Wednesday, July 20, 2011

DC can't stay consistent!

Dr. Nerddenkaiser here,  I'm sure you've missed me, but I have returned to explain a few more things to you.  I just finished a trip to the coast, per my usual luck it rained most of the time.  I don't particularly mind rain, but I had not packed gear as such that I could be out in it a great deal. Thus, it was inconviniant. However, if there was anything good that came out of it, it was that I was able to go to a wonderful wine tasting where I found an Australian Cabernet that I'm actually quite fond of.  At any rate I am home now drinking another delicious glass of wine and I'm thinking about characters in comics.

One thing that you can say about the Marvel comics company is that even if their stories are often confusing or jaw-droppingly retarded at least their characters have consistency.  They will always run by the same archetypes and the same maxims and are relatively predictable in the choices they will make almost to the point of annoyance.  DC comics however seems to have a habit of changing a character's personality at the drop of a.... writer? no its quicker than that.... Artist? no no that's not right either.....  Basically they change people's personalities every time someone even sneezes. 

Its not that hard to keep a character relatively consistent.  You look at how the character has developed and you say, "okay who is this person?  what do they strive to do? what are they good at? what are they bad at?"  you take all these questions and you solidify them into a solid character and you stick to that character.  You can make them grow, you can make them step outside their comfort zone from time to time, but all in all they stay generally the same.  The only character who should ever go outside of this guide set is Joker, because, well, he's psychotic. 

Unfortunately even though this sounds simple DC continually finds ways to get it wrong.  I guess they call "getting it wrong" "mixing it up now"  you can put a little umbrella and some cream on top of muddy water and call it khalua but when you drink it, it will still be muddy water.  The only character they can ever seem to keep continuously solid is Superman and really, how hard is that?  Superman is the biggest boyscout in the universe.  He's almost more predictable than Spider-man.  Almost.  Its sad that they can't stick to their guns on anything else.  The new Harley which I talked about in a previous post being an example.  Dick Grayson being another.

Lets talk about Dick Grayson for a second.  Here we have Bruce Wayne's first protege.  Who has more speed and athletic ability than all but the meta-human characters. who is strong, smart, keeps his head in a fight and is the 3rd best detective on team batman (Bruce and Tim being at the top) and yet somehow he getss schooled by the most infantile of characters, continually falls into the most obvious of traps and continually has to be saved by Damian and Stephanie.  Stephanie for (insert etherial faith based diety here) sakes! The girl who started the freaking gang wars and basically screws up anything she touches.  This didn't just start when he became batman either, though it was a bit more noticeable when you're getting roasted by Edward Nigma's supposed daughter.  It happened when he was Nightwing too.  he'd fall into the most basic of traps and would say something like "oh no how could I have fallen for this?" and then later he ends up decripting Ra's Al Ghul's plan's avoiding all his traps and defeating him.  ARE YOU SERIOUS??!!  How can you expect me to believe that he's gonna fall into a net or a trash compactor one minute, and defeat one of the smartest terrorists on the planet the next?  What the hell DC?  Its like no one understands what the word 'consistent' means.  Its mind boggling. He was the leader of the Titans for freaking ever for a reason he's literally batman jr. and you treat him as second fiddle to Damian Wayne who, lets face it people, is one of the
dumbest most boring and pathetic characters in comics today.

Moving away from Damian and Dick which I could easily write pages and pages about, lets consider a few other characters that are completely muddled with no real personality or one that changes at the flip of a hat.  Supergirl is an instance of this (the 2005 version).  What a useless character.  I guess the original thinking was "lets make a fanservice but with the teenager story of 'its hard being a teen and even harder when you have superpowers, oh woah is me'"  because that seems like that was the original intent the whole "do I wanna follow in superman's footsteps or do I wanna be normal. should I, shouldn't I" sort of principle  that combined with the whole body of a girl that looks like she could be on the cover of oxygen magazine for the next 30 years.  And from there her personality exploded from will I won't I to angsty kinda slutty useless whiney no sense of obligation girl with an attitude, a bull head and god knows what else, which then somehow changed to meek and mild which proceeded to "sense of responsibility" and on and on and on.  Truth be told I don't know what her current logic is since its changed so many times, her story has never made any sense at all and always seems to tie in with Superman crossovers so that you really can't figure out what is happening and somehow the only thing that anyone has taken from the whole ordeal is that supergirl should wear boyshorts instead of panties under the skirt. Which seriously, if you're worried about that, then just put her in a "super nun super girl" costume or a snow suit and shut up.  Seriously, at this point if she could expose any more midsection she'd either be stretch armstrong or naked. 

The point being, stop changing the costumes and worry more about your stories and your character personalities dimwits.  Every time you change the costume everyone hates you anyway.  So just don't touch them.  They changed powergirl's costume four times or more.  You know what it looks like now? it looks the exact same as it did when she was introduced back in the 70's.  Why?  because that first costume was the best and the cutest.



Whoop.  It looks like my glass is getting low.  Looks like I'll have to remove myself from the study or chime for the maid.  Either way I should rap this up.  I hope you all have a wonderful day.  Until next time.  Stay away from the plebian liquors.  Remember if you drink Budweiser and wine-in-a-box your children will end up making a living as carnies.  I recommend something a bit more upper crust.  I've found Schlafly to be quite good and even a simple yellow tail or gallo will make you out to not be complete trash.  You should try that.

Ciao,

Dr. Nerddenkaiser, MD.

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