I already tried promoting my new comic series in the Artist Show Off forums so hopefully I can get my comic more out there this way. The series is basically the misadventures of the sidekicks of the Randomville superhero, the Iron Skull. The series is a mixture of superhero comics and comedy. I hope you all enjoy what there is so far in this series.
This is more of something that I am writing just because I want to write down my thoughts on DC currently. Anyone who has noticed my posts on Comic Vine know that I am a huge DC fan. I love most everything they do. However lately I have been thinking about the New 52 and what it has done to DC. Because when reading my monthly DC Comics the stories feel different. Now before you go comment and tell me it is time for me to move on, let me explain. I have given the New 52 a chance and I really did enjoy most of what I read its just that DC is kinda driving me away.
I started thinking about this when I heard of the cancellation of Nightwing. When I heard of the cancellation of the original Boy Wonder's book I was searching through the currently published titles of DC. Then I started to realize. What I love about DC is gone. No longer is there the long Teen Titans history, no longer is there the Doom Patrol (and new Doom Patrol would totally be different. After everything that has happened with Beast Boy and the changes brought upon Robotman and the Chief), and no longer is there the Justice Society with the old school costumes who were relics of the olden days. No longer were those Justice Society members even recognizable.
Along with the thoughts of the causalities of the New 52 of my personal favorites at DC, I started thinking of their events. It seems like everything has to be an event. The Justice League books contain nothing, but events and tie ins. These books don't get to become their own and have their own memorable team developments through their own individual adventures. They all have to be tied into each other. Batgirl is constantly being disrupted with having to tie in to anything Batman has been doing. The book is a great book with writing and all, but I can't stand how everything has to be tied in. I buy the books to read about Batgirl or read about a team with Martian Manhunter, Hawkman, Catwoman, and Green Arrow because that interests me. Not the constant crossovers or whatever.
The cancellation of Nightwing is taking away a DC book away from me and taking away one of my favorite characters in the DC universe. The Batman Zero Year hasn't been all that exciting mainly because I want to see Batman in the present again. A issue or two on Batman's past would be great, but a year of it? I might be buying Batman again and by might I mean probably, most likely will whenever all this Zero Year stuff is over. I will also still be buying the Flash because that has been one the title I have loved issue from issue. Only one issue has disappointed me so far and that was only because even the Flash got tied into something Batman was doing.
So basically between all the constant events and tie ins and the losing of everything I loved about DC, DC is pushing me away. I'll continue reading Nightwing until that ends and I'll continue read the Flash and Aquaman. I'll probably pick up Batman when the Zero Year is over, but for once I think I might read Marvel. There is nothing wrong with Marvel its just that I preferred to read and focus on DC. Now with DC pushing me away I have taken an interest in some of the Marvel heroes including Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, Nova, and Cyclops. I might just focusing on collecting the old DC comics of the forties, fifties, and sixties. Hell, maybe even pre-52 where DC still felt like a second home to me.
The Heroes:
I was reading the forums of Comic Vine and I crossed upon one discussing the popularity of the Marvel heroes through the decades. That got me thinking about the popularity of the DC heroes through the decades. I will be focusing on the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's, and 10's. I won't be doing one on the 30's due to DC only having 4 heroes around this time and they were each just beginning (Superman, Batman, Sandman, and Crimson Avenger). For my first blog I'm going to go through the 40's.
The 1940's are known as the Golden Age of comics. With the creation of Superman (and some credit to the darker, Batman) the supehero genre boomed and new creations at DC and it's sister company, All American, were quickly becoming huge in the comic market. We have seen of such heroes as Robin the Boy Wonder, Wonder Woman, Hawkman, Green Lantern (Alan Scott), The Flash (Jay Garrick), Atom (Al Pratt), Green Arrow, Speedy, Aquaman, Dr. Fate, The Spectre, Black Canary, Hourman, and many more. Groups such as the Justice Society and Boy Commandos were also popular. We have also seen fierce competition of other companies such as Fawcett Publications (whose characters DC would one day have the rights to) with their character Captain Marvel who was accompanied with the Marvel family consisting of Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., Uncle Marvel, and the Lieutenants. Whom would be the most popular of these DC characters though? I think I would narrow them down to this:
So reader who do you think was the most popular DC hero in the 1940's overall? Stay on the look out for a look at the 50's coming very soon.
-CrazyScarecrow
This last year as been a fun year when it comes to being into comics for me. I got back into comics with the New 52, my best friend got into comics, and I tried out several new characters and teams that I would've never read before. Before this past year I mainly just read Batman. Nothing that wasn't Batman. Sure I had a Superman or Captain Marvel or a Justice League or Teen Titans book, but I mainly and only cared about Batman. Reading all these Batman comics seeing the "Batman created by Bob Kane". Even in the lone Superman and Captain Marvel comic I thought it was a common thing to see the creator of the title character listed. So when I started reading titles like The Flash, Batgirl, and Nightwing I never really took notice of these.
It wasn't until the death of Silver Age DC artist, Carmine Infantino, that I took notice to the created by part of the credit section. Knowing that he did created such popular characters as the modern day Flash (both Barry and Wally) and the most popular incarnation of Batgirl I had taken a strange wanting to see if he was credited. Looking at my Flash comic and my Batgirl comic he was in fact not credited. Flash listed no creators while Batgirl listed Bob Kane (though the Flash comic did dedicate the story to Carmine). I also took notice that neither were Captain Marvel's creators in the Captain's back up features in Justice League or Hal Jordan's in a old GL comic I had (though to be fair Green Lantern can be used as a rotation book). Even in Nightwing they listed Marv Wolfman and George Perez as Nightwing's creators instead of Grayson's true creators Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and Jerry Robinson.
After reading a preview for the Killer Croc villain month issue about a month ago I noticed that his creators were listed. When I picked up my villain month issues from my subscriptions I wanted to see if they gave the villain's creators any credit. They didn't truly list them except when it came to Joker and Penguin.
Now here is where I am getting at. Why not give the actual creator of the star of the book credit? Now I get that Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are under a long lasting contract that they must list the actual creators or the Siegel/Shuster family will be suing DC for everything under the sun or DC will lose rights to use Wonder Woman, but why not give this to every character you publish that star in their own book?
For the past couple days I don't know why, but I became interested in Brainiac. That guy that can never keep the same appearance in the Superman comics. It all happened on about Wednesday (so actually yesterday), I was flipping through the pages of my DC Universe Encyclopedia when I went on the page with Brainiac. For some reason he stood out to me more so I started to read more about him. Then when I was done I started to look him up on the internet. Through Comic Vine pages, Wikipedia articles, and Google Image images I realized this character can never keep the same look and this character looks like he was actually a influential villain to the Man of Steel early on. I mean I know Vril Dox was a important/influential villain, but a villain like that and that appeared so often in the old Superman comics seemed interesting. For some reason to me I have always felt like early on Superman didn't have a good or important cast of foes.
So yeah basically I am now want to become a Brainiac on Brainiac and am now in bit of a regret that I didn't put his villain months issue on my Villains Month pull list.
Captain Marvel have always been one of my favorite heroes and DC characters and with the New 52 they have brought many changes to the Marvel family. They made Billy and Freddy a bit more like punks, the stories darker, and they changed Captain Marvel's name to Shazam. Which is actually fine by me. Yeah, he'll always be Captain Marvel to me, but most already call him Shazam and the character can now have the chance of gaining more popularity since Marvel Comics won't bring in legal problems. Now I have not been reading a lot of New 52 CM (waiting till he gets his own book. He deserves one!) so don't get made if they already fixed this problem, but what will Mary and CMJ be known as?
I mean Captain Marvel Jr. and Mary Marvel both have Marvel in their superhero name and both would sound rather odd with the name changed. Not to much Captain Marvel Jr. once I think about, but Mary will be a hard one. What do you think DC will do with Mary Marvel? Will she even become a hero or will New 52's Marvel family be a sausage fest? Tell me what you think? Also tell what you think about the redesigns? I actually love Captain Marvel and Black Adam's, but I ain't digging Dr. Sivana's that much. Maybe it is because he looks less cartoony (a reason I love CM) or maybe it is because he now looks like Lex Luthor. Also do you think Mr. Mind will exist in New 52 (I sure hope so) and if so when will do you think he will appear?
Thanks and have a great day!
OK so being a total Bat-freak I have been thinking of somethings they could do for the next set of Batman movies.
The first one would be Batman just beginning and he encounters victims of the Joker. In this movie he is trying to find out more about this clown and looks into him. Mob boss the Penguin here of this new guy and hunts him down. The Penguin thinks with this guy on his side he will be unstoppable as most of the crimes will look like the Joker has done them. Throughout the movie it is basically Bats being a detective. Another thing they could do is have Batman meet the cat burglar, Catwoman, and Catwoman will help him here and there throughout the movie. It ends with a fight scene between Batman and the Penguin and Joker.
The second would begin with updating us with what happened in the time between. So during this time Batman takes in Dick as Robin and the Joker have died (or so they believe). This make his secret lover psychiatrist, Harleen Quinzel, go out for revenge. Donning the costume of Harley Quinn she calls up college friend, Jonathan Crane, who have recently been working with fear. Wanting to try the new gas he has been producing he agrees and joins his old friend in vegence on the Bat. Batman and Robin defeat the duo and lock them in Arkham. A nice subplot for the movie would be about Hugo Strange threatening Batman on his knowlege of him being Bruce Wayne. I would say give Catwoman a cameo in this movie.
The third one once again begin with a update of what has happened. This time it is revealed that Dick has left to become Nightwing and Batman takes up Jason Todd. Jason dies whether it be Two-Face or the Joker (after all in the comics he appears out of nowhere everytime we think we have seen the last of him). Batman then takes up Tim. This time around there have been many crime with riddles attached. The riddles contain clues to that Jason Todd could be back alive. Batman and Tim goes and hunts down people in the Gotham underworld. Among the people he asks are the Penguin, Harley Quinn, Scarecrow, Killer Croc, and Two-Face. Two-Face having encountered this guy before tells Batman and Robin that the man leaving riddles is the Riddler. The hunt goes on for the Riddler and Tim cracks the case of where the Riddler is at. They find his base which contains and Lazarus pit with Ra's al Ghul. Ra's tells Batman of how he can bring Jason back to life with the agreement of marrying his daughter, Tailia. Not agreeing seeing that they have orchestrated criminal acts along with Riddler. Ra's tells the Riddler to get the Man-Bat serum. He then tells Batman of the serum and how they kidnapped it's creator (Kirk Langstorm) and decided to use him against Batman if the answer he wants isn't what they want. Riddler having injects Kirk with serum unleashes him and runs off after collecting his pay while Ra's stands and watches. Batman tells Tim to go after the Riddler and stop him while he takes down the Man-Bat. Of course the movie ends in victory for the Dynamic Duo. Neither Catwoman or Dick would be in this film so they could do a movie of Nightwing and Catwoman to see what they would be up too.
Tell me what you think of the Batman movies ideas I came up with.
So with the new Superman movie coming up I have been thinking that they should use this movie as a starting point for their own cinematic universe. In my opinion they should just leave the Dark Knight trilogy and the Green Lantern movie out and start a new. Anyway here are some release years I have been thinking of. Tell me what you think.
Superman (2013)
Batman (2014)
Wonder Woman (2014)
Justice League (2015)
The Flash (2016)
Green Lantern (2016)
Superman 2 (2016)
Aquaman (2017)
Batman 2 (2017)
Justice League 2 (2018)
Wonder Woman 2 (2018)
Green Arrow (2019)
Captain Marvel (2019)
Superman 3 (2020)
Flash 2 (2020)
Green Lantern 2 (2020)
Batman 3 (2021)
Wonder Woman 3 (2021)
Aquaman 2 (2021)
Martian Manhunter (2022)
Nightwing (2022)
Teen Titans (2022)
Justice League 3 (2023)
The Atom (2023)
Green Arrow 2 (2023)
Captain Marvel 2 (2024)
The Spectre (2024)
Flash 3 (2024)
Green Lantern 3 (2025)
Hawkman and Hawkgirl (2025)
Teen Titans 2 (2026)
Justice Society (2026)
Catwoman (2026)
Trinity (2027)
This is the first drawing for my channel I thought I did really good on! Please enjoy and comment whether it be on Comic Vine or YouTube and tell me what you think. And if you'd like to see these videos as soon as they are uploaded please subscribe. Thanks!- Phoenix Alvarado (aka Crazy Scarecrow)
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