actually use kryptonite that way, as a lacing agent, and maybe, probably, DNA, since blast doesn't necessarily burn it beyond recognition. However the nanite bit is...wat?
Hal needed his S&M fix. That's the fix.
I'm sure we all know that DC have just announced they're leaving the Comics Code Authority.
Think about that.
This is the kind of thing they published before they got rid of the Code.
- Mik
Whoa Whoa Whoa...
The jump-cut instantly showing Prometheus being tortured by the Green Lantern.
At that point, I would have simply dropped the comic and walked away. Nope. I would not have looked back. No good.
Green Lantern and Green Arrow took down Prometheus with a jump-cut...not a single panel showing how they did it. That really bothered me.
The interesting thing is that the characters this book shanghied first (Ollie Queen / Hal Jordan), were both DEAD by the time He fought the Justice League. And you have a point, the only dudes I could tell actually met Prometheus (due to retconning him into jail after the Mageddon thing) were Plastic Man and The Flash! This comic blows. But you make it bearable at least, your show is great!
Man... I'm sorry, but when you get THIS frustrated by what these idiot writers and editors are doing to your favorite characters, it just baffles me that you continue to support them. Why don't you just drop the Big Two and find a webcomic hero whose exploits you can enjoy?
The advantages should be obvious. If you decide to start following the tales of the NoName Avenger, you'll be able to follow them indefinitely, for free, on the internet, pay to buy the print collection when it comes out, and because it's ALL creator-owned and operated, there's no editor or secondhand writers to screw everything up.
Character, tone, voice, themes, art style, will all be consistent from one issue to the next. Characters will evolve naturally over time. Isn't that an exciting concept? Wouldn't that be amazing? Superhero comics that don't have suck!
Heck, if the author makes a mistake or there's a glaring continuity problem, the fans will notice it, put it on the wiki, bombard the author email about it, all within DAYS of the webcomic page being published. He'll be able to FIX the problem BEFORE the print book even GOES TO PRESS!
Webcomics could solve all of the problems in your love/hate relationship with American superhero comics. All the while staying true to the character.
The ONLY thing you'd have to give up in order to enjoy all of these benefits is the concept that one letter on the hero's chest is inherently better than some other letter.
Just saying. Think about it. The NEXT Blue Beetle creator is much more likely to start his own webcomic than to go crawling hat-in-hand to the Big Two seeking a lousy one-sided contract that strips him of his rights and pays a pittance.
Because honestly? I like THESE characters. I like Spider-Man, I like the Teen Titans, I like the Justice League and Justice Society. I KNOW they can be written well because they HAVE been written well.
Lewis is right, of course, but I'll add this:
"Character, tone, voice, themes, art style, will all be consistent from one issue to the next. Characters will evolve naturally over time."
Exaggeration. Not a huge one, but creators 'evolve naturally over time', and that almost always leads to a change to their writing / art style. That change can sometimes be as bad as anything wrought by a different creator.
Sorry to dig this back up so long after you first created it, but could I ask something?
Having been reading through JLA, the Martian Manhunter quite willingly brainwashes a lot of his own race in that. He even says it was their way of dealing with things. So were you just mad at Batman for having been retconned to go through with the act of brainwashing or him as well?
Again sorry to post this so long after you created it, but it's been bugging me for the past couple of weeks.
17:23: Classic.
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