Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Visionaries of Tomorrow Keith Giffen musings

And, honestly, I believe escapism and character growth are NOT mutually exclusive concepts.

I've always felt the death of the Empress was the best, or at the very least ONE of the best villain deaths I'd ever read in comics.

No comment.

I agree, and I also think she was made *much* more interesting in that storyline than she had been portrayed earlier on. Actually, come to think of it, this storyline does kind of foreshadow the more complex and nuanced motivations for villains that were typical of the 5YL Legion (though Levitz had kind of already done that with Universo).

I know the death of Emerald Empress was a wonderful story.
But she must back to life like Dracula in the Hammer films, with the power of the eye of Ekron.
The sustitute Cera Kesh don't work for me....
And The Empress of the Archie Legion ...Sucks!
Maybe Sarya can rise again from the ashes, she looks beautiful in the Brave And Bold crossover.

After almost three years of me posting on Legion World, you STILL haven't figured out that I'm a walking contradiction?

Moving on...

I do like growth, BUT ONLY within certain boundaries. And that's entirely to do with the personal issues I've been struggling with all my life.

I like female villains a lot. I often like them better than heroes of either gender. Female villains allow me to live out my darkest fantasies vicariously.

So I don't like it when female villains are humiliated, disfigured, killed, etc.

I hated it when the Emerald Empress had to face the consequences of her actions and was reduced to grovelling.

I hated it when Jim Starlin and Ron Marz had Nebula burned alive, zombified, and later turned into a bald-headed cyborg.

Getting away for a moment from comics, I hated that Alias ended with Irina Derevko getting killed instead of her surviving to resurface in the inevitable Alias reunion movie coming somewhere around the year 2016.

And getting away from villains, let's discuss heroines.

I hated Saturn Girl changing from pink-bikinied-hussy-with-Farrah-hair to conservative-wife-and-mother. It's a very realistic change, and that's why I hate it; I'd rather slit my wrists than let that happen to me.

I hated the Sean/Shvaughn fiasco. I've already argued at length in another thread about how I think TMK (but mostly K, more of that later) handled a sensitive subject insensitively, so here's the other reason I hate it: because one of the symptoms of my the mental illness I suffer from is that I get @%#@$%ing FREAKED OUT whenever someone (in fiction AND in real life) turns out to be the opposite of what they seem. Strong, self-confident, ass-kicking girl turns out to be weak, foolish, needy, sexually confused boy -- DO THE MATH!

Which brings us full circle back to Keith Giffen. I find his characters weirdly sexless, both as an artist and a writer. While the Sean/Schvaughn idea came from the Bierbaums, the barbaric and ignorant insensitivity of its execution stinks of Giffen. Obviously he's got issues of his own and they've taken a heavy toll on him (he's only in his 50s but he looks like he's over 100) but I don't sympathize -- which is also part of my mental illness, a tendency to dehumanize people I don't like. And I don't like Keith Giffen. Don't like his art, don't like his writing, don't like his nihilism, don't like his cynicism, don't like his sarcasm, don't like the influence he's had on superhero comics.

So you all keep on loving Giffen and his work, and I'll keep on hating him and his work.

you'll hate him more after reading this...I H8 KEITH GRIFFEN!

http://www.comicmix.com/news/2008/0...inal-weeks-of-countdown-to-final-crisis/

It's Pathetic!
I don't have words.....

Unfortunately, it looks like Giffen will have another shot at Val in his Wildstorm crossover. And KK is not the only Legionnaire he's expressed hatred or contempt for in the past.

DC should give Shooter (KK's creator) a shot a one of Giffen's characters -- but I doubt he'd be willing to stoop so low.

The only part that didn't work for me was the art. After the clean lines of Lightle, whoever did that next arc made all of the female characters, including Sarya, look like puffy-faced slightly-overweight square-headed men in drag.

Had that storyline been penciled differently, I would rank it right up there with the very best.

I thought it was a fitting point for Sarya to reach, where she was *tired* of being the villain of the day and chose to leave that life behind.

Which is exactly what I think about guys like Millar & Bendis. Sadly Marvel lets them do whatever they want and it ends in disaster.

I liked The Magic Wars (art and story), I liked the death of EE (art and story), I liked the sensor girl redesign and I loved V4.

I think Giffen is one of the most underrated comics creator, but I agree that he needs an editor, in order to allow him to focus. I liked Reign of The Zodiac, but the first issue was confusing like hell.

That arc was drawn by Keith Giffen.