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Post by Brother Nero....Wolfe on Dec 14, 2014 14:38:48 GMT -5
Note: Not saying this is how comics should be, just kind of ranting about my personal preferences here.
I really like comic books and I'll pick up the occasional storyline when it's done, but I really don't like the whole "everything is set in the same universe and goes on forever" thing. I enjoy being able to keep track of the entire universe I'm reading about, but to do that with comics that would require such a huge time investment I just can't do it. Kind of feels a bit overwhelming to me. Another thing I don't like is that the length of the continuity means that so many things get done and undone that it's hard to feel the impact of anything in the series. Like a character dies, "Wonder how long he'll be dead for." Some villain has a major success, "Yeah, this won't last."
I was just playing the Arkham games and thinking about how much I like the ending to Arkham City, because I know they are unlikely to undo that in the next couple games. I'm also a huge fan of the old DCAU because it was fairly easy to follow and had some great continuity. I just wish that maybe there was something like "Continuity X. In this continuity, only like 5 series at the most exist at once and no more." I know that's not something that can really happen money wise, but man. Comic book worldbuilding/characters just get so bloated to me that it feels kind of intimidating to dive in sometimes, like "Yeah, this would take way more time than I have to get into."
I don't know, maybe I'm just rambling here, but anybody else feel like me about this?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 14, 2014 14:42:50 GMT -5
This is why I don't read DC or Marvel anymore.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 14, 2014 14:57:30 GMT -5
Yup. Image and Boom have great self contained titles that are much more entertaining to me that 99% of what Marvel/DC put out.
They also exist in worlds where deaths actually mean something. Since Image's titles are creator owned they don't have to worry about corporate synergy it whatever. They just tell thier stories and once its done, its actually done
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Post by Kevin Hamilton on Dec 14, 2014 15:10:21 GMT -5
Gotta go with creator owned, Vertigo, Dark Horse, etc.
Or you can pretty much just decide what 'counts' for you. Once you decide to just ignore whatever stories you want to, superhero books become much less frustrating.
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Post by Brother Nero....Wolfe on Dec 14, 2014 15:13:50 GMT -5
I actually haven't ventured into stuff outside of Marvel or DC much, but that sounds exactly like what I'd like to read! Any recommendations for that? I'm not huge into dark & gritty, but I don't exactly mind it either.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 14, 2014 15:27:02 GMT -5
I actually haven't ventured into stuff outside of Marvel or DC much, but that sounds exactly like what I'd like to read! Any recommendations for that? I'm not huge into dark & gritty, but I don't exactly mind it either. Depends on your style. The cool thing about Image is they pretty much have every genre covered. SciFi. Horror. Crime. Superhero. Fantasy. They pretty much have it all. My top comics right now are..... Rat Queens - fantasy comic with more updated language and attitude. I'm not a fantasy guy in general, but this one hooked me. Its funny, action packed with a few serious moments. Nailbiter - if you like shows/movies like Hannibal, then yes to this one. Its about a town that has created more serial killers than most by a wide margin. Very cool stuff. The Fuse - a crime/procedural set on a huge space station. With an older female detective as the lead. The world build REALLY fast and get to the actual story fairly quickly. Ghosted - heist/crime genre with the supernatural as the backdrop. The first arc is about a team trying to "steal a ghost." Alex and Ada - SciFi/romance/drama type book about a guy who basically jailbreaks the AI on his android. Its not smutty or anything, actually pretty emotional and touching. Atomic Robo - the epitome of fun, adventure, sci fi comic books. (Not Image) Rasputin - a new book from the team that brought you "Proof" another great comic that's been complete. Its a historical supernatural thriller and is drawn by one of my favorite artists. Morning Glories - like LOST set in a high school, except MORE mysterious. There are tons of other great creator owned books out there though. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 14, 2014 15:30:22 GMT -5
Been my big complaint about Walking Dead. I've read the first, I don't know, 130 issues or so, and not once was there a good spot where I could say "OK, I've completed a fully story, now I can move onto something else and come back to it." I get that you want to hook the reader so they'll come back for more but there's no reason you can't do that while also completing a story arc. I feel like the end of All Out War was a good stopping point. I took a break between that and New Beginning without feeling too hooked in. But yeah, they've been pretty bad about closing out storylines with some resolution. |
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dav
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Post by dav on Dec 14, 2014 15:38:21 GMT -5
Gotta go with creator owned, Vertigo, Dark Horse, etc. Or you can pretty much just decide what 'counts' for you. Once you decide to just ignore whatever stories you want to, superhero books become much less frustrating. The second one is basically what I do. Just basically stick with Batman stuff in the 90's and ignore most else. |
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Post by Kevin Hamilton on Dec 14, 2014 15:39:01 GMT -5
Fables, The Goon, Invincible are all tops of my list. That last one especially if you like superheroes anyway is a great one to begin with.
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Post by Kevin Hamilton on Dec 14, 2014 15:39:57 GMT -5
Gotta go with creator owned, Vertigo, Dark Horse, etc. Or you can pretty much just decide what 'counts' for you. Once you decide to just ignore whatever stories you want to, superhero books become much less frustrating. The second one is basically what I do. Just basically stick with Batman stuff in the 90's and ignore most else. Along those lines, I was able to pick up the entire set of No Man's Land trades on eBay for fairly cheap recently. Self-contained like that, it was really fun to read. |
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Post by Kevin Hamilton on Dec 14, 2014 15:40:53 GMT -5
I also HIGHLY recommend Y:The Last Man. An interesting premise, great characters, and self-contained finite story.
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Post by Brother Nero....Wolfe on Dec 14, 2014 15:42:09 GMT -5
I actually haven't ventured into stuff outside of Marvel or DC much, but that sounds exactly like what I'd like to read! Any recommendations for that? I'm not huge into dark & gritty, but I don't exactly mind it either. Depends on your style. The cool thing about Image is they pretty much have every genre covered. SciFi. Horror. Crime. Superhero. Fantasy. They pretty much have it all. My top comics right now are..... Rat Queens - fantasy comic with more updated language and attitude. I'm not a fantasy guy in general, but this one hooked me. Its funny, action packed with a few serious moments. Nailbiter - if you like shows/movies like Hannibal, then yes to this one. Its about a town that has created more serial killers than most by a wide margin. Very cool stuff. The Fuse - a crime/procedural set on a huge space station. With an older female detective as the lead. The world build REALLY fast and get to the actual story fairly quickly. Ghosted - heist/crime genre with the supernatural as the backdrop. The first arc is about a team trying to "steal a ghost." Alex and Ada - SciFi/romance/drama type book about a guy who basically jailbreaks the AI on his android. Its not smutty or anything, actually pretty emotional and touching. Atomic Robo - the epitome of fun, adventure, sci fi comic books. (Not Image) Rasputin - a new book from the team that brought you "Proof" another great comic that's been complete. Its a historical supernatural thriller and is drawn by one of my favorite artists. Morning Glories - like LOST set in a high school, except MORE mysterious. There are tons of other great creator owned books out there though. Thanks, those sound great and I'll totally check them out. Ghosted in special sounds like it's right up my alley, so I'll be looking into that as soon as I can. Honestly didn't know there were so many good creator-owned stories out there, for some reason I kind of assumed Marvel/DC were the only game in town. Thanks everyone for letting me know otherwise! |
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Post by Brother Nero....Wolfe on Dec 14, 2014 15:43:45 GMT -5
I also HIGHLY recommend Y:The Last Man. An interesting premise, great characters, and self-contained finite story. That's the best description you could've given me, will totally look into that. |
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Post by Red Impact on Dec 14, 2014 16:19:08 GMT -5
I like the elseworld's stories for that reason. They're able to tell a complete story witout fear of how they'll effect the universe at large.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Dec 14, 2014 16:35:17 GMT -5
I personally like the overall shared universe concept.
but there are Marvel/DC one shots and elseworld stuff that (normally) contain fully contained stories if you want some of the more recognizable characters.
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JDviant
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Post by JDviant on Dec 14, 2014 16:49:12 GMT -5
I found that the giant shared universe isn't the problem for me, its the way its implemented. Going back several decades to when I like super-hero comics the most, you would read a comic like Amazing Spider-Man and Mr. Hyde was the villain. And to explain why he was there you'd see a tiny text box that said *see Captain America 246 for the details!*. Then if you want, you can choose to be as immersed or not in the overall world of the comic. This is also the time before the yearly events, or at least they were handled differently.
There was a time Secret Wars happened in two panels of whatever book you were reading, and if you chose to follow that story you could get the mini-series, but it didn't dominate your favourite book with six months of tie-ins. Atlantis Attacks was told almost exclusively in just the annuals of various titles, with only three regular books having a tie-in, and one of those was an anthology title to begin with.
It wasn't always this way even then, but its how I prefer my titles. An expanded mythology that you don't need to rad if you want, but its there for you if you do. Every year there justn seemed to be more issues tying into events though, and its part of what has largely pushed me away from mainstream super-hero books. The other part though, is the opposite of the problem you have had.
The length of the Marvel Universe continuity has created moments where knowing the actual history has put me at odds with the storytelling and made me dislike the directions they would go, because as a fan who was interested in how everything pieced together I could go to my collection and see how this new idea didn't fit. I always bring up Brubaker's Captain America because in an interview the logic for bringing Bucky back was that since his body was never seen he could have been alive. But right away I remembered Avengers Annual 16 where dead characters came back to fight the Avengers, and Bucky was there. He was also in Sensational She-Hulk 53, with the also dead at the time Norman Osborn.
Just my thoughts.
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