aquaman!!!!

Deathstroke the Pirate! AWESOME!

Wow, this is a lot of books… Some look cool. I really like the Deadman/Flying Graysons one, and Aquaman has never looked more awesome.

Those Deadman and the Flying Grayson covers are seriously the coolest covers to ever have been created!

Sooo, Mike, you don’t like DC comics? Cause I’m getting that vibe.

Meant to say “respond directly to most articles on Newsarama.”

Some of those images are very enticing. I always enjoy a good alt-timeline story.

I also agree that the removal of the direct response forums at the end of all articles is very annoying and I have started reading other websites more frequently than newsarama as a result. I loathe facebook and do not want to have to use their facebook page to discuss topics. Bring back your discussion pages newsarama!

@GeorgeC
It is a little cynical to assume you know everything about these stories even without a single issue published. I don’t really see how they are recycling ideas that are 25 years old. I’m not saying Johns and Morrison are the best writers in the world (the less said about either of their Crisis series the better), but I would argue that they are certainly original. I don’t recall any other stories featuring such a diverse cast of characters from all over the DCU with old and new characters brought to the forefront like never before. It’s cool if you aren’t a fan of what they are doing with the characters they are writing, but I assure you that there are plenty of people who do.

Also, I’m not sure what you meant by the state of Batman’s comics since 1986 (and boy am I tired of people calling DKR the definitive Batman story), but Year One, The Killing Joke, and Long Halloween all came out after that year. If you are pining so badly for those pre-crisis stories, I would expect you to love what Morrison is doing on the title right now.

Aquaman looks pissed…

I agree with GeorgeC about the current state of DC creativity except that I am still enjoying some of the Batman stuff, especially Detective. What I really don’t like about Flashpoint isn’t so much the story itself. I’m sure it will be a decent enough read. But I fear what the long lasting implications of it will be. This story will probably be yet another excuse to change their continuity again. That’s what’s driving me crazy these days. They put all this effort into bringing back dead characters and undoing character development and inconvenient plot points instead of coming up with new concepts or even just moving the same old stories forward. Xombi is freaking awesome, but I’m sure it will be canceled because everyone is too busy buying this mountain of books all summer.

And I certainly agree that losing the comment part of Newsarama has pretty much neutered the website completely. The comments are always more interesting than the actual articles in my opinion.

Don’t like DC?

No way! I’ve been reading Batman comics for thirty years.

GeorgeC. said it for me. Thanks, George.

@ChrisB. : EVERYTHING in the Batman books right now — with the exception of that obnoxious, sit-commy-w/-an-edge Damian Wayne — is cribbed directly from Batman comics in The 50s and 60s. Comics, by the way, which were considered too asinine to influence even the campy TV show. The sci-fi-silly superheroics that editor Julius Schwartz decided were so out-of-whack with the core concept, he re-booted them out of existence. The stuff that every editor and writer of Batman since The 70s has ignored like plague infection. Yes, I said 70s — Batman has been a “Dark Knightish” detective since BEFORE Frank Miller came along.

That’s forty years of work, done, to make the character more of a (relatively speaking) believable human being. All of it flushed so we can have a resurrected sidekick-turned-goon, Dick Grayson in Daddy’s clothes, and “It’s a Small Bat-World After All.”

I hear you before you even say, “But the Bat books are all popular now,” suggesting they’re more popular than those popular books from those forty years. Thing is, you can’t prove it by a decreasing readership. Maybe, just maybe, that decline isn’t all due to video games.

Tell me which you think would fly as a blockbuster movie? Christopher Nolan’s THE DARK KNIGHT? Tim Burton’s BATMAN? Or Grant Morrison’s ZEBRA-MAN VS. THE TEN-EYED MAN IN THE VALLEY OF THE CLONED SONS OF BATMAN? Yeah. Exactly.

Superman? Wonder Woman? I’ll refer you to Newsarama’s coverage of Wondercon’s “Icons” panel. You know, the one were there’s no mention of any icon? Hmmmm.

I’m way-off topic. I don’t have anything against “Flashpoint,” as it will more than likely just be a bunch of alterna-takes that have no effect on anything beyond the Flash titles and Geoff Johns’ follow-up event. None of which I’ll read. Some of which might be great fun for people who like ‘em.

Elseworlds are a lot of fun.

Just as long as nobody tries to sell me on the idea that the true, continuity-approved, one-and-only Bruce Wayne’s suddenly a time-traveling demi-god who shoots laser ray-guns at aliens. That’s just bu’sh’.

One last thing RE: Grant Morrison, since I’ve already pretty much dug a hole in the ground for that topic and buried it.

If you don’t think I’m being fair in my assessment, track Morrison down yourself. Ask him. He’ll tell you. Everything’s he’s doing is ripped right out of trade paperbacked collections of Batman comics from The 50s and 60s.

Calling him “original” is an insult to the word “original.” Only in so-far as his Batman stuff goes. His truly original ideas, stuff like The Invisibles, Sea-Guy, We-3, etc., are all exceptional. His whackiness works for superheroes like Superman and Animal Man. Put him on Booster Gold. He’s so interested in time-travel and past stories, he’d kill on that book, probably.

My argument is: It’s not Batman. Not, “it’s not my Batman.” It’s just not Batman. Hasn’t been since they saved him from cancellation in 1970.

http://preedom.wordpress.com

Oh wait, I’ve been reminded why maybe getting rid of the comments on Newsarama may not be such a bad thing. Everything always turns into an argument about Grant Morrison’s Batman. This is a Flashpoint discussion so we should really all try to stick to bashing Geoff Johns on this thread.

The rumor that John Constantine is going back to the regular DC universe has me more worried than anything else about Flashpoint. Hellblazer has been one of the most consistently great comics for over twenty years. Are they really going to make him stop cussing and start spending all his time with a bunch of spandex wearing wanker twits? Bad enough that it’s happening to poor Swamp Thing. And here’s a fun continuity fact. At the end of the first Swamp Thing Vertigo run, Alec Holland was reincarnated as a baby. That means that at some point that baby had to die in order for Alec Holland to be around in any form at this point. I wonder how they’ll work that into the story.