Archived Discussion

This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.

Sijo: I restored the Your Mileage May Vary entry since Blackest Night is being highly criticized by many people; the article seems to give the impression that it isn't controversial. In fact, (depending on how it ends, of course) this might count as a Dethroning Moment Of Suck for DC.

MrBlonde267 Who is it being criticized by, and for what reasons? I haven't personally met anybody who doesn't like it. The comment keeps getting removed because it makes accusations of an extreme Dork Age, without explaining why. Given the nature of the series, it's not like all of these deaths are going to stick. I'm not suggesting that there aren't valid criticisms, but they should probably be explained better. They are only self-evident to people with negative opinions on the series.

spidermonkey: Yeah, the only criticism of this event that I've seen was by Alan Moore, who feels insulted that "DC is stealing his ideas". Unless at least one source which details extreme criticism about this is expounded upon and listed, the YMMV will almost definitely be removed. Because otherwise the whole thing comes off as a troper (or more) who hasn't liked anything DC since 2003. If it's just a couple of people, it doesn't count as that trope.

Sijo Are you serious? Just go to any comics-related board, you'll find at least some people pointing out how disgusted they're about the whole thing. (Unless of course, you click on the "Everything Geoff Jones or DC makes is great" threads.) To me this sounds like some Tropers don't want to allow *any* criticism on their favorite new series. In any case, this is a Wiki, so what ends up on the page will vary with time. We'll see...

Mr Blonde 267: I'm not suggesting that there aren't valid criticisms, but they should probably be explained better. They are only self-evident to people with negative opinions on the series.

Sijo: The same could be said about assigning a Crowning Moment Of Awesome to it at this point, no? (Then again, for all we know this might end in a massive true resurrection of all the lost characters. I'm not betting on it though.) In any case, I have no intention of engaging on an edit war; I'll check again after the furor on the series has died down. (By then there should be more evidence on either point.)

Emil Lang 1000: "Just go to any comics-related board, you'll find at least some people pointing out how disgusted they're about the whole thing." You are not seriously suggesting that comic-book-loving forum goers could ever universally be happy about ANYTHING, are you? Ever since Crisis On Infinite Earths, ~~maybe~~ even beforehand, there hasn't been a general consensus on what qualifies as "good" - the only thing comic book fans nearly universally agree upon is what sucked, not what was excellent. There are a fair number of people who think that, ever since the Barry Allen Flash appeared and ushered in the Silver Age, comic-book-dom has been Ruined Forever. Same with the creation of Wolverine, or with the publication of Crisis On Infinite Earths, or Dark Knight Returns, or Death Of Superman. You can take any major moment in comic book history, even well-received and generally liked moments, and you'll find enough people bitching about it, and how it's ruined everything thereafter, to fill at least a good-sized Con room. Just becuae "you'll find at least some people" on some internet forums (we can't have people be upset - not on the INTERNET!) who bitch about it, doesn't automatically qualify it for Your Mileage May Vary; in fact, under that logic, ANYTHING can qualify for that trope (some people think the American Revolution was the worst thing to happen to modern society, after all). No, Your Mileage May Vary requires that there is documented, noted, and at least moderately supported (let's say 1 out of 5 people) criticism of a subject exists, not "some people."

Sijo: Emil Lang- Talk about a pointless rant. I've *already* made my decision, if you bothered to read my previous post. And far more politely than you did, too. Keep that in mind for next time.

Be: I find it funny that everything I just entered as a Wall Banger I already entered once as Discontinuity. Funny and frankly, quite disturbing I don't remember it at all. Anyway, whoever deleted the original entry did leave their reasoning, which I'll respond to here (all answers taken verbatim from the history page):

Problem: When Sobek was revived, he was called Sobek rather than Yurrd the Unknown.

Answer: Sobek was the host for Yurrd so the body was revived not Yurrd

Counter: Yurrd, like the other Horsemen, was engineered by Dr. Sivana and co. on Oolong Island. To the best of my knowledge - and, though I say so myself, that's not half bad - Yurrd isn't a spirit or a ghost or something that could be argued to be separate from Sobek the crocodile's body. The two things are one and the same. Further, if that theory were correct, all the ring would bring back was a crocodile, rendering it pointless.

Problem: Osiris destroys both he and Sobek by speaking his power word, causing a bolt of magical lightning to strike and destroy them both, also rendering the Black Lantern rings inert.

Answer: Osiris' powers come from his body still being blessed by Adam's gods which is magic in it's purest form.

Counter: Two problems - first, it doesn't solve the problem and second, it's assigning a property to the magic of the Shazam characters that is unfounded speculation. One of the key points about the arc is that the Black Lantern Corps are unaffected by magic, and that has been reinforced on multiple occasions. In the main series, the Spectre is resurrected against his will and some of Earth's most powerful magic-users - Zatanna, the Phantom Stranger, Blue Devil - can't do a thing about it. In the Batman mini-series, it's established that while Deadman can jump in and out of Black Lanterns, it's incredibly painful for him to do so and he gets seconds in each. In the Phantom Stranger one-shot, although it admittedly blurs the lines somewhat with the Black Lanterns being unable to get into Nanda Parbat, all the Stranger can do to help Deadman defeat his Black Lantern form is enclose them both within his cloak, nothing else. In the JLA tie-in, Zatanna is forced into a magical duel with her father where she does nothing but counter his spells. Why? Because she knows she can't actually harm him. For all of that to have gone on but Osiris to be the one who can use magic against Black Lanterns dicks all over the concept of Magic A Is Magic A.

Problem: Osiris retains his humanity. Ralph Dibny, the nicest guy in the DCU, doesn't. Explain.

Answer (continuing from the answer above):...which leads to Osiris' sentience being existence because he's so blessed by the gods and his soul exisiting in his body whereas Ralph was a ghost detective with Sue.

Counter: As above, that makes assumptions that are completely unfounded. Obviously, this situation hasn't come up before so there can't be any canon for the point that "Those blessed by the Gods retain sentience", but if anything, the events of the Wonder Woman mini-series stand against it. Wonder Woman was created, at least post-crisis, by the Olympian deities - a damn sight more impressive than simply being human and then being blessed by gods - but she couldn't throw off the influence of the black ring. She fought against it internally, which may well be the case for everybody, but her body was still attacking people, and it took the Star Sapphire ring to snap her out of it. Osiris, as I mentioned, vomited all over the idea that the rings control the bodies if not the minds because he controlled the lot of it. The black ring was there, almost like a little voice in his head, but Osiris chose not to attack the innocents around him. All of the above three things make it a colossal Wall Banger, in my eyes, and thusly discontinuity as well.

Problem: I used the phrase "this troper"

Answer: "this troper"

Counter: Well, what the fuck did you want me to say? Don't be so stupid.

biznizz: Ugh... you again. Let me explain this in better detail.

Problem 1: Yuurd. I don't know if you read Fifty Two or not, but the Four Horsemen of Apokolypse were "previously standing entities, limited only by their lack of a physical body." So yes, Sivanna may have created a body for Yuurd to inhabit, and Sobek was always Yuurd playing around. But a Black Ring cannot reanimate Yuurd since, depending on whether or not that "52 Aftermath" event was correct, Yuurd is either no longer bound to a body or is sealed in some scientist's body. Yuurd is indeed a spirit, an entity which cannot incarnate into a physical body under it's own power. Now, the host body for Yuurd, Sobek, still exists and is able to be revived as a Black Lantern. The evil Apokolyptian entity is gone, but it's host, a genetically modified crocodile, still remains. So, Sobek, not Yuurd.

Problem 2: Osiris' Powers and Magic In General. This is where things get iffy, I'll admit. From what I can gather, magic by and large is not very effective against the Black Lanterns. However, magic can work under certain conditions (i.e. Nanda Parbat, Zatanna actually being able to fight her father, albeit to a standstill, with magic, and Black Lantern!Zatara actually using magic). Spectre's host, Cris Allen, is resurrected against it's will, not the Spectre entity itself. If magic was useless, then Deadman would have been totally helpless. So magic isn't useless. Considering that a Marvel's powers come directly from the Gods, and thus is pure magical energy. To use a metaphor: with a high enough electric current, even an insulator can fail. So even a highly magic resistant thing like a Black Lantern Ring can be overcome with enough magic.

Problem 3: Humanity as a Black Lantern. First things first: IF DEADMAN TURNS INTO A BLACK LANTERN, THEN WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU EXPECT THE DIBNYS TO BE ANY DIFFERENT? Now that's out of the way, the explanation is that instead of Amon being resurrected, it was Osiris since Black Adam fixed the body so it would enter the Egyptian afterlife as nobility. Considering that Osiris was only active for a short period of time, we can guess that he would have eventually become a regular Black Lantern thrall like Diana was slowly becoming. When Osiris used his Marvel powers, he changed back, so the Black Ring's host, Osiris disappeared and was replaced by Amon Tomez. The high magical energy would have taken care of Sobek's ring as well, as well as I can guess.

Problem 4: "This troper". That was just you complaining. You were using Discontinuity (seriously hate that trope) to talk about what bugged you. If you have a problem, you take it to It Just Bugs Me!. So DO NOT fucking call me stupid, just because you don't get something.

Be: See, this is why I should not debate comics, I just plain don't have a deep enough grasp of canon. Apologies for the misunderstandings.

biznizz: Look, I'm sorry. If you had asked someone to help understand on here or create a It Just Bugs Me! page for here, I wouldn't have minded. You pressed my Berserk Button by calling me stupid. I usually don't act like such a douche.

Archived Discussion Comicbook / BlackestNight