shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jul 2, 2014 15:53:52 GMT -5
I agree with you about our need for heroes, but I think even more than heroes from outer space, we need to accept that humans can be heroic. I had the same problem with the CG version of Beowulf that came out some years ago that you are having with Superman. While obviously it's important to accept that no one is perfect, we also need role models to show us that humanity isn't all bad. We can be amazing and wonderful. Jesus himself is a perfect example of where the story went wrong. Instead of emphasizing his Godliness, we should be emphasizing his HUMANNESS. People like Jesus and the Buddha show us what HUMANS can do. It's not about being perfect but rather about trying our best and showing that at our best, we can be AWESOME! While examples of human depravity abound, so do examples of human excellence. If you go looking for real life examples of heroes, you can find them. Yes, those people will have flaws, too, but those flaws don't need to be exaggerated. Instead we need to focus on our good qualities and encourage those qualities in others, reflecting the best of humanity in the stories we tell each other, instead of the worst. Welcome to the forum, keiralynn (who, by the way, is actually my spouse)! This is an excellent point, and one with which I agree. However, I'm not sure everyone believes in the potential of the ordinary human to become incredible, and thus we build religions around the divine and not the saintly. While I don't want to belabor the Jesus example too much (don't want to alienate anyone or poke any bears out there), Christianity is very ambivalent on the half-human aspect and emphasizes only the divine. It's easier to accept that we ordinary people could never stand for the things Jesus stood for and teach the lessons he taught, and so the otherwordliness and the miracles are emphasized. In so many ways, Superman's alien origin and his fantastic super powers are very much the same dressings intended to to serve the same purpose. |
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Post by DE Sinclair on Jul 2, 2014 16:15:27 GMT -5
I agree with you about our need for heroes, but I think even more than heroes from outer space, we need to accept that humans can be heroic. I had the same problem with the CG version of Beowulf that came out some years ago that you are having with Superman. While obviously it's important to accept that no one is perfect, we also need role models to show us that humanity isn't all bad. We can be amazing and wonderful. Jesus himself is a perfect example of where the story went wrong. Instead of emphasizing his Godliness, we should be emphasizing his HUMANNESS. People like Jesus and the Buddha show us what HUMANS can do. It's not about being perfect but rather about trying our best and showing that at our best, we can be AWESOME! While examples of human depravity abound, so do examples of human excellence. If you go looking for real life examples of heroes, you can find them. Yes, those people will have flaws, too, but those flaws don't need to be exaggerated. Instead we need to focus on our good qualities and encourage those qualities in others, reflecting the best of humanity in the stories we tell each other, instead of the worst. Welcome to the forum, keiralynn (who, by the way, is actually my spouse)! This is an excellent point, and one with which I agree. However, I'm not sure everyone believes in the potential of the ordinary human to become incredible, and thus we build religions around the divine and not the saintly. While I don't want to belabor the Jesus example too much (don't want to alienate anyone or poke any bears out there), Christianity is very ambivalent on the half-human aspect and emphasizes only the divine. It's easier to accept that we ordinary people could never stand for the things Jesus stood for and teach the lessons he taught, and so the otherwordliness and the miracles are emphasized. In so many ways, Superman's alien origin and his fantastic super powers are very much the same dressings intended to to serve the same purpose. Without getting too sidetracked into theology, like most things, it depends on which interpretation you're hearing from. Some do focus exclusively on the showy aspects (miracles, walking on water, etc) but in the Bible itself there is a definite focus on the man as well. He became fully human and fully divine at the same time, and faced the same temptations that ordinary men faced. The difference is that he was able to overcome them and keep God's law perfectly where we couldn't. And for the vast majority of the New Testament, He's portrayed as a teacher wandering around talking to people. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jul 2, 2014 18:40:27 GMT -5
Essentially, I think what all three of us are saying is that we need heroes, the best kind of heroes are those who came from the same human situation we did but achieved a kind of perfection, and yet people have a hard time believing in those kinds of heroes, so the incredible alien archetype often proves more effective, both in theology and in comic books.
Either way, a Superman you could have a beer with really isn't doing anyone any good.
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Post by dupersuper on Jul 2, 2014 19:36:33 GMT -5
Ah, I love that cover. This was the first issue of ACW I ever read, and it was the cover that grabbed my eye. I was back issue hunting, looking to fill in my Superman books having gotten addicted to weekly comics by the triangle era just officially starting at the time. My father saw me reading it and said it looked like a rip off as Supes was on the cover but he just had the 2 page story. Ironically, as the oldest ACW issue I own, it's now the only ACW I own missing the cover. Reminds me of this cover:  I see nothing... |
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Post by dupersuper on Jul 2, 2014 19:37:58 GMT -5
Yes. Superman #1 implied this, as well, but the Superman timeline currently in play still only has Superman having been around for less than five years at this point, while Batman's timeline still has him around for ten. It's bad alignment between offices. But didn't Man of Steel 5 say he'd been around 5 years? And that'd be a couple years ago in-story at this point... |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jul 2, 2014 19:42:16 GMT -5
But didn't Man of Steel 5 say he'd been around 5 years? And that'd be a couple years ago in-story at this point... Man of Steel #5 contained one reference that completely contradicts all other continuity information provided in these reviews thus far. In it, Lois comments that she's been waiting 5 years to be kissed by Superman. However, Superman having already been around for five years is contradicted in numerous places. Here's the timeline I painstakingly assembled from all these continuity references, which I continue to update. You'll note it mentions the Man of Steel #5 contradiction at the bottom: classiccomics.boards.net/post/11284/thread |
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Post by dupersuper on Jul 2, 2014 21:08:55 GMT -5
But didn't Man of Steel 5 say he'd been around 5 years? And that'd be a couple years ago in-story at this point... Man of Steel #5 contained one reference that completely contradicts all other continuity information provided in these reviews thus far. In it, Lois comments that she's been waiting 5 years to be kissed by Superman. However, Superman having already been around for five years is contradicted in numerous places. Here's the timeline I painstakingly assembled from all these continuity references, which I continue to update. You'll note it mentions the Man of Steel #5 contradiction at the bottom: classiccomics.boards.net/post/11284/threadI think to make the post-Crisis timeline work you have to condense Clarks 7 years roaming to 4 or 5...at least that's my head-canon. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jul 2, 2014 21:57:57 GMT -5
True, but the seven years roaming was stated more than once, and far more definitively than Lois' off-the-cuff remark in MoS #5.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2014 22:15:45 GMT -5
I agree with you about our need for heroes, but I think even more than heroes from outer space, we need to accept that humans can be heroic. I had the same problem with the CG version of Beowulf that came out some years ago that you are having with Superman. While obviously it's important to accept that no one is perfect, we also need role models to show us that humanity isn't all bad. We can be amazing and wonderful. Jesus himself is a perfect example of where the story went wrong. Instead of emphasizing his Godliness, we should be emphasizing his HUMANNESS. People like Jesus and the Buddha show us what HUMANS can do. It's not about being perfect but rather about trying our best and showing that at our best, we can be AWESOME! While examples of human depravity abound, so do examples of human excellence. If you go looking for real life examples of heroes, you can find them. Yes, those people will have flaws, too, but those flaws don't need to be exaggerated. Instead we need to focus on our good qualities and encourage those qualities in others, reflecting the best of humanity in the stories we tell each other, instead of the worst. Welcome to the forum, keiralynn (who, by the way, is actually my spouse)! This is an excellent point, and one with which I agree. However, I'm not sure everyone believes in the potential of the ordinary human to become incredible, and thus we build religions around the divine and not the saintly. While I don't want to belabor the Jesus example too much (don't want to alienate anyone or poke any bears out there), Christianity is very ambivalent on the half-human aspect and emphasizes only the divine. It's easier to accept that we ordinary people could never stand for the things Jesus stood for and teach the lessons he taught, and so the otherwordliness and the miracles are emphasized. In so many ways, Superman's alien origin and his fantastic super powers are very much the same dressings intended to to serve the same purpose. We do this in the way we teach history too, American history is presented as the story of "great men and their deeds" instead of the story of ordinary people who rise up to accomplish great things. It teaches kids they cannot make a difference unless they are already a "great man" and "I could never do that" feelings instead of inspiring them with a story of what an ordinary person can accomplish if they put their mind to it and persevere. It always bugged me and I always framed the narrative differently when I taught American history, but I was competing against the indoctrinated narrative of textbooks and and other veteran teachers. It's ingrained in our culture that only greatness can achieve greatness when that is such a fallacy, but the idea that ordinary folk can rise up and accomplish greatness is a threat to the status quo (and we can't have that in our education system) despite it being the very thing that founded the nation. -M |
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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 2, 2014 22:18:49 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum, keiralynn (who, by the way, is actually my spouse)! This is an excellent point, and one with which I agree. However, I'm not sure everyone believes in the potential of the ordinary human to become incredible, and thus we build religions around the divine and not the saintly. While I don't want to belabor the Jesus example too much (don't want to alienate anyone or poke any bears out there), Christianity is very ambivalent on the half-human aspect and emphasizes only the divine. It's easier to accept that we ordinary people could never stand for the things Jesus stood for and teach the lessons he taught, and so the otherwordliness and the miracles are emphasized. In so many ways, Superman's alien origin and his fantastic super powers are very much the same dressings intended to to serve the same purpose. We do this in the way we teach history too, American history is presented as the story of "great men and their deeds" instead of the story of ordinary people who rise up to accomplish great things. It teaches kids they cannot make a difference unless they are already a "great man" and "I could never do that" feelings instead of inspiring them with a story of what an ordinary person can accomplish if they put their mind to it and persevere. It always bugged me and I always framed the narrative differently when I taught American history, but I was competing against the indoctrinated narrative of textbooks and and other veteran teachers. It's ingrained in our culture that only greatness can achieve greatness when that is such a fallacy, but the idea that ordinary folk can rise up and accomplish greatness is a threat to the status quo (and we can't have that in our education system) despite it being the very thing that founded the nation. -M That's why I love Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States. Great book! I didn't cry when Zinn died, but almost. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jul 3, 2014 0:37:18 GMT -5
Can I just say I'm loving this discussion?
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jul 3, 2014 1:35:17 GMT -5
Action Comics Weekly #624  The letter column for this week shows that Black Canary is the first feature ever to fall below Superman at the #6 spot for two weeks in a row. And yet, Black Canary returns with this issue. Oh joy. Green Lantern has clearly lost its way, probably due to the complete change of direction thrust upon James Owsley (Christopher Priest) only one issue after beginning his run. Now Hal is caught up in an intergalactic war we care nothing about while his mentor ("Priest," if that isn't an interesting moniker considering our author) teaches predictable platitudes about true power coming from within. I am very bored. Shazam! continues to impress me with Billy Batson's characterization as an intelligent, capable, and unsure of himself teenager, even if the plot, in which he infiltrates a white supremacist training camp, isn't particularly compelling. Secret Six finally takes the time to develop one of its characters. All these chapters in, I can name exactly one member of the team from memory (LaDonna) and tell you the back story and abilities of two of them (LaDonna and the blind guy). The rest have been totally forgettable up to this point, where Pasko has chosen to spend time getting to know Tony Mantegna, the deaf one now with super hearing. We're given a pretty in-depth and well characterized origin story, with Pasko revealing at the end (with tremendous taste) that Tony is gay and mourning his dead lover. This was a pretty bold move for a mainstream comic in 1988 -- far more impressive to me than the silly stunts the Blackhawk feature has done to thwart the comics code just for the shock value. Does this sell me on the series as a whole? No, but it gives me hope. Now we're starting to get real characters, and that counts for a lot. Deadman's plot isn't really advancing at this point, and the once impressive art has really dropped out, but once in a while, Deadman manages to provide a truly fun installment, and this was one. Deadman and his companion attempting to raid a ghost ball made for an amusing and appropriately mysterious break in a story that otherwise wasn't capturing my interest. Black Canary One chapter in, it's more of the same. Impressive art, but a story that's frustratingly egotistic and inaccessible, expecting you to ponder over unclear moments and commit them to memory so that they can be referenced in later chapters, even if these unclear moments are entirely uninteresting and confusing for seemingly no reason. Writer Sharon Wright expects us to labor over her work like it's Shakespeare, but there's little there in the story to entice us, and we know from the previous story arc that the pay-off isn't likely to be worth it either. And then there was Superman... "Pin the Tail..." writer: Roger Stern pencils: Curt Swan inks: Murphy Anderson letters: Bill Oakley colors: Tom Ziuko editor: Mike Carlin grade: C- After doing so much to finally advance the plot last chapter, I suppose I can forgive a chapter that simply moves our characters along to the next plot point. Indeed, this chapter is just Clark and Bob getting through an airport while evading a man tailing them, and then getting aboard a plane. Still, I find it frustrating when Stern squanders panels on completely unnecessary moments when there's a plot to get back to. Did we truly need one of these ten panels (one tenth of this chapter) devoted to Clark telling Bob "Come on, Bob. Let's go?" while Bob forgets where and needs to be reminded? So this was a nothing chapter, but hopefully the next will do more for us. |
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Post by foxley on Jul 3, 2014 2:29:34 GMT -5
That's a damn sweet cover, though. That's Alan Davis art, right? As a fan of both Dinah and Davis, I'd love to have that as a print.
And the Secret Six revelation was a pretty bold move, even though it sailed under the radar at the time. I remember when Marvel was making waves by announcing that Northstar was gay, and thinking that DC had already done this.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jul 3, 2014 2:48:09 GMT -5
That's a damn sweet cover, though. That's Alan Davis art, right? Yup. Yes, and the Northstar revelation was far more forced and lacking in tastefulness as well. I think the difference is the timing. The Northstar revelation came about when there was already a momentum building for this kind of representation. In 1988, that momentum wasn't there yet. Plus, the comics news outlets were less sensationalist as well. I'm pretty sure Wizard Magazine instigated the hype surrounding the Northstar revelation. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 3, 2014 9:55:30 GMT -5
Yeah, love that Black Canary cover. I don't have this issue, but if I had seen that cover, I would have bought it.
I wasn't buying that many comics, so I was only going to the newsstand once or twice a month. I was buying ACW very sporadically at this point.
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