posted
It really is, from BoP to Wonder Woman, the level of discourse over there has dropped to an all time low. At least with people wanting the return of Hal in the GL books there was some real passion, fire, HEAT if you will.
Now, its more like a few people on each board decide they don't like something, and because they don't like one aspect (such as Babs in a wheelchair in BoP) it suddenly means the writer is no good.
And thats just one board. Doom Patrol, etal have suffered the same thing.
I still go there, still try to talk and have a bit of fun, but the ratio of effort to fun is so low its becoming a chore rather than a fun place to visit and talk.
I love legionworld. The last couple of months just hanging out, shooting the shit, having fun with the gang was great. But occasionally, I want to talk about the other books of DC in a place that has more activity than Gymll's.
Its depressing.
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
future king
Excuse me but can you please direct me to the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles?
posted
I never ever signed up as a member there. Not sure why just never felt the urge to. Becoming a member of this site really was key for me because it's always been my favourite comic and seems to bring out the little kid in me.
Making these awesome friendships along the way on here is really just icing on the cake for me.
From: ontario | Registered: Feb 2007
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As for going to the DC message boards, I don't do it for the same reason I don't eat glass or hit myself in the head with a hammer!
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I don't go over their much anymore if at all, and when I did I mostly just posted in the Legion forum.
-------------------- I tried to rip their soul out.I tried to make them forget Superman. But they won't.
From: Kentucky | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
I haven't posted at the DCMBs regularly since 2003, when a lot of us jumped ship to join Legion World (and a couple of sites in between).
LW provides my Legion fix. It's a more positive and intelligent approach to all things Legion (and many other things, really).
DCMB posters are complaining about Babs Gordon being in a wheelchair?! She's only been in that wheelchair for 23 years or so. Rick's description reminds me of how little some people know about comics or comics history. Unfortunately, those people can spread their ignorance far and wide via the Internet.
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I recall the DC boards as one of the first Message Boards I used to hang out at. There was a recurring thing that kept happening there... Someone would start a "controvesial" thread, it would suddenly explode from 1 page to 10 or 20... and 24 hours later, the moderator would WIPE the thread.
The other recurring thing was, every so often, they'd RE-FORMAT the entire site. And it seemed to me, each time they would, at least HALF of the intelligent posters would vanish, never to be seen again. And this happened multiple times. So with each change, the level of intelligence would KEEP-- GOING-- DOWN, DOWN, DOWN!!!
It kinda reminds me of my neighborhood over the decades. Each time it hits a new low, and I'd figure, how could it possibly get any worse than this? --IT WOULD.
I joined here, I think, when this was first set up (or shortly after) and I recall a strong sense of almost paranoia of keeping certain people from the DC boards in finding out about this place. Quite understandable.
I miss the old CAPTAIN COMICS site. I found that some years back, and for awhile, it was a fun (and generally well-behaved) place. Then some time back, they lost their host, had to re-locate, in the process the entire format of the site changed completely... and it lost its charm. I quit the place within about a month, only time I've done that when there wasn't anyone causing trouble.
The MASTERWORKS board sort of filled in for that for a while. Lots of intelligent posters and threads there... but only in the "Blammo" section (movies, music, etc. etc.). NOT the comics sections. The comics sections there are lorded over by some of the most HATEFUL, ARROGANT, DISRUPTIVE "fans" I've ever run across... and the 2 moderators ENCOURAGE and contribute to the problem.
2 months ago I stopped posting there. The other day, I was inspired to post something... and one of the other members "quoted" my post-- and CHANGED WHAT I SAID IN THE QUOTE. (How rude can you get?) Today, suddenly, I can't sign in! I mean-- WTF???
Registered: Aug 2003
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Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
quote:Originally posted by He Who LSHes: DCMB posters are complaining about Babs Gordon being in a wheelchair?! She's only been in that wheelchair for 23 years or so.
I get the feeling that the gist of the argument is that it seems off somehow that a woman *surrounded* by people who could cure her (magically, using Amazonian purple ray healing, Atlantean tech, Waynetech, etc., etc.) is still in the chair.
I get where they are coming from, and I even posted to such a thread that the problem isn't that all of Barbara's superhero friends are soul-crushingly horrible people for not helping her, or that she's incredibly thick for not asking them to do so, but that it's a problem with a shared continuity universe.
Babs works really well in her little Gotham-esque grim-and-gritty actions-have-consequences section of the DCU, with Batman, Nightwing, etc. and where the coolest super-power among her circle of friends is Black Canary's ability to scream real loud.
Put her in the same universe with people who can create exoskeletal armors capable of going toe-to-toe with Doomsday, Amazons able to raise the dead, Zatanna and her 'If I can say it backwards, I can do it' powers, etc., and the 'setting logic' that keeps her in the wheelchair kind of starts to wobble precipitiously.
Even without magic or 'purple healing rays' or ridiculous First World or Durlan or future tech, Cyborg, Steel *or* Mr. Terrific could probably have her walking (exoskeletally or bionically) in a couple of days, if they *wanted to.*
Just as crossovers with different sets of characters have caused all sorts of problems for the Legion (see, Superboy, Pocket Universe), putting Batman and Oracle, etc. in a shared continuity where people can click a button and teleport to the Justice League Satellite and back (why, exactly, are you swinging on a rope, Bruce, or letting Bane break you back, when you can *teleport at will?*), tends to demolish suspension of disbelief in their grittier and more grounded 'street-level' section of the DCU.
Crisis, IMO, did it totally backwards.
Instead of crunching all the worlds together, I think they would have strengthened the DCU by putting the Bat-folk and the Super-folk and the Marvel-folk and the Green Lantern-folk in different universes, and brought them together for crossovers through dimensional travel, the way they used to do JLA/JSA teamups.
Batman can fight someone like Bane, and never once would it be an issue that he could teleport away, or, with *a word* have one of four Flashes, five Green Lanterns or a dozen Kryptonians show up from across the planet and help him in less time it takes for Bane to say, 'Aw, crap.' Gotham can get ravaged by earthquake and plague, and it would never be a question why he doesn't care enough about the people of Gotham to lift a finger to call someone who could either stop it, or fix it.
But, instead, we got the shared continuity, where nobody shows up to help Batman (or Oracle) because it would mess up the story, nevermind that it makes every superhero who failed to help look like a colossal jerk, willing to let thousands die rather than lift a finger to help, and Bats himself look like he's either too proud, or too stupid, to use his JLA communicator and call for backup to save lives.
I prefer to think of Oracle as living in her own continuity, with the Bat-folk and some street-level characters like the Birds of Prey, where it's just not possible for Dr. Fate to pop over and transmigrate her soul into a healthier body cloned by Cadmus technology, or any of the *hundeds* of possible ways she could be put back on her feet.
Instead of Babs, and a bewildering number of her so-called friends, being either staggeringly dumb, or utterly heartless, I'd rather just pretend that she lives in a grittier less four-color, more 'actions have consequences' world where it isn't that easy to cure her, and that it's perfectly logical that she's still in the chair.
It makes stories like the Killing Joke, or Bane breaking the Bat, more potent if it's not something that could have been easily avoided (or fixed in a couple of pages by having a woman in a half-tux and fishnets say, 'niaga klaW'). The writers obviously agree, since they don't have these things fixed, but since the Birds of Prey/Batman *are* in a universe where these things can be dismissed as easily as making a phone call to someone they already talk to on a weekly basis, just makes it harder to take these situations seriously.
I mean, really, how 'powerful' a story is it that Babs is in a wheelchair, when the rules of the setting make it abundantly clear that she doesn't have to be? She's not a cripple by circumstances, she's a cripple by choice, and that makes any dramatic impact of her being a cripple pretty much meaningless.
The reader can blame the Joker for putting her in that chair, but as long as she's talking on a daily basis with people who could cure her if she bothered to ask them, it becomes sloppy writing (that just makes her, and all of her so-called friends, look bad) that's kept her in that chair.
Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
All good points, Set. Thanks for the clarification.
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
The "shared universe" idea has always generated these kinds of problems of characters who make no sense once you mix them in with other characters. Cf. Martian Manhunter of the early 60s, who was trapped on Earth with no way to get back to his native Mars, despite being on a super-team that was regularly engaging in interstellar travel.
Or the original JSA, where writers had to somehow make plots that would convincingly challenge a nigh omnipotent character like the Spectre while not overwhelming the guy who is really tough for a short guy.
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
yeah. these are all good examples of why I favor limited continuity rather than tightly-knit universes. Stan Lee's gimmick has long been out of control, IMHO.
Batman, as another example, could have so much access to alien tech that his own inventions would pale in comparison. Moreover, his villains could level Gotham getting their hands on some. To read the Bat-books (even when they're readable) and even partially suspend disbelief to enjoy them, it seems to me you have to (consciously or not) accept a certain disconnect from a grand, unified 'universe.'
Similarly, I'm vaguely recalling a 1980s story where the Outsiders were the only ones who could save the day from some menace from space; one would have to assume that the thousands of other super-powered people on Earth were all somehow unavailable. Lots of comics stories don't work if you give them too much thought.
But back to the DC boards, I've dabbled in them here and there, but they never had the draw, the community I feel here (except for the LSH forum, ironically enough).
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada | Registered: Dec 2003
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cleome46
or you can do the confusion 'til your head falls off
posted
I tried to create a new I.D. over there last year, at the suggestion of somebody over here. It didn't work, and I promptly forgot about the place.
-------------------- Hey, Kids! My "Cranky and Kitschy" collage art is now viewable on flickr. Drop by and tell me that I sent you.
From: Vanity, OR | Registered: Dec 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Power Boy: they used to pick on me.
I saw we go back and pick on them then...picking on my friends...the nerve.
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
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cleome46
or you can do the confusion 'til your head falls off
posted
Yeah, really. What did Power Boy do, anyway?
Getting back to the original post: I will say it's incorrect that fans "suddenly" decided that they didn't like Barbara Gordon in a wheelchair. The women over at WFA have been complaining about her being shot and crippled for years. Which I totally get, actually. I never liked that development in the first place. It was just as gratuitous as the death of Supergirl in Crisis.
-------------------- Hey, Kids! My "Cranky and Kitschy" collage art is now viewable on flickr. Drop by and tell me that I sent you.
From: Vanity, OR | Registered: Dec 2008
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Hyperpath: Email this page to someone!
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