Don't cry for these comics. They're already dead.
Due to this episode being 38 minutes long, I've split it into two videos for those with slower connections.
COMPLETE VIDEO:
SPLIT PART ONE:
SPLIT PART TWO:
Monday, January 24, 2011
Justice League: Cry for Justice #5-7
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
193 comments:
DAMN. Just...just DAMN.
The comic's conclusion made me nearly sick, especially the death of little girl.
And for Vyce? DAAAAAMN. I think you've created a very interesting villain character here. Before, all we've seen is the classic conqueror, but I was surprised and very pleased with his motivation, and can't wait for it to be expanded ^_^
Alreddy saw via Twitter link, thoughts:
The fight is a lot less self indulgent and embarrassing to watch feeling than the last one.
I feel it was missing a "Pyramid Head fainted" message during the fight though (Wait, is it just fainted?).
Also, prediction for Vyce's Kyrptonite: Wire cutters.
So, what have we learned from today's episode?
I learned that Linkara likes puttling very subtle Star Wars references into his videos.
The Entity - as it is percieved and said by Lord Vyce - sounds a bit like Galactus, Devourer of Worlds. Or... well, Tyranids. (Or Zerg, if you only know the starcraftian take on Tyranids.)
Aside from that: Is "dead child under rubble" the new "girl in the fridge"? It basically serves the same purpose: "Hey, reader. Isn't the villain eeeevil?"
@ Lewis Lovhaug-I'm an uncle to twin nieces who six days ago turned eight & the fact someone their age is killed got my anger set on "Chernobyl Meltdown looking like trip to Water Park" I know Lian was just a fictional character but the fact that she might've been their age, I want to find who ever made every single piece of paper monstrosity and slaughter them single handidly worse than every single fictional & non fictional serial killer!
"You're not going anywhere are you."
Nope, sorry Linkara. Can't stand Grant Morrison's work. Even as much as I respect your opinion on his Animal Man run, I woudln't read it to preserve my own sanity. The rage you have over stuff like Cry For Justice is the same I fee towards him and some of the things he's done.
hey linkara i loved the review. have you checked out this power rangers abridged series on youtube? it's called truncated power rangers. it's been around for about 2 years and it's pretty hilarious.if your gonna check out just one episode atleast watch episode 26 they got ron wassermen to voice the villain for that episode.RON FREAKIN' WASSERMAN (i hope i'm spelling his name right.
D: What it WRONG with comics these days? Seriously! There was NO NEED for that little girl to die, and it ADDED NOTHING!! My cousin is 4, and seeing what happened to Lian Harper just pissed me off more than anything else in this train wreck of a comic.
...the only thing I can say is, DAMN.
And also, while browsing my local comic book store, I found a Starman and Congorilla comic book. Since their interactions were the only decent thing about this comic, I thought that it might interest you to know they have at least one adventure together that's not in this miserable piece of crap.
I'm going to call it now and say that the ending was a case of Nice Job Breaking It Hero, and the damage to Vyce's armor has left him vulnerable to... something. I must say that the twist was nice, considering all of the buildup, and I really do hope Vyce gets a bit more character development between this and V-Day.
Also, I agree that the fight was better than last week's, but for different reasons: last week's fight was awesome because it was over the top, but this fight was a bit more subdued, especially with the subtle speeding-up of attacks.
James Robinson...you sir are despicable. I may not have been as much a fan of Lianne as Linkara is, but that's just cold, calculated evil, dude. Your story was just horrible, so you thought the only way to get something of actual worth out of it was to kill off a supporting character who hadn't appeared in the story? Plus, Linkara is right; you must have a major hate for the Birds of Prey. I'm just glad my favorite new character (Batwoman) survived with minimal scars from this catastrophe. You, good sir, have tainted the honor of comic books and owe us comic geeks an apology (and a real one, not a fake "oh! I meant to make you all mad" apology).
Now, onto bigger and better things..... Lord Vyce! Holy Clod-hoppin' WOW! That was quite the epic fight; he even blew up Pyramid Head!
Only 21 days 'til V-day...........
Wow, this is the angriest I've seen Linkara in a while. And we can all see why. This series went nowhere, other than kill off minor characters. And treating characters, minor as they may be, as nothing more than collateral damage - not a classy move.
Is it just me or does Cry for Justice run on Inverse Ninja Law? No matter how strong individual members of a group are supposed to be, in a fight the group that has more members, LOSES. It kinda works for mooks, but with named characters it's just ridiculous.
As for the fight with Vyce: Linkara on the floor at the end, being all bloodied and terrified. I bet fangirls love that kind of stuff.
I am with you totally on the character death argument, either you do it as if you contemplated killing your own children or not at all (hmm that sounded more creepy than in my head)
And again you surprise me Linkara, and to me that is the marking of a great writer/actor/reviewer and whatever else you want to be.
I especially likes that the entity is yet ambiguous and we know not its real intentions, in anticipation of the next review I take of my hat for you sir!
NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! DANGIT! A CLIFFHANGER!
Great work man! Special effects, acting, script, everything. Absolutely my new favorite episode
JUSTICE!!!!!!!!!
Had to do it. Just had to do it. But anyways….
* First of all, it’s over! It’s finally over! Cry for Torture is finally done and thank God it is!
* Will search for Animal Man at later point, thanks for the heads up.
* Black Canary dissolved the league because the greenie boys decided to do things differently? WTF?! That’s not a good reason and plus she sounds completely dependent on Green Arrow about losing faith in team and herself. So she cannot apparently function without a man? Screw you writer.
* What Supergirl did in not telling anyone her suspicion about Captain Marvel and instead confront the villain head on about it is what normally gets people killed in movies. Supergirl or James Robinson for that matter, watch a damn movie and portray the character not as an idiot! Also, that shoulder wound, she got a similar one in New Krypton if I remember correctly and it didn’t knock her out, so what is the sudden weakness about being hit in the shoulder knocking her out!?
* Who turned on God Mode Sue for this guy and Dumbass Mode for everyone else? Who wait, that was the writer, silly me. The comic is started to mess with my brain.
* Hey wait a minute! Why is Prometheus’ helmet still in one piece? I thought I saw Donna destroy that damn thing in her rampage (Well I saw the visor part of it at least).
* Damn you magical fairy dust plot convenience!
* If it makes you feel any better, there’s a support group on DeviantArt called BringBackLianHarper you could possibly join and vent your anger with other people about Lian’s death and Roy’s derailment. No one should have suffered this evil piece of writing alone.
* Rule #1 Linkara, never ever say “How can my day get worse?” Fate loves screwing with people who say that.
Well it was a good review of one of the worst comics to have been ever created. Hope next week turns out better for you.
Was that Gundam Wing ZERO Custom hanging from the ceiling behind Vice when he stopped the death ray with his hand? (Around 33:18 in the full version)
That is a nice, villain you have with Lord Vyce, both in costume and concept.
Wow. I suspected that the reason you hated this was because of something that still resonates within the DC Universe, but I never thought it would be that bad. Even midway through, I thought it would be Roy who would die, but, what really happened... calling THAT the lowest common denominator is an INSULT to LCDs everywhere.
Now I just have one critique regarding the Lord Vyce fight. Throughout the beginning, I couldn't help but think "he's got going for the magic gun?" Yeah, it would make sense if he swore off that weapon after Dead/Alive, but I never heard that specifically mentioned.
Otherwise... yeah, I'm definitely hooked now.
heh, I find that funny. NC videos are usually 30min, Spoony are 40 min (and he has made 2 hrs videos),a LordKat LP can be up to 3hrs long. And you divide it when the full video is 30 min more or less.
That's great, if you have a bad connection like sometimes I do having to wait it to load a 40hrs video is a pain. And is more annoying if the load ends and you have to start the video again. Thanks
If I may ask, who owns the Omnimon on the new bookshelf?
I think the level of hate you have for this far outpaces One More Day and its for very good reasons. Your line about comic fans caring and who they're angry at after stories is a perfect way to say it. That is exactly how I felt when Marvel decided to kill Nightcrawler in the way they did. Normally I'd be mad at the villain and be interested in seeing them go down (I already was looking forward to that for other reasons), but instead I was mad at Fraction, Kyle, and Yost for how poorly the death was done.
Death is a hard thing to write and given the nature of comics its hard to make a death feel like it has any real impact or importance. If writers want to kill off a character I'm fine with it, but they had damn well better put a lot of time and effort into it. Look back at some of the best death scenes in comics, movies, books, and TV and draw from them. There are a lot of well done deaths out there and due to shit like this comic those good deaths are devalued. Death in comics has been turned into something completely meaningless and worthy of mockery.
On the subject of "hey its comics they'll come back" I could go on a long rant about my hatred for characters being brought back from the dead. To put it simply: Its a cheap trick used by bad writers who want a cheap shock moment. There are very few good resurrections in comics and they need to be kept to a minimum. There are very few writers in any medium capable of writing a good revival of a character and outside of those few no one else should be doing it.
With my rant over I'd like to say I enjoyed this series of reviews and it was one I was looking forward to since you announced you were doing it. Its a pity your words will never reach the morons running DC and Marvel who sign off on this shit or the people who blindly buy comics like this that aren't worth the ink used to draw them or the paper they're printed on. I'm just glad I'm not reading monthly comics right now because I wouldn't want to have to deal with anything involved in this crap. I'd rather read any number of horrible 90s schlock because at least its terribleness is usually amusing and not this level of tasteless.
I'll comment in reverse order. I liked the action scene much better here than in the Zeo review. It was much shorter and more interesting. A ten minute fight sequence has its place, but for my tastes, it isn't in a comedic comic review. Plus, Mechakara and Judas Liz are inherently less interesting than Lord Vice. We've seen Mechakara get beaten before and we got no information to make Judas Liz seem like more than the distaff counterpart of Mechakara. (Though props on the simultaneously cool and hillarious White Ranger Linkara costume). Also, given that we knew that Vice was coming, the chances of Mekakara winning the fight were nil, so there wasn't a lot of tension.
Meanwhile, Vice is pretty cool. The costume is great and he is very menacing. Like, when Vice described his motivations, I had a moment of "wow, I wanna see where this is going!" This was not the case last time.
Now, as for the review. Holy CRAP. I've read bad comics, but I can see why this one was so painful for you.
Like, for people who didn't understand why something like this was worse than Act of God (I saw a couple of comments like that on the first video), it's painful to see this happen in continuity. I could watch a thousand Elseworlds worth of Supermen or Spider-Men die and get less emotional reaction than a fun character in continuity. I mean, we're now robbed of future stories. In ten years, there could have been her taking up the mantle of Speedy or Cheshire and joining the Teen Titans. There could have been stories focusing on superheroics from the perspective of a kid who is a full time spectator. All of this potential and it's wasted! And it's not like The Death of Jean DeWolfe or Crisis on Infinite Earths, where the death of a fun character drove the story! This was an afterthought! That's what's so painful about so many of these event stories: they turn characters into afterthoughts! Years of continuity and characterization, gone in a heartbeat!
Even worse, because Green Arrow killed Prometheus, now Red Arrow/Speedy/Armory/whatever can't even have the dignity of a revenge story. It's just... I refuse to go back and read Starman now, because THIS GUY DESERVES NO ROYALTIES.
Long story short: good review, good fight, looking forward to next time.
Wow, this was just epic. The review was a superb beatdown of how horribly Robinson treated his characters, and I applaud you for not holding anything back.
As for the battle... damn. This is just getting more and more interesting. It was great to see more of Vyce's motives explored, and I can't wait to see more. Major props to Will Wolfgram for his portrayal of the baddie.
Seriously Lewis, when you get tired of AT4W you should start writing movie or TV series scripts.
Holy mother of God I can see why you despise this series so much now. I've never followed comics too closely and I had no idea about Lian's death in these comics until this review.
That is quite honestly the lowest, cheapest way possible to get an emotional reaction out of an audience. That is the storytelling equivalent of kicking someone in the balls.
I was giggling a bit at Prometheus' endless monologue about his plans that were so extensive they'd make David Xanatos' head spin. He just reminds me so much of Aizen Sousuke from Bleach. XD
Speaking of villains that remind me of other villains, does this mean that Lord Vyce is Magus (from Chrono Trigger)?
After his own monologue I was wondering why you didn't just keep him talking as to what exactly this "Entity" is and how he plans on stopping it. Hear the guy out, maybe offer to help him confront it WITHOUT conquering the world first? No?
Wow. Just wow. That scene with Red Arrow's Daughter was sickening. The way Prometheus was pulling off the my way or the high way with the bombs made me think of bad fan stories when everything is cut off from the hero and they don't have common sense.
As for Vyce, I like his presence. It has a more solemn atmosphere than Mechakara. His motivation was also a neat twist, in a way he is a hero protecting others from the "Entity".
But punching Pollo was a dick move. While for only some sort of cameo, it was awesome to see Pyramid Head again. Especially with the line "I don't like using this if I don't have too". Made me feel like it would turn on you, sort of how Charizard wouldn't listen to Ash at first. But what happened to 90s Kid, Harvey, Ninja Style Dancer, and Munro? Are they still living with you in your new place?
Anyway Great Review!!!
Separate comments for review and story (the story ones i copy pasted of the Lord Vyce thread on the forum, sorry for the lazyness)
Review:
DAMN! i remember you talking about the whole "little child killed" but i forgot that it wa sin this comic, when i notice it, it felt like a kick in the stomach its seriously an awful thing to see. And it didnt help that the rest of the story was QUITE broken specially the villian. Excellent review as always, a little less hummorous and more angry but due to "that part" i can understand why
Story:
WHAT!? WHAT??? ENTITY WHAT???!!!
I can not be more shocked of what just happened: Vyce is not the typical Tyrant (wait a tick... oooooh i see what you did there introducing this character development after a retarded look at Cry for Revenge), Pyramid Head is dead, There's something WORSE lurking in our world (the Entity... which relates to the "HUUUUUMAN" we heard in the Elite force and Silent Hill Dead/Alive reviews. Proofs in twitter of this :D), Vyce apparently has "Gaara complex" (dunno if it has a real trope but the idea is that the fact of HIM being hurt scares im for some reason), for once Linkara will need some teraphy after a fight (just look at his face after the deal), and now WE CAN'T BE CERTAIN OF WHAT THE V MINUS IS FOR (option A: Vyce attack at big scale, option B: the reveal of this "Entity")
one way or another consider me hyped... also i lol'd we i first saw the Care Bears on the line up right after Cry for Justice, now... TOTALLY UNDERSTANDABLE
"If I may ask, who owns the Omnimon on the new bookshelf? "
That would be mine. ^^
That comic is just.....just.....FOUL.
You know, around the same time as this comic, One Piece had it's first major characters killed off. Except in One Piece, they both died touching, meaningful deaths, that genuinely changed and affected the plot. And to make it better, the first of the deaths was at the hands of a psychotic murderer who believed in JUSTICE!!
Was the final attack on Vyce inspired by Superman's desperation attack on Darkseid in Superman: The Animated Series?
JUSTI-Oh, forget it.
My memory failed me for a moment and I thought this was the comic you mentioned in the Made of Fail podcast a while back, the one where someone's entire backstory is retconned into them being hated by everyone. Now, of course, I realize it's the one you wrote about several months ago (which I left a comment on) wherein a child supporting character is killed without buildup or provocation.
I'm glad you got to this one, it's as satisfying as when you finally discussed (if only briefly) One More Day. This comic truly is so atrocious that I actually feel bad for praising its artwork earlier (odd framing of feminine anatomy aside). This is worse than Act of God, and not just because Act of God is essentially a non-canon story.
Quick(ish) technical question, instead of splitting your episodes into parts to accommodate slower connections, why not create low-resolution versions of full episodes (bite-size, if you will)?
Also, while I'm thinking of it, I meant to ask you all the way back at the Silent Hill review, as long as you were going to split those issues up, is there any chance of a compilation video of the Gun Genesis prologues?
*SPOILERS IN COMMENT! DO NOT READ WITHOUT WATCHING VIDEO FIRST!*
Definitely not what I had in mind for Vyce's backstory. He's actually conquers worlds in order to PROTECT them? HUGE props for that decision.
Also, I'm not one of the people that disliked the battle from the Zeo review, but I will say that this week's was much better, simpler, and was there for as long as it needed to and then paved way for what will be the next part of the story. Good work.
V Minus = 21
Why do I get a definite Fables "Geppetto as the Adversary" vibe from Vyce? Dimension-conquering madman whose conquests are fueled by a once-justified but now-twisted attempt to protect those under his command from a more dangerous perceived threat...yeah. Also, if Vyce turns out to be yet ANOTHER Linkara expy, I'm so going to call self-indulgent fanwank here...and call any future attempts to make a selfcest slashfic involving LInkara, Vyce, Mechakara, and LInksano. Search your feelings; you know it to be out there.
...Did Vyce just pull a Shang Tsung on Pyramid Head? Wow.
As for the comic itself...my god, was that horrible. The closest comparison I can think of to the sheer random Villain Sue derailment wankfest this thing represents was the Archie Sonic Comics' Iron Dominion arc; The villains seem to be able to magick up whatever advantage they can get on the heroes, the heroes get derailed into uncaring assholes that are too stupid to do anything to protect themselves, and a lot of the villains' goals and plans shift too much to know what exactly they actually want. Though what likely makes Iron Dominion worse than this series was that this series only lasted 7 issues; ID lasted 14, including a tie-in four-part miniseries that started three issues before the arc actually finished. Though, on the other hand, ID didn't have needless child death in it, either.
I swear, I will never, for the life of me, understand why comic writers nowadays feel the need to write stories like it's the Dark Age of comics, again; the gratuitous death and violence isn't shocking, nor does it make us ignore the gaping plot holes and bad writing. Heroes suddenly acting like amoral, unsympathetic assholes when they have no reason to isn't "character development", it just ruins the character for the fans. And ignoring continuity and dropping plot points on the fly because it doesn't conform to your haphazard mishmash of a Mad Libs storyline isn't the kind of thing that a grade-school writing teacher would tolerate. Maybe that's why I tend to read more porn than I should; at least porn is less easy to screw up and is more HONEST about what is being written.
Much like Neil Gaiman has done in the past, i would love to see a photo of your bookcase(s) just to see what other tpbs you have there and what we could potentially see in the future on this show. There is always some neat stuff behind the action going on (the wing-ed toy? hanging from the hook in the ceiling.
Btw, i agree with you on this comic, i own all of the Starman trades and was excited when "Cry..." first was announced and then was very glad i didn't buy it.a
Love the reviews and can't wait to see how you defeat Vyce and gain justice for what he has done.
This comic bites. And so I would like to post a small letter to James Robinson in response to this stupid crap. And I hope someone here could find a way to give this to him
Dear Mr Robinson,
You, sir, are an overrated, child killing, character mangling, convoluted plot making, butcher of good, well written comics and I demand, sir, that I be compensated for the hardcover copy I ignorantly bought.
From,
A very annoyed reader.
PS: WHY THE HELL DID YOU MAKE THE Golden Age COMPLETELY STUPID AND UTTERLY CONFUSING BY HAVING THE VILLAIN OF IT CHANGED FROM A CORRUPTED HERO TO HAVING THE BRAIN OF ADOLF BLEEPING HITLER?!?!?!
Seriously, I want an answer for that stupid plot twist.
PPS: I wasn't serious about the sending it to him part. It just had to be said.
It's 1:30 AM here, so I'll watch these tomorrow (although, remebering you reaction at the time it came out, I expect anger surpassing that of Adamantium Rage). So I'll just post-and-run for now: The cartoon tribute to the Linkara/Iron Liz/Mechakara/Judas Liz is up on my blog.
http://jerenberg.blogspot.com/2011/01/linkara-and-iron-liz-vs-mechakara-and.html
EXCELSIOR!
I loved the encounter with Vyce! :D I'm all excited for the next several episodes. >XD
While the premise is childish and bad, I agree that the worse part is taking a character completely unrelated and butchering it for no more reason than shock value. That was disgusting.
As far as the Vyce part went, I couldn't help but feel that TTGL was part inspiration for Vyce's inspiration. Am I right with that thought in mind or on the right track?
I have another thing to add. I understand how you feel Lewis. I have not read a single copy of Justice Society ever since Geoff Johns left and DC decided to split up the FIRST SUPER TEAM EVER MADE because the editors thought it would be better to make a teen titans rip off by having a stupid badly drawn spin off series where the kids of the JSA are allowed to do things "Their way" because they are tired of being mentored by some of the oldest superheroes whose methods of adhering to the LAW are outdated. So they hand leadership of the team to a SOLDIER who has been trained especially to kill. DEAR GOD I CAN'T STAND IT. I am just happy that the stupid ass Magog who was responsible for the breakup is dead. THANK CHRIST. that is all
Re: The little girl's death.
That... that... there... there are no words. That goes with Rape As Drama under the category of Tropes You Do Not Invoke (Unless You Are a God). I will admit to being fond of angst in my writing, but that death served no. Bloody. Purpose. (Of course, neither did the comic itself. Moving on.)
Re: The dreadfully executed villain.
Sweet Rassilon in a leotard, why is Prometheus such a Villain Sue? There's only so far a Xanatos Gambit can serve a character, and it looks like Mister Robinson tried very, very clumsily to rectify that with random things going screwy in his plans...effectively putting it on the level of bad fanfic as far as characterisation goes. Lovely.
Re: This segment of the Vyce arc.
All right, so... let's see, a nameless force/creature that destroys/devours everything in sight, a being of unknown species (from another universe, no less) going to...less-than-ethical lengths to battle it, and a Woobieish protagonist slowly slipping into madness.
Linkara, why is your fandom turning into Amnesia? -whimper-
(Parenthetically, remind me never to piss you off; that was seriously frightening.)
Alright then. So what do I say about the comic. How about insultingly bad continuity, out of character actions and plot twists that are more plot chasms than good ideas. It's no wonder people hate this crap It's just plane bad.
Now usually I have something more to say but I don't here, I can't even comment on the fact that we see Lord Vyce. The death of Lian is kind of the hook of this whole comic and I need to throw my two pence in on it.
It feels like someone in the editors office said:- "You know what adds resonance to a character, Death of a loved one. Who's got a loved one?"
"Well Roy Harper has a daughter…"
"Great idea, kill her off. People complained when Superman became an illegitimate father, this will show how we deal with complaints."
"Several years later, anyway that's not the point. He's not a illegitimate dad and we've already hacked his arm off…"
"Even better! that's A trifecta. Arm, loved one and daughter all in one! The resonance is bound to sell copies"
"No… not really. People like Lian, she's a sweet, harmless, character with no super powers."
"So she's completely innocent. That's fantastic, kill her in the most overblown and impossibly stupid way possible, no for shadowing or nothing just kill her! We don't even have to show how it effects Harp-whatever we can urn a whole series off this! Get back to work!"
"Ahh well, not as if I gave a crap anyway."
Someone needs to tell these prats to stay out of writers business and get on with the important things. Like making sure the artist isn't going to conk out midway through the series.
Alright, I have to say something about Vyce. First of all I like the motive, rather than a take over the world for the sake of power trope you've gone for a more interesting villain. Someone who believes they are doing the right thing, and that the ends justify the means. I'm a little put off by the Exposition Dump mid way though the fight though. Keeping his motives secret for a bit longer might have been wise. That, or have Poyo hack the fragmented drive of Mecha-kara. Picking out the important bits, but not anything that would give away the plot (yes I've guessed ahead, I might be wrong so I'm not saying much).
Good review of a comic that is so impossibly bad it's like being forced to watch the US version of Life On Mars. Completely missing the point, drives fans of the source material crazy just thinking about it and, in the end, totally worthless. In fact this is exactly like the US Version of LoM . Riddled with plot holes, empty dialogue and pale shadows of the characters we know and love. A travesty that should be re-con'd out of existence post haste. make it a nightmare Bruce had while he was away, or an illusion foisted off on Harper by some twisted villain's plan to drive him insane. Anything to undo the damage this has done to the staple of DC characters.
Thomas
Hey first time commenter, longtime fan.
I was kind of insulted that DC editorial let this get by to be honest. Most fan-fiction writers keep continuity more consistently than this, given he wrote half the plot holes in this same series. Also another thing is that Prometheus has a helmet...something that protects the head....from things such as arrows. I don't even think the writer knew what the hell a helmet was beyond Prometheus' I WIN button. And the child death was just the icing of the cake. I'm glad it's finished and you got it out of your system I suppose.
My one problem with the review was Vyce's vaporization attack. Not the confrontation's premise or climax, I liked those, but that one attack. I know you needed to make him powerful and threatening but he pulled a really big mistake for someone who's goals aren't entirely centered in arrogance or malice.
Why if he could instantly kill pyramid head, could he not kill Linkara immediately when he had he chance to given that he clearly had the opportunity to grab him by the neck and kill him the first time he punched him, just like he did with Pyramid head and again both before and after the poor Triangle went down...does Linkara have residual super powers from the ranger or can Vyce only pull that once a fight?
The comic review is excellent as always but...that's something that really bothers me. I can't think of any reason for Vyce not to disintegrate Linkara during that fight if he could disintegrate Pyramid Head.
They are worshiped and will be the end of all things...By the Emperor, the 14th Black Crusade.
"The comic review is excellent as always but...that's something that really bothers me. I can't think of any reason for Vyce not to disintegrate Linkara during that fight if he could disintegrate Pyramid Head."
It's a good point, but I'd like to think the way he kills an otherworldly entity like Pyramid Head isn't exactly as simple as a neck-snap - there was actual energy involved.
The purpose of killing Pyramid Head was to verify what Linksano had first said about him - that even the likes of elder gods were afraid of Vyce and for good reason.
Oh, I forgot to comment on the actual review, so let me sum up how I feel by saying this: For the longest time, I wondered why you hated this worse than Countdown. I mean, it was bad but not Countdown bad, so I couldn't understand it. Then I found out about Lian...Lewis, your anger is officially justified.
Also, how much better would this have been if they'd actually called it Cry For Vengeance? At least then it would be HONEST!
You know...I'm kinda half-expecting Vice's helmet to come off sometime to reveal himself as an alternate reality Linkara....
Ah-ha, definitely a better fight scene. Well-paced, good tension, didn't run too long. The action at the beginning of the fight was a little awkward due, I assume, to fighting yourself; but it was quickly overshadowed by the good parts.
What's not overshadowed though is the comic itself. Just...ugh, you're right. I never imagined Lian's death was like *that*. I thought they'd at least give some foreshadowing, or give her a last few happy scenes with her father, but...no. The way they did that is just unforgivable.
Other people may have brought this up, but I felt like after watching all of this that the story somehow mutated greatly from what it was supposed to be. At first, it looked like we were headed for a tale that would examine the question of taking preemptive action against evil villains that would do the public harm and the possible moral implications of that. But as it turns out, the heroes just stumble upon some incredibly nonsensical and convoluted plot by this bad guy Prometheus. Was there some kind of editorial mandate to change something? The story wasn’t looking that great from the beginning, but I don’t see how the Prometheus story is supposed to fit in with the whole “Cry for Justice” theme. Remember, the first issue talked about preventing crimes. If it was about shocking the reader with the death of a little girl and having said responsible supervillain killed for his crimes, and not merely imprisoned, that’s not the same thing! It’s like going from an episode of 24 to the movie Death Wish.
Also, count me as one who didn’t dislike the battle in the Zeo review. It was pure fun from beginning to end.
Well this sure sucked.
Where to begin? In the beginning when Starfire and Donna first showed up, Starfire looked like she was White, but that's nothing compared to the rest.
When you said the League would turn him into a vegetable to get the information to save the cities, I don't think that would have worked. Odds are that information would have been lost and then they'd be even more screwed. With everything else that Prometheus did that wouldn't of been a surprise.
The heroes NEED to be punishment for what they did here and in Identity Crisis, so they will actually LEARN something. Both times that never happened. The cities being destroy and losing Lian (as bad as those may be) don't count. They never ONCE take into consideration that they brought all this on themselves for their acts.
I sincerely hope DC comes out with a story like that. Hell, i thought of one and plan to tell it to DC's writers at Comic-Con this year. If I can get tickets. Comic-Con needs to get to work fixing it's registration.
Either that or DC will retcon this into oblivion.
With Lord Vyce, why don't you two team-up? his tech and your magic will give you both a better chance.
First off, it appears my site's RSS feeds are spamming your pingbacks again, and this time I can't find a cause. I'm really sorry, and yet I think my comments on this comic can be summed up in a three-part article I wrote after seeing your original commentary, and those of other bloggers, when the comic came out.
http://wp.me/plMrm-1a2
http://wp.me/plMrm-1ah
http://wp.me/plMrm-1as
You have my e-mail, so you can easily yell at me for posting it.
As to Lord Vyce, kudos for having a villain with a bit more depth but still pretty darn evil. Of course, this means either another threat or an actual ally because Vyce is really that off-base. We'll have to wait and see.
Awesome review as always.
Also I noticed hanging from your ceiling. Badass Wing Zero
Wow... just Wow and I thought a Deal with the Devil was the final straw, but The Devil was being stupid in that one too. So Where is the justice for this sin of humanity?
Also, Vyce is kinda like Kang in Avengers:EMHs *just finished the Kang trilogy, You should check it out, It's the avengers being awesome Heroes again!*
The comic in itself is just..horrible. It's stupid. Pretty much ruins any sense of the word 'JUSTICE' has and is self indulgent and dumb.
The fight scene. Well not to sound like a jerk I actually enjoyed Linkara getting kicked around (and the Pyramid Head has succumbed to the Worf Effect). I like Vyce and he has an awesome voice! Really does sound like a conquerer of universes! as for the 'glitch' it's either Missingno (with the pokemon references) or just an Eldritch Abomination.
This curb stomp battle shows that Vyce is much stronger (although we haven't seen White Linkara against him yet..) And for the other 'chosen ones' I wonder what their like and if they exist in some form in our universe..
Thank you for that bit about how the girl's death does ruin previous stories. It is so true. So many times I get people telling me that Ultimatum did not ruin my fun of previous Ultimate X Men stories.
YES IT DOES. I can not look at any panel of Ultimate Dazzler, Longshot, Nightcrawler, Polaris, etc without thinking "wow, every single thing they do in this arc is rendered pointless. this is just a huge waste of time." They killed so many great characters that sadly they don't want to bring back. A lot of those B listers were unique and different from 616, but if anyone comes back they'll just bring back Wolverine and call it a day. it's complete bullshit.
I hope whenever you get to Ultimatum you tear it a new one. It's even worse than Cry for Justice and Countdown to me.
In honor of your well deserved fury (and the mention of the Entity)
"Linkara of Earth... You have great rage in your heart."
With blood and rage of crimson red,
Ripped from a corpse so freshly dead,
Together with our hellish hate,
We'll burn you all--That is your fate!
Or, if you prefer:
With blood and rage of crimson hue,
Ripped from an online book review,
As one with hatred gone amok,
We'll burn you all--These comics suck!
Yes, those heroes were stupid. First thought when I heard about the flash thing: "O.K, we just get GL to put a bubble around it keeping the water and water pressure in, and move it. In fact, lets just do that with all of them, if we get a big enough scoop of the land around, bomb ont even notice."
Though I would ask why you kept fighting Vyce after he revealed his true purpose, enemy of my enemy and what not and this glitch sounds dangerous.
I first got to know Lian in the four-part Arsenal miniseries by Devin Grayson and Rick Mays. It came out shortly before Devin's Titans run.
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Arsenal_Vol_1
She was the cutest character in the DC Universe, and a great addition to Roy's supporting cast, and by extension, to the supporting cast of the Titans. I liked Roy's conflict when it came to Cheshire, who was a) a wanted terrorist and b) the mother of his child.
I agree that killing her off was completely insane, and that the particular way they did it (and the sub-mediocre story that was Cry for Justice) added insult to injury. Yes, Robinson should be ashamed of himself, as should be every editor remotely involved with the creation of this series.
I see what they were trying to do here. With Hal Jordan getting younger and younger ever since Rebirth, the age difference between him and Ollie became bigger and bigger. By killing off Lian and phasing out Roy from the Green Arrow books (just like Wally hardly appears in the Flash anymore), Ollie doesn't have a young girl two generations younger than him anymore around to remind readers of his age. Expect him to get drawn younger and younger in the future. He already has the costume of the Smallville version of the character, and that is a guy in his early twenties. It won't end there. But even if I understand the motivation behind Lian's death (not that I agree with the idea that Ollie needs to be younger to begin with), the way they executed that idea (and her) was absolutely wrong. If you want to get rid of a character, either don't mention her anymore, or shuffle her off to a parallel universe (there are enough to choose from) or to the future, or whatever. But killing such a sweet little girl? That is evil.
Thank you for this great review, and for your closing statement.
And the Vyce-fight was nice as well. Not as impressive as the battle in last week's Power Rangers episode, but a nice teaser for things to come. I take it this storyarc will cross over with Spoony soon? His Final Fantasy X review ended with a cliffhanger that is still unresolved, if I haven't missed anything.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
My jaw is still on the floor from that fight. Good God, Lord Vyce is....what???????
Lewis, when you decide to retire from reviewing comics, write a screenplay. Seriously, this is storytelling gold. I am utterly blown off my feet by this. Amazing.
Thoughts on Cry for Justice: FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My God, what the hell was James Robinson thinking? Did he really think that readers were that dumb that they wouldn't question some of the idiocy of this story? It hurts to read some of the dialogue on the scans! It's inexcusable for any writer to think their readers aren't going to actually care about the continuity of the story, the motivations of the characters, and the REALISTIC NATURE OF THE PLOT!!!!!! James Robinson ought to be banned from authoring another comic ever again. To hell with him and his shitty story!
" His Final Fantasy X review ended with a cliffhanger that is still unresolved, if I haven't missed anything. "
It kind of did - he ended up in the Blagole to see the alternate ending to Pumpkinhead.
...Wow.
Okay, first, the comic: yes, it's disgusting. That's ridiculous. All the shit that happened was just regular stupidity until he killed a little girl for nothing but shock value. That's incredibly AWFUL writing and he should be ashamed.
As for the stuff after it, that is the main reason behind my 'wow'. Very nice subversion of having Vyce actually being the "good guy" protecting from a bigger bad guy, it's... actually VERY much like what happens in Gurren Lagann. You really don't see this kinda thing that much so it's not cliche, either, so well done.
Vyce's costume is pretty good, still... fffrom the bottom of the ribs up. A few times you could tell he was wearing a vest (or some shirt with that shape on the bottom), and is he wearing sweatpants? I think just a good belt to go with his chest armor would be a very easy solution to that problem.
Also, it's kinda funny after having watched the Reviewerverse Saga last night and then coming back to this. Kinda funny if these are the same universe, having Vyce over here talking about a universe consuming entity running around while over there you have the fate of the universe being threatened with a reboot from a Nerdpocalypse. :B Also, Vyce needs to fight Revuer 1 some day.
"It kind of did - he ended up in the Blagole to see the alternate ending to Pumpkinhead."
D'oh. Yes, you're right. I've seen that clip, but I didn't realize that it happened directly after the FFX finale, I thought it was an unconnected standalone clip.
Thanks for clearing that up.
When I saw in later reviews people saying they didn't see why you hated this... thing (I can't call it a comic) because you weren't going off on a huge rant like Act of God I knew this would be the review where you showed them what the hate was all about.
Lian's death is sickening, and the fact Robinson tried to defend it by saying "Well I'm glad you're angry it shows you care" is bullshit. Like you said we're angry that ROBINSON killed a child for the purpose of shock value! That HE used her as cannon fodder for story that was already getting critically panned but the time he wrote it all down. We're not angry that Lian is dead, that's part of it, but we're angry that Robinson killed her!
When I learned of what happened to her I was sickened myself. The fact they killed off a minor character just for a cheap shock moment and later justify the bullshit they would pull later with her father is just despicable.
Robinson should be ashamed for that, he should accept that he failed as a writer and killed off a character for a cheap thrill, and a child no less. He will never live this down.
In fact, I think Liefeld has more credibility than Robinson now. To the best of my knowledge Liefeld never killed off an 8 year old son/daughter of one of his muscle bound steroid nutters just to sell a book. Sure his stuff was full of bad art and pointless violence but you can argue that most of the people who got killed in those stories deserved it in some fashion.
I recently ordered both a trade of Deadpool Corp and Avengers the Skrull/Kree war. The first because I heard it was just some wacky old fashioned fun from my friends and the second because it sounded like an awesome story. I think that will be an appropriate palete cleanser for this... drivel.
And what is with Robinson's seemingly borderline hatred for the Bird's of Prey? Does he have some kind of rivalry with Gail Simone or something? LEast Oracle got off, she never appeared and thus didn't look like an idiot.
And I know someone already mentioned this, but good lord... Prometheus just went into God Sue Mode! That was ridiculous! It's worse than some of the bullshit fanfiction I've read because this shit is canon! AND scripted by a writer who should know better than this! I mean, I'm currently doing an MST of a crappy Naruto fanfic that turned the little ninja into a purity god mode sue, but even HE isn't this bad. Did no editor look at this script and think to tell Robinson:
"Uhh, don't you think this whole set up seems a bit... ridiculous?"
Your hatred of this comic is well placed sir, I salute you. I fear for when you get to Rise of Arsenal though as it's just a horrible way to cap this shit off. As for the next comic loaded with death gore and pointless murder you'll be covering next in the future... well let's just say it's gonna be hard to top this review in terms of subdued yet seething hatred. Even Ultimatum has the luxury of taking palce in an alternate universe and it doesn't seem to resonate on a personal level with you. I look forward to seeing how you top yourself.
Oh and that was a nice twist on Vyce, remind me of what the Avengers cartoon did with Kang recently. Tell us more good sir!
Anyway, thank you for tearing this comic to shreads and have a good day.
Truly things are becoming epic in scale, with you getting pummeled, but more importantly, looking scared afterword.
As for the last issues of "Cry for Justice".....well, they happened.
The fact James Robinson ruined Red Arrow completely as a character by maiming him and MINDLESSLY KILLING HIS ONLY DAUGHTER, proves 2 things.
1.) That James Robinson shouldn't be allowed near another "A" list character(s) or team for a long, LONG, time.
And 2.) Did it every cross the minds of the editors at DC Comics to look over the story being written for this mini-series and MAYBE pull rank and say "let's pull it back a little, James"? Or better yet, just tell him not to do certain things, like kill little kids and make a mockery of the JLA.
All in all, a good episode, Lewis. And by any chance, are there any good TPB's that do Red Arrow some "Justice" as it were?
In fairness, some of the problems with Cry for Justice might just be because it was condensed so much - Atom's statement that torture is wrong towards the end made me think that it was originally going to be an arc of him feeling guilt over the torture, and it seems as though Prometheus' plan was supposed to evolve over time so it wasn't just, "My plan is to teleport the cities away no wait it's to kill everyone muahaha." Actually a lot of the idiocy of Prometheus' plot probably comes from trying to push an ongoing series into a miniseries.
There is, however, no excuse for the treatment of Roy and Lian, the squicky bits of sexism, the consistent attitude of "tell don't show" exhibited with piles of unconcious supervillains and some of the gaping plotholes that surely would have been present even in a full-length series. I mean, they're supervillains, what exactly did he have to blackmail them with? I might believe "the lives of their loved ones" but there were a couple of villains in the many piles who don't have anyone. Did they all get drunk and have a wild orgy that Prometheus taped? Does Prometheus have a huge collection of embarassing childhood photos? I mean, did the comic ever explain that? Why not just say Prometheus paid everyone a boat load of cash, that would ... still be dumb but it would make more sense.
Oh and I'm sure you'll touch on this when you get to Rise of Arsenal, considering how passive the woman suddenly became in that arc, but why not have Cheshire get revenge for Lian's death instead of Ollie? I know she's not the best mom in the world (that's an understatement) but it's not like we haven't seen her going on a roaring rampage of revenge to protect her child by Catman, now that Lian's dead shouldn't she be kicking ass and taking names and it would have been much easier to swallow ... Oh wait, I forgot, then we wouldn't get to bookend the series with, "Justice" when we really mean "revenge." Yeah, that was really worth it.
And "The Entity" sounds a lot like the Nothing from Neverending Story. Which is awesome. I'm excited and scared to find out more.
Dangit, I keep forgetting to put minor comments in after I make my big comment. Just two this time:
One, if nothing else, I do really like Prometheus's design. I'm surprised you don't see a "knight" sort of design in other characters more often, the knight helmet visor is really cool honestly. That of course is no compliment to this trash since he always had that visor since conception.
Two, I can't help but imagine Mr. Robinson has a nice huge trollface on him after this. Could anyone really be so stupid as to confuse the issue of what 'justice' means (or try to even say what justice IS; did the man never read Plato?)? And you say he said he's GLAD people are angry?? Jesus christ, what a horrible reason to write something. Artificially forcing emotion and reaction on your readers and fans, especially through relentless and pointless SLAUGHTER of beloved characters, is such HACK writing that I have a LOT of trouble believing he created a character as cool and dapper as the Shade.
For god fucking sake, really.
Yeesh. So they just ignore this ever happens right? Like there's no reference to Cry for Justice anywhere else?
I'm enjoying DC Universe Online too much to accept this. I mean, they don't even achieve the goal of being proactive in this. They just look around and say "Oh, dictators in Somalia? I think I'm gonna justice my pants I'm so excited!"
I mean, my hero concept of the Vandal is more what I think of with proactive heroing. His dispatch monitors back channels sees who's doing what and if it looks like a weapon or something like that is being made he breaks in and shuts it down or steals it. Heroic? Not really, but it's certainly proactive and positive. I'm actually working on a comic of it, I can link it if you want. (Says the fanboy.)
As for the fight scene this go around... I'm just curious, but have you thought of hitting up a Halloween store and getting some of those stick on scars? It would definitely look nicer than rubbing ketchup on your face every time.
Dang all that and then some this episode. Too bad you didn't have the Jungle Fury Rhino Morpher. Even if you can't use it to morph it doubles as a weapon for close range combat. Just saying with you having plenty to call on for a team I wanna see when you turn it into a full on team to fight the big bads.
I love the review, and your passion about what happened to Lian is quite palpable.
The only nitpick I have is your objection towards Shade being the one to take the higher road. Yes, Shade has killed unrepentingly in the past (some his fault, though not all), but a large part of Starman's story is Shade and his reluctant growth from villian to hero. His character growth is a large part of what made Starman awesome.
I have no clue what the hell happened between that and this mess though.
I Think I'll pick up animal man, after 52 and the rest of blue beetle I have.
My god, I've never seen you this pissed off in a review before. I mean sure, yeah, you were pissed in other reviews, but this felt more natural and less forced. High blood pressure for you, sir. But anyway, great review, god awful comic.
And now onto the other stuff...
I almost thought Vyce was gonna kill Linksano for some reason at the start of the review. He just seemed so irked enough to do so, but I guess he still has uses for our favorite, somewhat silly scientist.
Is it just me, or is poor Pollo getting smacked around a lot recently? First he got denied access/pushed away by Mechakara, then he gets smacked by Vyce. You don't pay the poor thing enough it seems. *Sticks bandage on Pollo*
I was almost distracted by the fact you had an Omnimon figure. I'm not too suprised that you are a Digimon fan. I do remember you saying something about liking the series at some point.
Vyce plot twist was excellent. Nice to see you still know how to suprise us. The acting at the end was great too. Seeing you on the floor, trembling in fear was well performed and shows that you don't always make your fights look one-sided.
I was almost expecting Liz to come in at the end to see you on the floor and after a short pause she folds her arms in a comical sense and says: "What happened THIS time?" But I was releived that didn't happen... although it would've been funny as all hell.
Thanks for keeping us all entertained, peace out~
Why do I have the feeling that Vice is hunting down One More Day?
I really liked the Twist on the evil villain angle for Vice. He's evil, but he's lowercase evil to stop Uppercase Evil. Doing bad things to save people and whatnot. Considering the comic this was brought in on, it struck at what the comic seemed to have intended, before it was sunk with suck and turned into utter crap.
Though I have to wonder how much of that speech was just to weaken the Resolve of the 'Hero'.
The camera work wasn't very clear to the cause of Vice's retreat, had his suit been damaged?
Let's see, a female character dies horribly (off-panel no less) to boost a male hero (though calling "Rise of Arsenal" a "boost" would be ignoring how badly that atrocity got panned), again?
Worse, it's not even a grown woman or a combatant, but a little girl.
Thanks a whole heap DC.
Do you know how cool it was having a single father and recovering addict as a hero was? Talk about something different and daring! But most of all it was inspirational and a joy to read.
But you don't want that, do you?
Screw you, DC. Screw you.
PS: Linkara, if I ever do anything that would get you THAT angry, please..talk me out of it. You are scarier than death on a flaming pogo stick when you start raging like that.
I'm serious! If you ever became a lawyer, and you delivered an speech with that much venom and fury, I think most sane human beings would soil themselves in fear.
Very nice review. I was glad to see you go into detail on exactly how severe that was.
The Vice costume has turned out great, and the appearance by Linksano was a nice surprise.
Man, I'm really surprised you didn't direct more ire towards whatever jackass edited this thing. The villains' plan was nonsensical, the dialog was awful...basically whoever edited this thing was either drunk or one of those monkeys with the tweed suit/hat combos and a Meerschaum pipe sitting at a desk in front of a typewriter.
Thinking about it, I can understand why you didn't rant more about the editor...one could go on for hours...
Wow. They actually killed her off for no reason. I always heard about this story from friends, but never looked into it because they said the same thing about it; This little girl dies for no reason, they said.
Again, as I've said before, I'm new to comics relatively. I'm reading Cassandara Cain's run as Batgirl under recommendation and loving it. Same thing with the new Batgirl that I have been able to find when Stephanie takes the role...when I was told about that character, I was impressed to be sure.
Unless Animal Man is really good...after seeing this review, I don't think I can touch this man's filth. I'm willing to admit there's a good writer somewhere, but the Gary Stu that was Prometheus and how they had to change things to kill a little girl in the process is just wrong.
Now, onto Vyse. I like his..mentality I guess I should call it, but now I'm confused. He's become jaded from people not taking his warnings about this 'entity' when he had proof, and just decided to destroy them? And I guess I'll buy that he protects them since we haven't actually been led to believe otherwise yet. I figure he'd at least be more forceful with his warnings.
Onto the fight itself comes some questions: Yeah, I do understand why you needed to lose-he's powerful, he's obviously more experienced as an...enemy, I don't want to call him a villain for his reasons, since they aren't exactly villainous. Still, you damage his armor with his own weapon and he runs? Strange, since he had you.
Although considering your choice of weapons remaining after Pyramid Head-which was impressive, I admit-you still had a chance.
Magic Gun: Wasn't Used.
Magic Coin/Morpher: Assuming Destroyed.
Dragon Dagger: Wasn't Used.
Zeo Power Staff: Wasn't Used.
Magic might be the way to go here! Whoo!
So...let me get this straight...Vyce is less Lord Zed...and more Kang the Conquerer? (that's what I get for watching the Avengers series) Makes me worried on what the so-called "entity" was.
And...yeah, it's pathetic the guy behind Starman would pride a mess like this. I don't get comic books and their obsession in killing off anyone that gives them a relevance to something other than their hero lives. Sure when done right, it can be a monumental moment...but in this case, it's just pathetic and out of nowhere.
I need to go cry now. No, really. I follow your Twitter, so I knew this was coming, but all that rage and passion in your delivery just about tore my heart out. Nice going. I hope Robinson sees this, or gets the message some other way. I really do need to cry. Maybe there's worse comics out there, I don't know, but I promise there isn't one that could make me feel worse.
I'm just sorry we didn't actually see this comic burn on camera. More than "Superman at Earth's End" and "The Dark Knight Strikes Again," this comic deserved to roast. Reduce it to ashes at your first available opportunity.
Less depressing things:
Great costume design for Vyce, by the way. And your acting chops have increased; that really felt like genuine fear in your eyes. The staging for the fight could have been improved, though it was better than the last one. Those close-ups can get a little awkward at times, and I think at one point your hat disappeared, reappeared, then disappeared again.
Oh, and before I forget; that panel of Batwoman holding up What's-Her-Name with her foot? That was traced from a screenshot of the "Charlie's Angels" movie, I guarantee it.
Now I'm going to go read Mercedes Lackey until I feel better.
I can't believe it. I knew from your post a while back how this comic was going to end, but I am practically in shock at how bad that was. The writing for this story was so bad it makes the fanfics that Sage reads for Masterpiece Fanfic Theatre look competently written. Yet in the end, the plotholes the size of star destroyers, facepalm worthy OOCness, ridiculous villain invincibility, and our villain's ridiculous plan execution are crowned by an insulting death of a long time and well loved child character. I can only hope that Lian's longtime role is enough that someone in DC decides to do something to somehow undo this.It's crap like this that makes me stick to the cartoons for superheroes over the comics.
Moving on from the miasma of suckage created by this horrible comic, let's get to the good stuff. Linkara, your Lord Vyce plot is definitely getting better than I anticipated. The good introduction aside, you've given him considerably more depth than Mechakara. I'll be looking forward to the next deleopement in this plotline.
Anyway, I'll leave on a guess on what this entity could be. My guess is it's the god the Magic Gungirl's parents worshipped since Vyce did mention it had a following.
Loved this episode and Lord Vice. Also I noticed that you have a Wing Zero or something similar hanging from you ceiling. As for the comic itself, even though I haven't read teen titans I did watch the TV show. I completely agree with your sheer anger towards this comic. Death to a child without any build up or anything else is not cool. It is called being an asshole and a stupid way to remind me how evil the villain is. I'm disgusted with that decision and I hope to never see that type of stupidity ever again.
Notes:
During your pause, I went and put a hold on Grant Morrison's Animal Man run at my library. :)
More importantly, I just finished reading "Grand Guignol," crying my eyes out through the ending, and WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED in this story? How could the same writer who wrote that arc write... this?
I don't have as big a problem with killing off characters as you do so long as it works within a story. When you first brought up Lian's death, I didn't have the context of how... out of context it was. She's killed for absolutely no reason relevant to the plot...?!?! What?!?! You don't do that to a character. And... what, revenge = justice? Do I have to throw the volumes of Starman that you wrote at your head wherein you rebut that premise yourself?
IT HURTS!!
Good . . . God . . . in . . . Heaven.
This comic was despicable. What an utterly disgusting, sickening, and fundamentally pointless twist. I knew it was going to be bad, but I had no idea it was going to be THAT bad. Speaking as someone who has young people in my life, young people I care very deeply about and never want to see hurt in any way, this is just sick. Good on you for tearing this POS apart.
On an entirely unrelated note: It was so awesome to not only see Lord Vyce in a fight and get a grip on how damn powerful he is, but it was GREAT to get some motivation for him. And when he vaporized (?) Pyramid Head, my first thought was "Oh, @&$%, we're totally screwed." That was absolutely chilling (in a good way), especially considering the many, MANY times Pyramid Head has kicked my ass in SH2. PH, I love you but you are officially Lord Vyce's bitch.
I was wondering this ever since angry Joe made that cameo. Since Liz is out of town and Linkara seems to be a bit over matched than wouldn't It be wised to call Joe for help, not only is he aware of the situation but him and Linkara seem to be allays. Also Joe has access to resources that would greatly help Linkara like an entire army and an armed satellite that not only can be compared to the justice leagues watch tower but could probably handle lord vises ship that is currently in orbit. I know that there might be plenty of behind the scenes reasons why he could not get Joe to appear in the show again but I wise he could give us a reason that is in the story of why he is not calling for help.
Damn...I've read summaries of this comic, but...wow. Having you read it to us just shows how horrible in ways I couldn't even imagine. It's terrible! How could a professional writer think anything in that story was a good idea? I'm just disappointed.
As for the fight scene, I'm really liking Vice. He's like the Lord Zedd of your universe. Sorta. Him beating Pyramid Head? Didn't see that coming. I also want to see what had him so spooked. Also, who were the two girls on the photos on the wall in the background. They looked like Peach and Rosalina.
...A kid? A little GIRL?
WHAT. THE. HELL. THAT IS JUST WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS. HOLY SAINTS IN HEAVEN, WHY?!?!?!
All I can say is, "That writer is an asshole and should NEVER WRITE AGAIN."
On brighter topics...Vyce is scary. I mean, wow. These last couple of weeks have been no fun for you, have they? And poor Pollo... :< I have a theory about the entity, but I'm going to keep my mouth shut about it just in case I'm right...don't want to spoil anything >.>
Also, one of my brothers has that lightsaber Vyce was using. Lawl. xD
Lewis, my man, my heart goes out to you. When you were explaining the death of Leann, I could hear the suffering. Sure, maybe it's silly to be upset over a comic, but this was an off-panel death of what was a supporting character with a lot of history. That's got to hurt. Rise of Arsenal probably didn't help matters, I'm sure.
On the other hand, Vyse's appearance once again made me laugh myself silly. However, I grudgingly admit that the story about The Entity is actually fairly interesting, so far. I just wish it hadn't taken almost a year to unfold. Oh well. This fight is something of an improvement over the original Mechakara fight so... Yeah. Two points for that I guess?
And for as bad as I claim your metaplot is, I must say that I DO keep watching this stuff, so you have to be doing something right...
(And the catchpha for this post is "gartr," which made me think of Panty and Stocking. Speaking of things that cause us pain...)
Sorry, Linkara, but I simply dislike "villain is actually doing this to protect people from another villain" plots as they very quickly derail when the hero doesn't say the very logical "well prove it and I'll help you and you won't have to kill me and have even more chance of killing it". It would be better (short term at least) if he revealed YOU were the host of entity or something similar and that he was trying to kill you to save your world. Internal conflict! Denial! Fights! And then you still get the follow-up villain when the entity starts to move, and the villain is (at least at first) a part of yourself! Get sayin'. lol
Let's see, a female character dies horribly (off-panel no less) to boost a male hero (though calling "Rise of Arsenal" a "boost" would be ignoring how badly that atrocity got panned), again?
Worse, it's not even a grown woman or a combatant, but a little girl.
Thanks a whole heap DC.
Do you know how cool it was having a single father and recovering addict as a hero was? Talk about something different and daring! But most of all it was inspirational and a joy to read.
But you don't want that, do you?
Screw you, DC. Screw you.
PS: Linkara, if I ever do anything that would get you THAT angry, please..talk me out of it. You are scarier than death on a flaming pogo stick when you start raging like that.
I'm serious! If you ever became a lawyer, and you delivered an speech with that much venom and fury, I think most sane human beings would soil themselves in fear.
Just drank some wine to wash this all down ugh...
But well said Jazz and I couldn't agree more. Oh and Linkara Jude and Val would love it if you stopped by the Bring Back Lian Harper page on Deviant Art. What we are about is this.
We are about stopping this sort of tripe in comics. We want better since you are holding in your hands 70 years worth of peoples work and that doesn't give you the right to pee all over it.
We want better treatment of characters and stories not something that would entertain a small fraction but all I have said this in other places but will again if you want a wider audiance for your work don't pander to the lcd.
Near the end of the review you talked a little about justice VS revenge. With that in mind I've always kinda wondered what are your views on a character like The Punisher?
P.S. Awesome fight scene
Linkara, you're usually a good reviewer, but I'm afraid your rage blinded you to a few things.
I. I don't think James Robinson has any special hatred for the Birds of Prey.
Yes, the revelation that Black Canary broke up the Justice League because she was upset about Ollie not spending enough time with her IS incredibly stupid... but that wasn't James Robinson's idea or fault.
The fault for that, I fear, lies with Dwayne McDuffie and DC Editorial.
At the same time Cry For Justice was going on, there was a storyline in the main Justice League book where Dinah became fed up with nobody taking her seriously even though she was the elected team leader. Hell, Dinah had just confronted Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman on the fact that they continued to have secret meetings regarding the direction of the team and they had a whole hidden room in the Hall of Justice devoted to said meetings.
Dinah's response to this was to dissolve the team, taking what happened as an insult that nobody really trusted her to lead the team. This was meant, according to McDuffie, to result in a big storyline where Dinah would be built back up into a better leader and lead a new, tighter Justice League free from any interference by The Trinity of Clark, Bruce and Diana. The full story is up at: http://www.comicvine.com/dwayne-mcduffie/26-42450/dwayne-mcduffie-fired-from-jla/92-396323/
The problem is McDuffie was fired from DC Comics before he could get around to writing that story, due to his complaining loudly and publicly about how DC Editorial was ruining his storylines in Justice League by requiring him to tie most of his stories in to all the big crossovers, including... Cry For Justice.
So yeah... Dinah spazzing out because of Ollie being gone? Stupid idea. But assuming Robinson came up with it (and I doubt that since everything I've heard about this book says that it was editorially written but Robinson just had the "honor" of getting his name put on it and the credit/blame for it) ... even if this was his idea, he was in a rock and a hard place on how to quickly explain away why Black Canary had dissolved the team in the first place since McDuffie never had a chance to do it.
II. The Shade And Robinson Not Knowing His Own Continuity.
Granting that it is incredibly stupid for Prometheus not to have put together a villains/anti-heroes database since his failure to do so is what led to his defeat the last time we saw him (i.e. Catwoman takes him out with a bullwhip shot to the nuts), I find it totally believable that Shade wouldn't show up on said database as a hero OR a villain for two reasons.
1. At the end of Robinson's Starman series, The Shade showed some signs of having reformed into an anti-hero, if not a full-fledged hero. He was still willing to kill if needed but didn't use murder as a first resort anymore.
2. Shade has always maintained a low profile, particularly when doing good deeds. He only ever showed himself to the O'Dare family of cops and the Knight family.
So Prometheus having no idea who The Shade is is totally believable... though it does nothing to explain why the bomb in Star City was resistant to shadowy manipulation later on. :P
III. Shade Stops Donna Troy From Killing Prometheus
Shade stopping someone else from killing is actually very much a part of his character. Even as a villain, he always avoided needless death, killing only those who dared to attack him and did not back down from a warning.
The "bullcrap" part of this is Donna actually stopping since - last I checked - Amazons had no problem with killing someone if necessary.
IV. It Could Have Been Much Worse.
Robinson's comments on the story after the fact lead me to believe he was in much the same situation as JMS on One More Day. Editorial told him what they wanted to have happen and he was left with the option of either writing the story and trying to minimize the damage as best he could... or quit and leave them to do what they wanted anyway with a lot less finesse.
Reportedly, DC Comics wanted to kill off Mia Dearden - the current Speedy - along with Lian. Only Robinson's begging to let him at least leave THAT one member of Ollie's family alive saved her.
So... yeah. This story was bad. But I think DC Editorial - the same minds behind Countdown - are more to blame for this than Robinson - a writer so skilled that he can even write good Gen-13 stories where Fairchild stays clothed the whole time!
I'm more of a Marvel fan and for the past few years I've only been following certain characters over at DC. Lian was one of them.
She was sweet, cute, funny and interesting. That a writer would kill her off is in itself a horrible act of writing and misunderstanding what she means to Roy Harper.
But that it happened like this. Without any foreshadowing or relevance to the plot. God James Robinson sucks.
I could go on about how Lian was a great character. But it won't change anything.
You're right Linkara. The writer completely failed. Not just with Lian but with the story as a whole. It's barely even a story.
Great review and the fight was really well-done. Vyce has peaked my villain-senses and looked forward to seeing more of him and his story as it unfolds.
Okay, I knew the Cry for Justice miniseries was awful, but damn. It has pretty much everything wrong with it, and killing of Lian was despicable.
The Lord Vyce story, however, is getting more and more interesting. I can't wait for the next installment!
Decided to see the aftermath of this crap on the DC universe and learned of Rise of Arsenal...Linkara, whenever you review that atrocity tell me and I'll personally supply the matches and whatever flammable material you want to burn it, hopefully with CFJ as kindling.
"So... yeah. This story was bad. But I think DC Editorial - the same minds behind Countdown - are more to blame for this than Robinson - a writer so skilled that he can even write good Gen-13 stories where Fairchild stays clothed the whole time!"
I'm sorry, but I can't accept that. Yes, I'm sure DC Editorial was responsible for much of this crap, but James Robinson isn't some industry newbie terrified of the big leagues - he made Starman, he's done work since then, he's done Hollywood - HE COULD HAVE SAID NO. Sure, DC would still probably have gone through with it with someone else writing, but then he could at least have had the integrity to say, "Yeah, the house fell apart, but at least I wasn't the one who brought it down."
It still doesn't excuse the piss-poor writing on areas that had nothing to do with this change in direction regarding the arrow family. Seriously - "I'm Ray Palmer, welcome to PAIN," "Together, we can be JUSTICE!"? What was the final count on how many times they yelled out justice or said justice? 31, wasn't it? A lack of proper fight scenes, Prometheus being unbeatable, the convoluted revenge plan, the torture plot with no actual resolution on it other than Ray Palmer saying ONE line of dialogue?
But yes, DC Editorial deserves A LOT of flack for the utter bullcrap of this story, but James Robinson was still involved in it and still part of the plan. If he came out and disavowed anything to do with this story, said it was utter crap and that he himself didn't actually write most of it, that would be different, but as far as I know, he hasn't.
At best, there was that introduction to the hardcover where he admitted it was dark, weird, and that people are understandably angered by it. However, he also proudly proclaims that he stands behind it. He's free to do so, either because of professionalism or because he may honestly believe it's his work and he SHOULD stand behind it. That's his right, but as a comic reader and as a critic I have to say my piece, then, because he's now part of the problem.
Ah yes, the final atrocity. Killing a fictional kid for publicity.
Wow, Linkara is getting beat up a lot these days, both mentally and physically it seems. Lord Vice surprised me as a character, since despite his name he seems to be rather complex and may even have a sense of honour. I like how these storyline segments are examples of GOOD comic book style writing, and considering how bad this comic was I was actually looking forward to the Vice story more.
Ugh, this comic was like Watchmen for morons. I completely agree with you Linkara about sensationalist garbage like this being truly vile. Even IF this had been top quality writing with a very deep exploration of how the death of a child effects a parent, it would STILL have been a terrible idea that would have been dismissed by anyone who cared about the tone and history of these characters.
Any idiot can make things dark and edgy for no reason; the writing here has no talent behind it whatsoever. I didn't believe it at first, but I honestly do agree with you that this is the worst comic that has been on this show so far.
Just...disgusting.
You said Cry For Justice was bad, and i believed it. I heard about Lian's death a long time ago and was sadden by it.
But i had no idea just how far this went. I called One Moment In Time the worst comic ever. But even One Moment In Time didn't go to this level of stupidity and have such a heart wrenching and sickening moment. This comic is a disgrace. And even though not everyone gets brought back to life in comics, Lian better.
As for the battle with Vyce-- Anyone who was calling you a Marty Sue is now eating their words.
I feel like a weirdo for wanting to critique the story elements of the episode, rather than the comic review bits. But then again, this is the same as Countdown or Amazons Attack or any other horrific mini-series you've done - awful shock tactics in the book, you being horrified and putting out a perfectly fine review. Really, at this point, there's very little I feel I need to say on the point besides "urggg comics these days"
As for story, Vyce's appearance was...well, much more lackluster than I expected. It feels like he appeared much faster than Mechakara did and there wasn't the same kind of build up, which is good in some cases, but I was expecting something more grand visually (not that I think you have the budget for OMGEVERYTHING). His appearance reminded me very much of that dude from Halo, and the random tubules seem like the sort of thing SFdebris would complain about in a borg episode of Trek. It's not bad by any means, but not something I personally would say is a good design.
Meanwhile, on the other end of the scale from lackluster, we have his backstory, which was FASCINATING and surprising in a really good way. It makes sense that Linksano - a villain and a weasel for all intents and purposes - would despise Vyce so much - he's like a badass dictator cop. He sort of makes it hard to be sure who to root for.
I think the only seriously confusing things were the disappearing-reappearing hat (which I'm sure you've either noticed or someone's mentioned), why you always end up bloodied in the same areas just about, and Vyce's talk about how important you think you are. At the beginning, you seemed like you were going to bring up that no, you aren't the only champion - as long as people are willing to fight for what they believe in, Earth will never have just one champion - but he's the one who built up that it was you, that made it seem like 'oh yeah you're so important, you have to die now', and then tells you off for your ego essentially? When really, from your standpoint, it's like "there's a dude trying to kill me. Crap crap crap crap crap. MUST SURVIVE. MUST NOT DIE."
Do you have any sort of future plans for a say Mr. Mxyzptlk or Bat-Mite type figure for your universe? I don't expect you to do such a grand story with them, of course, but it might be a very nice breather between storylines, moreso than say Linksano was (since even though he was kinda silly he never really had the same potential). Plus that might give you a chance to go for something different - though if you DID plan for it, it'd most likely not be immediate as there's obviously Entity type stuff coming up. Figuring out where it is, figuring out WHY it's here, what drew it, etc.
Yeah I'm rambling, I should shuttup now. Dunno why you'd care what I'm spewing since other people probably have already said it and 10 times better.
Anywho, good episode just the same and interesting story work. I look forward to more! Maybe with more Judas Liz eventually - felt like there was meant to be more with her than there was (and there was obviously meant to be more with Mechakara)
The Comic: Now I understand why you hate this one as much a you do. Killing off an important secondary character in a story that didn't involve her, 'just because you can' is no way to write off a character.
Your Arc: So, Vyce is a well intentioned extremist? Didn't see that coming... The fact that there might just be something out there that's worse than him is... very unsettling, to put it mildly.
Calling it, The thing that Lord Vyce is trying to protect people from...
The Ultimate Warrior, Who will have obtained the powers of a Red Lantern Ring that Spoony mentioned at Magfest.
=D Dang I'm good. lol
I expect a Cookie when I'm proven right!
Another brilliant review. Although, I am curious about two things:
Why not just ask what the entity was or say, "Well if that's the case, why not let me help you so you can get the frak out of my universe?!"
Also, I sensed there was foreshadowing when you said about revenge being "the most worthless of causes." Of course, I might be wrong.
Dang Linkara, you need to stop holding back so much, it isn't good for your health. ;)
Completely agree though on her death. There are much, MUCH better ways to handle something like that and better reasons than just purely shock value. I remember when this issue came out and were actually GLAD she died because they felt she was "bringing down" whatever comic she was in or... whatever.
Classy.
Anyway, good job sir.
looking2dastars said...
"Robinson's comments on the story after the fact lead me to believe he was in much the same situation as JMS on One More Day. Editorial told him what they wanted to have happen and he was left with the option of either writing the story and trying to minimize the damage as best he could... or quit and leave them to do what they wanted anyway with a lot less finesse."
***
A lot less finesse? How is that even possible? I mean, seriously: Cry for Justice was full of plot holes, was misogynistic, was out of character for every single character involved, the morals behind the main characters' actions are disgusting, countless characters are killed off-panel (including several minority characters that DC doesn't have enough of to begin with), it completely destroyed the character of Roy Harper AND killed the cutest, most innocent character of the DC Universe.
I think the only way to show even LESS finesse than Cry for Justice is by having Prometheus rape Lian before he kills her - and then cutting to Nelson Muntz saying "Ha-ha!"
HOLY SHIT! That was just epic. Linkara, you have probably heard this before, but your videos rock! Rage on, sir!
I have a theory I have never well articulated before, that the most offensive and memorable failures are usually the ones which at the outset had the most potential. To wit, the people involved have demonstrated talent and ability in the past, which reasonably raises expectations. CfJ meets this criteria at least, as the people involved in this project (Robinson in particular) have produced good material in the past. So, why this time around did they take a hard run at a brick wall?
In addition: Having just reviewed Robinson's entry at wikipedia, perhaps my expectations were too high. He is also responsible for the screenplay for the pathetic "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" film and the pointless "War of the Supermen."
you dumbass. kids dying is awesome.
na,the opposite of course but i bet no other comments started out that way.
that was a well done fight scene,youre getting better ever one now,like a jrpg main character.
how the hel was that the conclusion to the lord vyce saga?
Is this a 6th ranger situation i smell?
...if so will there be a spin-off after the entity saga where he moves to florida,befriends a black man,and gets a detective agency?...thats right,miami vyce
"how the hel was that the conclusion to the lord vyce saga?
Is this a 6th ranger situation i smell? "
When the heck did I say this was the conclusion? V-Minus 21.
By the way, I like how your videos often subtly relate to the story skit that's going to pop up in the end. A comic about Superman's cyborg villain doppelganger introduces Mechakara (with a Terminator hand) at the end. A review with a comic with a plot twist involving a robot impersonating the heroes that ends with a plot twist revealing it was the robot duplicate reviewing that section all along. Two comics about Power Rangers introduces you getting new powers involving Power Rangers.
And finally, a comic where...um... a guy got pounded on by a superpowerful person had you getting pounded on by a superpowerful person! Well, actually, I'm fairly sure I had a proper example when I first watched this part but it's been all night and I've forgotten, but I'm fairly sure there was one here. Anyway, nice work.
First off: loving the twist with Lord Vyce and all.
Secondly: LIAN. ;_;
I hope that a higher-up at DC watches this review and has "Cry for Dark Age-esque Revenge" (along with "Rise of Arsenal" and anything else to result from it) tossed into a radioactive discontinuity bin, where it belongs--if it hasn't been already.
Someone else in the comments said that even Liefeld would know better than to kill off Lian, but even so, I have to wonder--are we going through or entering a relapse of the Dark Age? Or have we surpassed it? (The Pitch-Black Age? Probably not, but...)
Also, I'm hoping that Zatanna didn't suffer any permanent damage from that shot to the throat. D:
/typed on little sleep so it's likely incomprehensible
The contrarian in me reacts to overwhelming reaction, be it positive or negative, with a desire to see the issue from the opposite perspective. Since the tragedy in this comic has been utterly condemned from all corners, I sought to defend it. After all, something which provokes such powerful reactions must have something worthwhile, eh?
Yet try as I might, I cannot but come to the same conclusion as everyone else. This is, in a word, indefensible. It cannot be justified from a narrative standpoint, nor a logical, nor character, nor allusive. The Devil's Advocate in me has failed.
Then, I tried to consider whether it was a good idea that backfired. At which point, I look to the many, many logical lapses within the comic, incredible moments of stupidity on the part of the characters, and sheer contrivance of many of the events to conclude that there really wasn't a good idea at all. Prometheus was a badass villain because the writer said so. Everyone calls revenge "justice" because the writer says so. Lian's death was meant to be powerful, meaningful and daring instead of exploitative, false and low because the writer says so.
For the sake of discourse, I truly wanted to see if there was another way to look at this argument, but if there is, I cannot find it. It boggles the mind that this comic was ever given the green light.
Using such obviously shocking ideas in comics is nothing less than cheap, sleazy and not worthy of consideration. They're the emotional equivalent of jump scares: sure, you get an immediate reaction, but you didn't *earn* it. And when you don't earn a reaction, the emotions turn from the work to the artist, and as Linkara says, the reader isn't angry at Prometheus for killing Lian, but at Robinson for fouling it up.
Lian Harper's death is basically the most prominent modern-day example of how buggered up comics can get when it comes to 'kill the loved ones in order to evoke (w)angst'. In this case, I'm kind of hoping that the Brightest Day event restores Star City and brings Lian Harper back to life as a result. That, or have Roy get killed off in a way that implies that he'll rejoin his daughter in some kind of DCU afterlife (there are, what, seventeen of them?).
Lian Harper is at any rate more likely to come back *because* of the various fan reactions being what they are. Doesn't *always* work, but DC tends to listen to fan reaction a bit more, kind of like how Countdown is gently massaged out of continuity. By just plain *ignoring* most of it, and pretending that none of it ever happened. It's a bit late for that in this area, but it's not as if this sort of thing hasn't been fixed in the past, so... who knows.
Awsometastic Lewis! :D
You really nailed it, and not only that but unlike the comic you rewied, the fight scene had the true grim "overpowering villain" feel to it.
Yeah the comic made its ugly head almost unbearable to fathom, but hey like any other bad comic its wrongness was funny when you rewiew it ;) So goofy and ludicrous and well... poitnless, that its a sheer joy wathing you tear it apart :D
PS. Hey if Lord Vyce is... wait a minute!
Theres gonna be an episode in the future where you and Vice rewiew a comic together isint there!? XD
PPS. (Most likely not but wouldnt that be so awsometastic too?)
With best regards,
Anssi J.
Okay, in regards to the "I stand by it" introduction, do you really think DC would let him utterly denounce the thing in an intro? True, maybe he should have just plain refused to write an intro, but I don't know what his contract was...
Still, none of that excuses the lame dialogue or anything else that was ABSOLUTELY his fault; DC editors may have demanded certain awful twists, but given what Robinson had shown himself capable of doing, he ought to have worked it so that it was better than this... catastrophe. Killing a character randomly and off-panel?! If he knew that they wanted Lian (sp?) dead, he could have written it in such a way as to really capture the tragedy and build up to the moment (and maybe carefully leave in a loophole for bringing her back...).
I will admit definitely that the girl's death was just a horrible plot point.
But I was curious, what is right right way to have a character die in the story? And not a character that can give a big final battle like when you described the deaths of Super Girl and Doc Ock back in Countdown.
sorry Link, but you just officially stepped into the Marry Sue territory
you being the champion of the ChannelAwesome universe
really?
shouldn't the Nostalgia Critic have that spot?
that's like saying that Aquaman is DC's greatest hero instead of Superman
also, your constant complaining about female characters is becoming tiring
with those costumes it is impossible not to make them look provocatively, yet when someone changes them to something more casual you throw a tantrum
Vice's motives bear an eery resemblance to those of Kang the Conqueror
Not to mention the current story-arc in the Avengers cartoon
CBR Beast should die in a horrible, extremely painful and humiliating way for all the revolting heresy he is spewing
" I think the only way to show even LESS finesse than Cry for Justice is by having Prometheus rape Lian before he kills her - and then cutting to Nelson Muntz saying "Ha-ha!" "
Oh boy, I don't have the heart to tell you...
It's stories like these that cement my opinion that continuity in American comics is a bad thing and should be eliminated completely.
I usually hate it when they push a reset button in a story and eliminate any sort of development that may have happened, but American comics need one BADLY!
With so many series coming out at the same time for so many decades, it's just a question of time until someone messes-up, and then everyone else involved has to freaking deal with it!
Seriously, send continuity to hell!
Make each series a continuity onto itself with no effect on the other titles whatsoever.
Make it possible for each writer to start with a blank slate.
Make it possible for them to take elements from other stories that they liked, while being able to ignore what they didn't.
Not to mention that they would be able to try-out brand new concepts without worrying about messing-up what's already established.
If nothing else, it would make ignoring bad story-arcs SO much easier.
to everybody asking about why linkara didnt ask vyce abotu the entity or offer to help him get rid of it:
the guy had just vaporized linkaras pyramid head. im pretty sure you wouldnt be willing to negotiate or bargian with a guy who can vaporize your pyramid head if you were in that position.
So Prometheus' revenge is James Blish's "Cities in Flight"?
Wow, just... WOW! What a stupid, stupid revenge.
Only half way through the video yet, so haven't seen the Vyce denouement.
You would think that a man who specifically stipulated that his original creation (Jack Knight) would be allowed to retire and raise his child in peace at the end of Starman would have more respect for the characters of others.
You would /think/ that. Bad show, James.
Good show Lewis, though!
So wait. . .Lord Vyce is so enraged at the past failures of civilizations to heed his warnings that he's reached a point where he's beyond reason? Is he privy to anything Linkara's done with ATFW?
If there was any being in existence who could give Vyce hope for full and willing cooperation with him in his efforts to repel the Entity (proper noun?), it would be Linkara. And upon hearing Vyce's ultimate goal, I would think Linkara would immediately attempt to reason with him.
I certainly hope this train of thought is explored at some point. I get how Vyce's motivation is supposed to work, as it's not an uncommon angle, but I'm not seeing enough of a misunderstanding between Linkara and Vyce to support that angle.
On the comics themselves. . .Ick. I get what it was trying to do with Lian's death just I as get what the story wanted to be about. But as we could clearly see, it certainly didn't succeed in the latter because it made wrong decisions at every junction, and that made the former incredibly repulsive.
Now if Lian's death had occured near the beginning and worked towards testing the heroes' morality, if it became the prompt for the terrible things the Palmer and friends do in pursuit of "justice," then we may have seen a far more interesting story.
I hate playing Devil's Advocate because Robinson deserves a lot of blame for this story but if I recall right DC Editorial actually asked for an even dumber story. They apparently wanted to kill Mia off as well as Liam and at one point wanted to write-out all of the fictional cities in the DCU aside from Metropolis and Gotham. Robinson actually had to fight to keep the story from being worse...
"CBR Beast should die in a horrible, extremely painful and humiliating way for all the revolting heresy he is spewing "
No they should not - they are free to express their own thoughts and opinions like anyone else on this blog.
"Even Ultimatum has the luxury of taking palce in an alternate universe and it doesn't seem to resonate on a personal level with you."
BULL SHIT. Just because it's an alternate universe excuses it from being so stupid. Ultimatum RUINED every single story the Ultimate X Men ever had. There are so many characters acting out of character and so many great characters that could have told great stories (like Dazzler, the Academy of tomorrow, Nightcrawler, Longshot, etc) dead that Marvel says will never come back....because apparently only mutants stay dead, everyone else comes back literally 1 issue later.
Don't give me this, "it's an alt universe" crap.
"sorry Link, but you just officially stepped into the Marry Sue territory
you being the champion of the ChannelAwesome universe
really?
shouldn't the Nostalgia Critic have that spot?
that's like saying that Aquaman is DC's greatest hero instead of Superman
also, your constant complaining about female characters is becoming tiring
with those costumes it is impossible not to make them look provocatively, yet when someone changes them to something more casual you throw a tantrum "
Really? I'm a Mary Sue because I'm the most important person on my own show? Plus Vyce did say that there can be more than one champion in a universe. Furthermore, when the hell has the Nostalgia Critic ever been a HERO? Doug has admitted that he prefers the character being the villain in all the fights he's been in.
As for women's costumes, I see Starfire and Donna kicking ass all the time in comics I've read without the need to shove their asses out. Furthermore why did it have to be Starfire there? Why couldn't Cyborg or the Guardian or a dozen other heroes be the ones standing there shoving their asses out?
And when the hell have I ever complained about women getting more casual clothes and throwing a tantrum? The best I can think is Wonder Woman's new outfit, but that was more from an aesthetic sense because the jacket looked dumb and black is not a color that I associate with Wonder Woman.
RADIX said...
"Someone else in the comments said that even Liefeld would know better than to kill off Lian, but even so, I have to wonder--are we going through or entering a relapse of the Dark Age? Or have we surpassed it? (The Pitch-Black Age? Probably not, but...)"
***
The way I see it (not that anyone cares) is that there's a new age every twenty years.
Mid-30s to Mid-50s: Golden Age. Starts with Superman, also gives us Batman, Captain America and the Justice Society.
The Golden Age was still close to its roots in pulp magazines and radio serials. Eventually drowned in war comics, romance comics and monster comics.
Mid-50s to Mid-70s: Silver Age.
Starts with Martian Manhunter, also gives us Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the Green Lantern Corps.
The Silver Age perfected the formular by focusing on the secret identity just as much as on the costumed identity, before eventually drowning in sillyness (Legion of Super-Heroes).
Mid-70s to Mid-90s: Bronze Age.
Starts with the death of Gwen Stacy. Gives us Punisher, Wolverine, Frank Miller's Daredevil, Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, Watchmen and Youngblood.
The Bronze Age made superheroes deal with real events before eventually drowning in darkness (Spawn).
Mid-90s to... today, I guess: Retro Age.
Starts with The Golden Age (by a fella named James Robinson). Also gives us Marvels, Astro City, Morrison's JLA, Ultimate Spider-Man, New Frontier, Green Lantern: Rebirth and Image United.
Hopefully the next age is around the corner. Can't take more than a couple of years.
I still can't fathom that The Golden Age and Cry for EXTREME could have been written by the same writer.
OK, now I've had time to actually watch the review, and... hats off to you, sir. Your seething fury at Lian's death was completely anticipated and yet still incredibly moving. It was, indeed, the most vile and despicable moment in comic books of the past year, and possibly even the whole decade. It made me curse on my blog for the first and only time ever, it was just that horribifuckus.
I figure it's easiest for me to just reprint an excerpt from my reaction at the time:
"How can this possibly be a good thing to do, DC? How??
It's Lian Harper! Lian freaking Harper! She was sweet and funny and adorable and she was just an innocent little girl, you shmucks! How dare you, James Robinson? How dare you, Dan Didio? This is vile. This is nauseating. I would say that this is 'everything wrong in comics today', except this is worse. You knocked off this cute little girl who had inoffensively been a cute little girl for 24 years--longer than I have been alive--and the apple of her father's eye, loved by all! Why? Why??
'Character development'? You think Lian's death was required for character development? Let me tell you, I can think off the top of my head ten dozen ways to give a character development, and, get this, not one of them involves the death of a little girl! It's nothing more than a cheap trick, a shock for the sake of no more than shock value, a revolting offense against all modicum of good taste.
Sometimes bad things happen to good people? Bad stuff happens in the real world? Guess what! I don't read comic books about aliens from other planets and millionaire vigilantes and alternate dimensions for realism! It's escapism! How hard can this possibly be to understand? Comic books are (meant to be) one of the best sources for fun escapism ever created! I want tragedy, I'll go read Shakespeare or something! I'm not saying comic books ought to be devoid of death and disease, but KILLING LIAN HARPER--?
NO.
...Other series like Ultimatum or Countdown have been hated for their permeating stupidity, and issues like the way Stephanie Brown's death and legacy were handled became a byword for incompetence, sure, but this takes the issue of quality, throws in callous offensiveness, and drags the series beyond So Bad It's Good, beyond So Bad It's Horrible, beyond So Horrible It's Shit, and into some uncharted realm of awfulness where, by some horrible quirk, it practically circles around to become a masterpiece."
Just rereading all that is enough to make my blood boil and my eyes sting.
On the plus side, I liked this fight scene much better than the last one--better choreography and not as much self-pandering with Power Rangers shtick--and I can't wait for V-Day to arrive.
I hate playing Devil's Advocate because Robinson deserves a lot of blame for this story but if I recall right DC Editorial actually asked for an even dumber story. They apparently wanted to kill Mia off as well as Liam and at one point wanted to write-out all of the fictional cities in the DCU aside from Metropolis and Gotham. Robinson actually had to fight to keep the story from being worse...
I heard this as well, but did you know about the part where he was inspired by the men and women coming home from Iraq and Afganastan to do this in part, and I've heard stories that this whole darkening of the DCU was inspired in part by 9/11 or the what not.
So they take one of the most horrific things to happen on our soil to tell stories of rape and distruction. Fantastic instead of being inspirational as hero's should be since they are the arc type of what we want to be.
Robinson could have walked away from this tripe like McDuffie did but he did not so in turn he deserves just as much flack for this as the out of control editors at DC.
I completely agree with what you said about Cry For Justice. I was hoping you would tear Robinson a new one for what he did with Lian.
I always liked how Prometheus was a nearly impossible villain to fight, but it was stupid how no one could hold their own against him in this "story." They might as well have been wheelchair-bound.
I'm looking forward to your future Identity Crisis review since Deathstroke's fight with the League members was the same.
As horrid as this whole book was, I like to keep the mindset that if I pretend it doesn't exist, it won't.
I'm especially happy that other DC writers seem to be ignoring Cry For Justice, and salvaging the aftermath as much as they can.
And this story led to more "smart" changes and "new directions" - including Red Arrow becoming a heroin addict.
Again.
One more thing: In the Blackest Night story, Ray Palmer was an Indigo Lantern. That means his power ring runs on compassion.
I'm pretty sure torture isn't considered compassionate.
My God, I think that's the maddest I've ever seen Linkara! HE'S GONNA BLOW!!! HIT THE DECK!!!!
I can't help but agreeing with Linkara on that little girl's death. WHY did she have to die? There was no point in it!
So, wait, if Lord Vyce is here to destroy the Entity, why doesn't Linkara just let him deal with the thing, and then let him go ( or force him to go, possibly stabbing him while he's weak from the Entity fight, if Vyce is still intent on taking the universe after the Entity's destruction)?
Reguarding the rant at Lian Harper's death: that was the exact reaction I had at Decimation. I was a major New Mutants/New X-men Accademy X fan. The characters in the book were always very... human. The big appeal of that book for me was the fact that the mainstays of the book were just normal teens, but you saw the potential in them to be heroes. Once Decimation came, they killed off Brian Cruz aka tag, Laurie Collins, aka Wallflower, and Jay Guthrie aka Icarus, and depowered Sofia Mantega aka Wind Dancer, David Alleyne aka Prodigy and Dani Moonstar and Mirage. Sure it wasn't as bad of a shock death as the death of a little girl, but it was equally unnecessary, and it was so long stretched out, that it permanently altered the book's tone.
So basically, writers should stop killing characters like that; we DON'T like it!!
My goodness I can see why this could be perhaps the comic you despise the most. I can't believe they actually did all that. I've never read this little series but I did however hear that Speedy's daughter died. I was mortified.
I hadn't been that sad seeing a character die since reading what happened to Mara Jade from Star Wars.
I'm ashamed to see things like this. Large story-arcs just to destroy a character. I've been seeing a lot like that within the past few years.
I hadn't been this disgusted since House of M. What bothered me the most was Prometheus Mary Sue moment. I mean it was ridiculous. Don't get me wrong however because I do enjoy seeing groups of Heroes or Villains being taken down by one guy. A perfect example (though I believe you may disagree) was Slade when he took out the Justice League in Identity Crisis.
This Vyce Storyline is superb. Great Job. I freaking love this. I have this feeling though that he's kind of goodish and the real problem is what he's trying to protect the universe from. Don't listen to the people calling you a Mary Sue. I don't feel you are. You've been getting your butt handed left and right. Very awesome. Also if your character dies what happens? Lol I mean come on. People need to realize that.
Amazing Review.
It might have been better not to label yourself as 'champion of the universe'. In all honesty it's interesting watching you take the role of hero, but it might have been better to simply let us see you do these things and leave that designation out.
As for the comic, something occurs to me. When Captain Atom is torturing does he actually travel throughout that guy's body or does he stay on the brain? If it's the brain then I'm fairly certain that's impossible. The brain doesn't have pain receptors and so he shouldn't be feeling any pain.
He might very well be having reactions from Atom pressing on his brain (legs moving, losing vision, memory affected etc) and I'd expect serious damage but if it's just the brain I don't think it should hurt.
At first I had a sneaking suspicion that some of the administrators of the DC Company had actually INSTRUCTED Robinson to kill off Lian in order to rid Red Arrow of a perceived impediment to “young readership appeal”. However, after doing a cursory amount of research on the subject—in truth, I was only searching for the proper spelling of “Lian”—I’ve learnt that after the events in 'Cry For Justice' Red Arrow apparently went spectacularly “insane”, relapsed into habitual drug use, and joined up with a sect of supervillains.
The best that can be said for the death of Lian Harper is that it was not one of the many cases where a major change was enacted within a principal character’s life PURELY as a means to make said character more “Accessible” (that is to say: devoid of any facets that are compelling, unique, or—God forbid!—
intellectually stimulating). Hardly anything you could defend this miserable book over.
As to the fight with Lord Vyce, the only sentiment I can conjure up at this late hour is fairly unsophisticated: “That Was Fucking COOL!!!”
You know what should really scare us right now? This is still no the worst comic in Linkara's opinion.
Fear THAT!
For me the biggest sin here isn't that Lian died, but that there was no purpose to it outside of "showing there are consequences to being a superhero", which is all we're getting from DC and Marvel these days. No, the sin is that she was a perfectly good character that they tossed aside for no good reason. This ticks me off as a would-be writer. Why give up a perfectly good character with no good reason to do so?
As a "bonus", it shows just how much the current DC powers that be care little about character, those light moments that humanizes the superhero and makes a world believable. Nope, just blowing stuff up and killing people while "deconstructing" superhero comics.
Current writers, you're missing the point of Watchmen, and you're emulating the wrong parts. Please stop screwing up the genre!
So, is there any reason that Linkara didn't just teamed up with Vyce to destroy "The Entity?
I mean, he's already faced weirder crap than that and defeated it and in at least one case brainwashed one of his enemies into being his ally. That's how I see the pokeball working by the way, so to me Pokemon is about people that go around brainwashing wild creatures by capturing them in technology that could, in theory, be used for convenient storage. (In one episode of Pokemon Ash Ketchum captures a rice ball or something instead of the Mankey, so they can be used to store other things apparently.)
Also, yes Linkara is a Mary Sue character, or Marty Stu character if you prefer. Any character can be a Mary Sue if they are overpowered, the universe bends to their will, they are the only ones that can stop something or if they are just overall so cool it's impossible. Much like Vash the Stampede of Trigun if you think about it.
Here's a link to the Universal Mary-Sue Litmus Test, if you didn't already know where one was by a simple Google/Yahoo/Bing search. :P
http://www.springhole.net/quizzes/marysue.htm
And sorry about the pokemon mini rant that I did, it was barely related to anything that went on in the episode.
That... must have been your best sketch in AT4W, bravo Linkara.
This honestly has nothing to do with the review but I was wondering if you know of the horrible MMPR fanfiction that is agony in pink?
Wait, I'm confused. Was the entire plot, however non-existant it may be, of Crap for Justice, just to kill off people, or what. Well, you gotta give him credit for the title because crying for justice is what you would do after reading this monstrosity. Seriously, it feels like he just raped every single character that was in the comic, even if they were just in there for just 1 panel, he still did that. I mean, did he kill Lian because he raped her and didn't want her to talk, I feel I should call the District Attorney to get him brought up on charges. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, or mean, or funny, or anything, I'm just venting my anger at how something so monstrous can ever be created, and I'm also venting more of my anger at the fact that I own each individual issue of this piece of crap. GOD, I FEEL SO DIRTY. If I ever see him on the street, I will call 911 or have someone call 911, beat the crap out of him till he's just an inch away from death, and during my trial, my defense will be this comic, because I know I'll be found not guilty, because any sane person would beat the crap out of him after reading this, GOD. Seriously, this comic is WRATH & SLOTH combined, TWO of the seven deadly sins. If you put it on the emotional spectrum, Parallax would fear it more than anything and The Butcher's blood would consistently boil at it. Again, I'm still venting my rage at this comic.
And Lewis, I know, or at least I hope, you read these comments before posting, so I won't blame you if you feel the need to not post this on here, since I see my rage can be out there, but please know that, much like most of us, I can understand your anger at this abomination.
Otherwise, this was a great review, and I can't wait to see what's going to happen w/ Lord Vyce.
Hello again linkara,
Well once again you unleash an episode that is both exquisite to watch and feeds the mind questions for the story. I'd first want to say how sorry I am that you have to bring up things you hate so much with a passion. I almost feel bad watching it because it seems like you don't enjoy it.
Moving past the comic part I wanted to congratulate you on introducing Lord Vyce in a great way. It's funny that I get pulled into your reviews more then any others. Maybe it's because I too feel a love for comic books even though I got lost in my first comic book. I barely remember it but It was a New X-men comic and I got upset because they killed off my favorite character in one flip of the page and several years later caption. It was called the New Mutant Squad and they killed this guy Elixir. Who I liked. Don't know if the series was good or bad but That's what got me to stop. If you know of a good series to start with I'd love to take a recommendation. (Like Speedster super hero's). Do you like Surge from X men. She came off cool and bad ass in the comic I read of her. She stood out in my opinion.
Anyway I also wanted to ask I watched every episode prior to vyce, to get the full story.
When Linksano tried to flee, was he fleeing from vyce or from the unknown entity? Does Linksano know about the entity? (he is a genius)
Second I hope Poyo is ok.
Thirdly, this is the first encounter where Linkara doesn't really win. It looks like he's changed, less sure of himself in his eye's. Didn't vyce say his resolve was stronger then ever before? Or does Linkara think he can't win?
Well anyways I hope everything goes well and I'll be counting down on the V-minus clock.
PS. In the list of episodes you made for the story arch, the v-minus clock gets messed up at the end since it's in story order and not chronological.(But I'm sure everyone's figured it out by now)
Later Linkara.
Most everything I had in mind to touch on has already been mentioned and I hate to sound redundant so I'll be brief. I love Vyce. As awesome as Mechakara is, I think Vyce is by far the most interesting and terrifying antagonist we've come across so far.
Most importantly though (and the reason why I decided to comment even though everything I wanted to say has been said), Pollo's gonna be okay, right?
~
I'm going to go out on a limb and say the Entity has something to do with Spoony.
Also, nice subtle armor cues from the Green Ranger.
Anonymous, the Nostalgia Critic isn’t the champion because HE is the Entity! Mwa ha ha ha ha (skronk)…
I kid.
Now that Blackest Night is done, was Lian brought back? Also, I cannot hel but notice Batman, Superman and most of the charaters closest to them were abscent from these books. Who kept them out of Robinson’s hands?
Dear Linkara,
I like your reviews, I really do, and this one is no exception. The idea of Prometheus making the Justice League pinky swear to let him go makes me crack up even now. You host an entertaining show and I look forward to every new episode.
That said, I have some problems with your epic story arch. Quite frankly, it's not funny. In every new installment it's either you beating up some bad guy or you being beat up. That's funny once or maybe twice but right now, it's pretty boring. As far as I'm concerned, I see a grown man playing with his toys and taking it way too seriously. It's not funny, it's simply geeky. And believe me, a show hosted by a guy with a hat reviewing bad comic books is geeky enough.
Maybe, after you have finished the Vyce story arch, you'd like to go back to "Previously on AT4W"-segments. I liked those.
So, that's my point of view. Keep up the good work.
"This honestly has nothing to do with the review but I was wondering if you know of the horrible MMPR fanfiction that is agony in pink?"
Ay-yi-yi, Kimberly's been tortured to death!
TheGrumpyCelt said...
"Now that Blackest Night is done, was Lian brought back? Also, I cannot hel but notice Batman, Superman and most of the charaters closest to them were abscent from these books. Who kept them out of Robinson’s hands?"
***
1. No, she wasn't brought back.
2. Dan Didio has publicly stated time and again that he doesn't want to have the big name characters in the Justice League. Which is why Robinson now has to use a roster made of Supergirl, Dick Grayson, Donna Troy, Blue Lantern, Jessie Quick and others. I can't say that I like it.
Great review and great fight. The opening was a great way to start the episode.
One question (or rather two), how come you didn't use your magic gun? It's in the opening credits and your trademark weapon. Did it get destroyed in another episode?
Oh my god there are actually people who like this trash! I've seen a few people on Amazon and IGN's message boards claim it's "Not that bad" that the art is "Beautiful" and that the whole damn thing is "Edgy, mature and adult oriented!" Its like the frickin 90's all over again!
God lord these people are idiots! Even I could tell this stuff was crap when I read Supergirl's "We can be Justice" line. Seriously, who would think that was good writing?
Linkara, you should post a review on Amazon.com telling the idiots there that this shit doesn't deserve any praise and that "adult maturity" does not equal "Child Death for the sake of shock value!"
Or not... and just ignore the idiots. That would, probably be better. Yeah, sorry, just got angry.
why didn't you make any comment about the cover where "captain marvel" and supergirl were kissing?
Oh, boy, here we are. The last issue of these dreadful comics, the moment that we’ve all been waiting for…
And it’s just as awful as I’d feared.
Not only because of the random whitewashing of superheroes of color. Not only because of the misogyny (yes, let’s show Starfire wearing next to nothing and feature her and other superheroines in shots that oh-so-conveniently highlight their breasts). Not only because of the destruction of Black Canary’s character (yes, let’s turn her into a whimpering housewife who takes everything personally and drops everything when her man leaves).
But because of the utterly random, pointless, insulting, and cruel scene of Lian’s death.
What was the point, Mr. Robinson? Seriously, what was the *point?* Why is there this sudden desire to subject Red Arrow to unimaginable pain and agony? First you had to gratuitously mutilate him and now you’ve taken his daughter away from him? For *what?* The loss of a limb is traumatic enough. If you wanted to be “gritty” and show the dark side of being a superhero, the loss of his arm already showed that. You did *not* have to kill his daughter off to make whatever point you were trying to make. And even that is insulting. Lian isn’t his personal possession. It’s not like setting fire to his car. She’s a *person.*
This is the same garbage that happens when a hero’s love interest is killed off just to cause him angst. Only instead of Women in Refrigerators, we now have Children in Refrigerators. For shame.
P.S. On a lighter note, I did really like your rant about the comic's conclusion, Linkara. I have a feeling that if Vyce had mentioned Lian during your fight, super-powerful or not, he would have been blown away by your sheer amount of rage. ;)
It seems like James Robinson was trying to bring Prometheus up to the level that Meltzer took Deathstroke to in Identity Crisis.
Except in Identity Crisis it made perfect sense because not only was Deathstroke super powered, but Meltzer rather elegantly took out anyone who could handle him single-handedly.
L888
I did something stupid
I went to Amazon to check out the reviews, and needless to say I'm even more depressed then before ugh
You know I've noticed something people who like this are at best immature and think that movies such as Grindhouse and Saw are a reafirmation of life. The funny thing is I suspect that they've never met anybody who's been maimed or seriously hurt in anyway
which is why they think it's so cool.
And maybe it's why we've lost compassion in our world.
I don't know.
Oh and to answer your question Katherine I herd rumor that Aresenal/Red Arrow/Roy Harper was becoming more popular than Green Arrow and Robinsion hated that so of course....duh duh dun
Wow, this comic is terrible. Sure it starts out... badly organized, but then... hoo-boy.
I know that everyone needs someone, but writers need to think pluasibility! Black Canary is angry over Green Arrow leaving, so she takes it out on the league. Why?
Same problem with Prometheous! I know that reality is the goal and people will blame other people, but come on!
And a child death.
...
Good. LORD!
I. HATE. Child. Deaths. In fiction.
Children grow up and may or may not do great things and re-write the rules that were wrong in the first place. When you kill a child, be it born or not, you are saying the future can go screw itself!
Side by side, I say your stuff is better then this cheap garbage.
I'm serious. THe good fight scene between you and Vyce, the plot twist, even down to the cliff-hanger. You are a good writer!
And the "glitch" that Vyce is trying to save everyone from. Gee, I wonder who/what that sounds similar too.
I'm gonna have to come up with new adjectives of anger and disgust to describe my reaction to the little girl's death.
I'm at a loss for words, just speechless. This review shows that, when the video ripping it apart like this, is more entertaining than what it's ripping, it (aka the comic) has a one way ticket to FAIL.
So, until the cries for justice, about why this comic was allowed to exist, are answered, MAKE MINE LINKARA!
om my... i had not been in touch to comics from a while but considering this turned out i can begin to undertand the hate this comic has.
i never knew Lian and this is the first time i see her , its pretty hard for me to feel sorry for her death because i´ve never seen her before and due to the lack of knowledge its hard for me to understand this.
And even with that i know this is really bad taste using a character like for a quick shock moment is really low for anyone, forget about Frank Miller´s errors lately this Robison guy has really made Linkara more angry than i´ve seen.
More recently Marvel did the same thing with Billy Connors by having Curt Connors A.K.A The Lizzard forced to killed his own son. The difference is that at least that story was well done and the death of Billy Connors had at least some sense, where the daughter of kraven uses him to destroy any humanity left in Curt, in my opinion its was better handled than Cry for Justiced did for Lian.
Altough Fall and Rise of Arsenal is much more better than this and is one of my favourites series ever since
@cerridwyno9
If it's any consolation, it was a pretty big mistake on my part to go there too. I just figured it was so universally derided no one would like it.
I kinda forgot that there are people some rather bad things and think they're good. (And I don't mean it's so bad they think it's good, I mean they think it is honest to goodness good.)
I think it isn't so much a lack of compassion as it is they seem to think "dark and gritty is cool and hip." I mean don't get me wrong, I love gritty comics too. Watchmen is awesome, but that was just a good complex intriguing story and it didn't need to resort to gratuitous violence to tell it. It didn't need to rip someone's arm off and kill their daughter to do it. People died, but it served a higher purpose for the story, it wasn't just for a shock value sake.
Like Linkara I mostly just read comics for fun crazy awesome stuff. And most of the time I enjoy it when my heroes aren't acting like douchebags half the time as in this comic. Uncanny X-Force is a gritty comic done right in my opinion. I know it's probably not for everyone, but it does a good job keeping everyone in character and doesn't pull cheap deaths for the sake of shock value. Well, at the very least it tries to get across that the the X-Force knows what they're doing is hardly Boy Scout calibre and they're conflicted.
Point is, a hell of a lot better than CfJ.
If it's any consolation, it was a pretty big mistake on my part to go there too. I just figured it was so universally derided no one would like it.
I kinda forgot that there are people some rather bad things and think they're good. (And I don't mean it's so bad they think it's good, I mean they think it is honest to goodness good.)
I think it isn't so much a lack of compassion as it is they seem to think "dark and gritty is cool and hip." I mean don't get me wrong, I love gritty comics too. Watchmen is awesome, but that was just a good complex intriguing story and it didn't need to resort to gratuitous violence to tell it. It didn't need to rip someone's arm off and kill their daughter to do it. People died, but it served a higher purpose for the story, it wasn't just for a shock value sake.
Like Linkara I mostly just read comics for fun crazy awesome stuff. And most of the time I enjoy it when my heroes aren't acting like douchebags half the time as in this comic. Uncanny X-Force is a gritty comic done right in my opinion. I know it's probably not for everyone, but it does a good job keeping everyone in character and doesn't pull cheap deaths for the sake of shock value. Well, at the very least it tries to get across that the the X-Force knows what they're doing is hardly Boy Scout calibre and they're conflicted.
Point is, a hell of a lot better than CfJ.
Maybe your right there. I like some gritty to just not as much as I used to.
With the times we are living in I would rather see hope than death because right now I think we need hope for a better future more than anything.
"Altough Fall and Rise of Arsenal is much more better than this and is one of my favourites series ever since"
HOO, boy... *stands well back*
In terms of people defending Cry of Justice, I refer you to:
"Skarka's Law: This is an observation, originally attributed to author and publisher Gareth-Michael Skarka on RPGnet, that, on internet messageboards, there is no subject so vile or indefensible that someone won't post positively/in defense of it."
Ah. Remind me to never cross you, sir. Oh, this comic had it coming. Absolutely. And your passion on the subject is rather stirring, actually. Wow. Come to think of it, thank you.
The story half really hit the spot this week. You kept it dynamic, there was some real menace, and Vyce's story has my imagination running wild. Here's how things went between me and my fellow after the review:
"What IS it?"
"Shouldn't they work together?"
"Is Vyce another world's Linkara?"
"Oooo."
"You're dwelling on it, aren't you?"
"The Entity's Doug." XD
"Cybermen?"
"What happens in 21 days?"
"World gets eaten."
"The Entity is Son of Insano."
"Yes!"
-Oracle
Oh I remember this comic...It is the only one I have actually shred to pieces. I have One more Day, at least the one with the deal with Mephisto, some things that I don't even know what the hell they are but are just stupid And I still kept those, even if just to collect dust. But this one...This one made me yell in Frustration. They Killed Lian! I couldn't but remember all the things she had done...Like when Roy came back home and she happily told her she has seen the march of the pinguins (minus the emotional parts because of the babysitter) or when she put a waffle in the DVD among other things. She was a great character! It made no Sense and her death was pointless!
I am gonna stop now, the more I think about it, the more frustrating I am getting. Great Review. Great performance after.
I was trying so hard to forget this comic. I actually don't mind issues 1-4, but I was actively trying to deny their existence. Ugh. I still wish she was brought back to life somehow.
I also didn't like the Green Arrow going crazy. I sort of see what the writer had in mind with that, but it was so badly done it didn't even feel satisfying.
I feel the need to say this much: I'm studying law at the moment for my career. 'Justice' is a term that comes up frequently, with no firm definition. Is it for the victims? The accused? The convicted? All I have to say is, according to this comic, justice is clearly meant for no one. It's not justice, it's REVENGE. Unfortunately, this is made most clear by the fact that Prometheus was killed for the death of Liam, by Green Arrow. While Liam's death is all sort of horrible, the reason for Prometheus' death wasn't even about being just. Yeah, I cry for justice. I cry that the writer and editors of DC learn what justice actually is!
Onto Vyce...well, that was new. Sure, Linkara's gotten a few losses, but to THAT degree? Yeah. And then Vyce killing Pyramidhead? Having played SH2, I can safely say, no one kills Pyramidhead but himself. And apparently Vyce now. ...and Vyce is scared of something else.
Folks, be afraid. Be VERY afraid.
Jesus this makes the worst episodes of voyager, The Q And The Grey (the one that ruined the Q) and endgame the one that ruined the borg and gave the federation enough technolgy to take over the universe 6 times over look like masterpieces in retrospective.
and ontop of that John Barry who composed for all the James Bond films that I liked just died, damn it
FYI Bond was a legit spy in most of the films he scored: IE
From russia with love, thunderball, on her majesty's secret service and for your eyes only
well atleast Ron Jones is still alive and well... I hope
@Kavinsky: Are you talking about the comic or the episode itself?
Okay, for everyone on here mad for what happened to Lian, especially Linkara, is anyone aware that there's a protest group on facebook?
And an online petition?
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/bblh1979/petition.html
A better link than
http://www.petitiononline.com/bblh1979/petition.html
It is also on my live journal page
If you want comics to be seen as a lit medium then by all means sign this and someday they could be. But as long as they do things like this they never will be.
I remmeber when I first saw Lian I think it was in an issue of outsiders where Roy had to take his daughter to the watch tower. He dressed her up in a speed costume she looked cute.
I think Vixen (probably wrong) wanted to show her the training sims area where she could make her a princess caste or something to play in and Lian asked if they had one of the bat cave...
I like to think that she was a symbol of innocence in DC and to see some one treat her like that, like she was a plot point or a plot device just thrown in the last minute. Angers me I will never buy another story comic from this writer again, any one who can do that a character that had been created for its readers to char so much about only to do that...
I NEVER WANT TO SEE HIM WRITE ANYTHING FOR DC AGAIN I don't trust him.
P.S I also was a small fan of the guardians of the globe. ticked me off to see so many pointless deaths.
sorry for any grammar or spelling mistakes
I'll have to drop by Animal Man's place and use his pool too, since he lets just anyone use it. He's even in my town.
And now, the important lesson: never ask how it can be worse. Because there is ALWAYS a way it can be worse.
That is pretty appalling how Lian was killed off. : (
On a more positive note, I'm loving the Vyce arc even more now. I think the ending made for a great change in tone. A few vids ago, Linkara was on top, winning in increasingly cheese-tastic manners (which I honestly enjoyed the over-the-topness of), and then Lord Vyce comes along with an interesting motive and near total-immunity to his arsenal and IT. GETS. REAL. Great job, Linkara. : ) Can't wait for V-Day.
As a fan of Hal Jordan, I hate this thing.
As a avid reader of comics, I hate this thing.
Fans, if you want a T-shirt of a phrase, i have a request:
JAMES ROBINSON YOU ARE A HACK!!!!!!
PS I am for the death penalty and I am glad that Prometheus burns in hell for his crime, but this attempt to make a anti-hero Justice League that supports capital punishment on people that ARE NOT KILLERS MAKES ME PUKE!
Jack Linde, a loyal fan of Linkara
How is it that an Episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold can clearly define Justice and Vengence through a simple comparison of the two, yet a seven issue comic totally fails. "Chill of the Night" explained Justice far better than this series ever did. In fact, according to "Chill" these guys were acting completely against Justice. It's just amazing to me that a cartoon meant for children does a better job of explaning these concepts than a comic intended for a mature audience.
About the kid, I feel for you man. Killing off a character without real justification is sickening. Not to mention a little kid. That's just tasteless.
This was a massive WHAM Episode.
I don't know what's more shocking: the angry rant against Lian Harper's death (a lot scarier than the rant against One More Day) or the brutal beat-down from Lord Vyce. The back-story behind Lord Vyce: a completely unexpected twist to the multiverse conqueror archetype. This stands out as one of the Top 10 episodes of Atop the Fourth Wall.
I have nothing against James Robinson, but I think Cry for Justice is something that SHOULD have been better. It should have been a compelling crime thriller that examines how far are you willing to go for JUSTICE, but instead, it became an excuse to destroy the Green Arrow Family.
I mean, if it were the constant shouts for justice or the lack of research on the characters or the deaths of those little-known characters or even Prometheus trashing the Justice League in ridiculous ways like a God Mode Sue, I might forgive DC and James Robinson. But this? I mean, maiming Roy is bad enough. But killing Lian off like that -- Why? What was the thinking process that led to her death? Did you decide that shock death and mass destruction is more important than plot and characterization? Was there some unspoken rule that heroes should never be parents? I can only imagine that if Roy Harper were to actually see this comic, he'd track down all the people who had worked on it and beat them up in a fit of rage.
This is without a doubt one of the most hated comics ever. I don't have to remind you about how Cry for Justice has affected Roy Harper. As a result of Cry for Justice and Rise of Arsenal (BTW, I early await the inevitable beat-down on Rise of Arsenal), Roy Harper has went from noble hero to FBI's most wanted fugitive and psychopath criminal-killer. He's part of Titans Villains for Hire but it's only a matter of time before he double-crosses that team.
I wish we can bring Lian Harper back, but let's face it: supporting character who die stay dead. Even if someone could bring her back to life, which I don't think will happen, things still wouldn't be OK -- especially after all this horror, this insanity.
When you said that not everyone in comics comes back, especialy not non-powered secondary characters, a thought occured to me. Wouldn't the odds of her character being brought back increase if they decided to bring her back with powers?
I just recently re-watched this episode, and the rant about Lian's (sp?) death got me thinking.
While I'm not a comic reader myself, I can definitely empathize with your feelings on this, and I agree with your points. Killing off this particular character, a freaking young girl who had apparently had good scenes in previous stories, at all? Bad idea. Doing it in a story she wasn't otherwise involved in? Even worse. Doing it in a story that didn't appear to do much of anything to the status quo besides killing off characters? Horriffic.
Re-watching the episode, I noticed something that you didn't mention, something which, arguably, adds even more to just how bad this is. You mentioned that characters don't always come back in comics, and that non-super, supporting characters are relatively unlikely to come back. What I realized, while re-watching the episode, was that even if they wanted to bring back Lian, there's very little room to do so. They found the body. We saw it on-panel. By doing that, they pre-empted most of the possible ways the character could be brought back. She isn't really dead? They could only pull that off by having the characters who found the body be particularly idiotic. (Plus, it'd be a colossal cop-out.) It wasn't her? Again, the characters would have to be pretty idiotic to mistake a different body for her, and again, major cop-out. While I could think of a few other ways that the character could be brought back, some of which could even conceivably make for an interesting story, none of them strike me as something that would be used for a young child without powers.
Basically, by confirming the death to this degree, it starts looking like whoever was behind the decision to kill Lian not only specifically wanted her to die, but wanted her to stay that way. Considering that the character we're talking about is a little girl, that's detestable.
For what it's worth, I can relate to how you feel about CfJ ruining your old favorites.
I can't speak for everyone, but I grew up reading the Star Wars Expanded universe, esp. "Young Jedi Knights." In a nutshell, mere mention of "Legacy of the Force" sends me into a berserk state.
READ IT LOVE IT , HAPPY THE LITTLE GIRL DIE DONT GET WHATS YOUR PROBLEM SHE WASNT REAL GET OVER IT.
READ SOMETHING BETTER LIKE THE BOYS, CONAN OR TAROT THOSE ARE BETTER THAN ANY CRAP YOU O CALLED FAVORITE SHIT YOU READ.
"READ IT LOVE IT , HAPPY THE LITTLE GIRL DIE DONT GET WHATS YOUR PROBLEM SHE WASNT REAL GET OVER IT.
READ SOMETHING BETTER LIKE THE BOYS, CONAN OR TAROT THOSE ARE BETTER THAN ANY CRAP YOU O CALLED FAVORITE SHIT YOU READ."
Funny that you didn't mentioned all the plot holes and stupidity present in the book other than that, but I'm fair.
And as such, I'll certainly try to enjoy these things if you can type out something without being in all caps- oops, too late. Learn how to write, moron.
Heh, Dona Troy could have ended it sooner had she not taken an arrow the the knee
I know you will porpably not respond to me, but what are your thoughs on derecws responce?
http://hocof.blogspot.com/2011/01/re-atop-fourth-walls-cry-for-justice.html
I know that since this is an older episode, you might not see it, but I figured this was the most appropriate place to ask, considering, well, you know.
Have you ever seen the new cartoon Young Justice? It recently went through a 5-year timeskip, and we found out recently that Cheshire and Roy Harper got married. Then, Cheshire left Roy, because he was being obsessed with finding the 'original' Roy, since he is a clone. Then, Jade shows up, and says that the reason she left was to find Roy the Original, so that her husband could finally get over himself...
And be a good father to their daughter, Lian Nguyen Harper. Roy gives one of the most genuine smiles he's ever shown, and it's clear just how much he loves Lian. With the oh-so-brilliant handling of Lian here, seeing her with both her parents, who clearly adore her, is wonderful.
I had forgotten this was the comic they killed Lian off in.
It boggles my mind how that is just treated (in the comic) as just your average plot point. That poor little girl, no idea what was going on, not knowing why things were exploding.
And then her father, he can't be there to protect her. Worse than the maiming he received by far.
So much of this comic series seemed so pointless and it makes the little one's death even more so.
As for the episode story, enjoyed Vyce's entrance, had forgotten he exactly made his presence known.
I like how Lord Vyce turned off the lights to show off the prett glowy parts of the costume! he just took that small amount of time to look badass!!!
Although I resent Cry for justice for making Lian's death the punchline of a lame mini-series, I think I found a more heinous comic featuring her : Judd Winick's Outsiders #16-19, one of Winick many, many "very special" works, this one focusing on child slavery. I discovered Lian as a happy girl on Titans and Young Justice, where the most aggravating thing that happened to her was being bullied in school (by kids native of a country that her mother nuked) and having part of her hair shaved off.
In Winick's Outsiders ? She's abducted to be used as slave and ends up being branded. Human traffic exist and is evil, but after reading this comic, my anger was directed at the writer for treating this character as a prop. Plus I dont recall the following issues dealing with the trauma this kind of experience should leave on a person
@JB: I think you're mixing up your DC kids... in Young Justice, it was Traya Smith (Red Tornado's daughter) who was attacked by schoolmates, because she was Bialyan and a terror attack there had killed a classmate's parents. Lian Harper never appeared in YJ.
RE: Lian in YJ.
Okay I had thought I had just missed a bunch. I'm pretty sure she is a baby in the current storyline though and that I think she's still with her mother.
My bad for Young Justice. I really need to check this kind of stuff before I post. ^_^
Yeah, this really didn't feel justified.
Yes characters acted stupid and out of character and yes the villain is impossibly badass with a convoluted plan that makes no sense but that doesn't ruin a story.
The Dark Knight film suffers from the same problem when it comes to the Joker.
Numerous Doctor Who stories have idiot ball moments and nonsensical villains.
Even the hammy chanting is a staple trope of scifi and fantasy.
Your complaints about characters dying off screen strike me also as kind of ridiculous because not only is it a staple of Doctor and scifi/fantasy stories but you yourself use offscreen "deaths" in your storylines.
The center piece rant about Lian's death in particular seems poorly focused. It should be about how it betrays the characters (Although even then I would take issue since characters are the purview of the writer, not the audience.) but instead the rant seems to focus on the fact that a child died.
Don't get me wrong there are some lines I do not want my fiction to cross but again Doctor Who has done far worse. The Doctor destroyed an entire universe in the Virgin New Adventures and the Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood had a miniseries all about horrible things happening to children.
Honestly this isn't so much a review as it is the manly equivalent of a fan girl bawling her eyes out of the fact that Russell T Davies killed Ianto Jones.
That said this is clearly an atrocious comic and I agree whole heartedly about the poor representation of women in this comic.
It has always bothered me that Supergirl guessed right but for the wrong reason. As somebody else pointed out, at this time Freddy could say SHAZAM without calling down the lightning, however I doubt the author knew that, which is why it was the basis of Supergirl's reasoning.
If you are going to use a character, at least have your company's continuity department (does DC even have such a beast?) to bring you up to speed on their current abilities. Sewn lips would not have stopped Freddy either as he only had to think the word and will the lightning for it to come. Also, while Supergirl and Promethius might not have known, others did, as Freddy had worked with the JSA to track down Black Adam during the time when he drew his power from Isis's corpse, so Mr T(errific), at the very least, knew all about how his lightning now works.
I also don't like how they never explained, to my knowledge, how Promethius was able to duplicate Shazam's powers.
Another thing, Linkara, is that it was hinted in 52, Countdown and Trials of Shazam that the Marvels (and Black Marvels) were able to do spells using their lightning as a power source, so if that HAD been the real Shazam, he COULD have used his lightning to power a protection spell, but the full details were never revealed.
Poor Freddy. DC never gave him a break. First he loses his powers after 52, then goes through the Trials to get them back, fighting the sorceress Sabina along the way. Then Billy gets depowered by Adam and Isis, a restored, pissed of wizard goes after him for stealing his name, and finally he loses his powers to Osiris, which is even more whack as he got his powers from the Lords of Magic themselves, not from the wizard.
Now Shazam is little more than a second stringer in the new 52. At least the reboot means CfJ now never happened. A bright side maybe?
Patrick
I think this one's probably rock bottom of the review material I've seen. It's like the entire story was based around the "New Justice" idea only when it actually came time to write it the author couldn't really come up with any way in which New Justice was different than Justice Classic. Other than the torturing people, anyways. So, all that's left at the end is a ridiculous contrivance plot with a villain who's seemingly omniscient in every way except a very particular plot convenient one.
You're welcome to your outrage over butchering the supporting cast in a desperate attempt to gain pathos but my outrage is saved for the idiocy of the "each bomb specifically tuned to thwart one particular hero's bag of tricks". Guys, you have a teleporter. Trade places.
Oh, and if I ever have a band the name is going to be "Unnecessarily Complex Scheme For Revenge."
Why? No reason.
While most of the comic made me angry and frustrated, as a big Green Arrow fan the ending was quite upsetting.
I mean, I'm not saying that GA would never ever kill someone, but he wouldn't be proud of it. He'd be conflicted about it and he would know full well he was doing it for revenge and not justice, because as a Superhero he knows the difference between the two.
Yelling 'Justice' as the finale doesn't make him look heroic, or even like a fallen hero. It makes him look shallow and stupid, and it lessens Lian's death by making him seem like he acting on morals and ideals, not personal feelings.
Part 2, 8:49: "[re: old Titans comics] I can't look at the books I enjoyed and loved anymore without thinking about this, this exploitative and badly-written piece of trash"
Oh man, I feel you there. I'm a huge Star Wars fan, including the Star Wars Expanded Universe, but I can't revisit a lot of my favorite stories without Star by Star and “Legacy of the Force” in the back of my head to remind me what a shitty, undeserved send-off so many of my favorite characters canonically got. (They even got a mention in the annotated, 20th anniversary edition of “Heir to the Empire” - the suckiness, I cannot escape it.)
Despite the fact that it wiped out so many of the characters and stories that I love, I'm actually mostly pleased that the Expanded Universe has been consigned to the trashcan, as it means the bad ending they come to is erased, along with all the character assassination (pun not intended) many of them suffered beforehand. Sorry to hear the New 52 reboot hasn't resurrected Lian.
Part 2, 8:49: "[re: old Titans comics] I can't look at the books I enjoyed and loved anymore without thinking about this, this exploitative and badly-written piece of trash"
Oh man, I feel you there. I'm a huge Star Wars fan, including the Star Wars Expanded Universe, but I can't revisit a lot of my favorite stories without Star by Star and “Legacy of the Force” in the back of my head to remind me what a shitty, undeserved send-off so many of my favorite characters canonically got. (They even got a mention in the annotated, 20th anniversary edition of “Heir to the Empire” - the suckiness, I cannot escape it.)
Despite the fact that it wiped out so many of the characters and stories that I love, I'm actually mostly pleased that the Expanded Universe has been consigned to the trashcan, as it means the bad ending they come to is erased, along with all the character assassination (pun not intended) many of them suffered beforehand. Sorry to hear the New 52 reboot hasn't resurrected Lian.
Post a Comment