Superman General

I think Lobdell references it in some New 52 series or other but Lobdell is terrible and his screw ups with continuity are the least of his problems.

Mongul was connected to one of the alien Starmen (Prince Gavyn). Tried to force his sister into marriage, threatening to destroy their planet if she said no. Superman was involved in that story though, and Mongul first appeared in a Superman story, kidnapping Lois, Jimmy, and Steve Lombard in order to force Superman to bring him the keys to activate Warworld. All of his other Bronze Age appearances are also linked to Superman. It's why I find his move away from Superman's rogues Post-Crisis and in the New 52 to be so irritating. Losing to Green Lantern? Losing to the Flash? It just doesn't seem right. Again, I don't mind Mongul II as a Green Lantern villain at all, but for me, Mongul I will always be a Superman adversary.

but Mongul is now a superman villain. they seemed to have done away with mongul 2.

I haven't been keeping up with the New 52. Someone in a different thread told me more or less the opposite—that they'd essentially kept Mongul II, but acted as though he were the first character to bear the name and had always been a Green Lantern enemy. If that's not true—if Mongul I really is back, and is a Superman enemy again—I am absolutely thrilled to hear that. Be one of the few things the New 52 has done right, if you ask me. Though it would be a shame to lose Mongul II as a Green Lantern foe. Why do they do that? Do the writers honestly think we can't keep the two characters separate in our heads?

I dont know I think that it was Mongul's son Mongul who was the gl villain who sinestro killed, and the original fought superman/batman. superman sent him to the phantom zone. his other son came with war world to avenge his dad, but batman and red hood help him in battle to determine war worlds leader. he then helps save the day. but yeah i still think mongul 2 is canon because almost all gl stuff especially johns stuff is still canon

Let's hope they straighten it out soon then. I'd like to be able to figure out what's still cannon, particularly as relates to Mongul, who as you've probably gathered, is one of my favourite villains.

the easiest way to describe new 52 canon as it relates to previous continuities is that it an incomprehensible and tangled mess.

No kidding.

I only knew about his appearance in the Villains Month title, and that he had was being set up to clash with Green Lantern again. You're saying he's already tangled with Superman and Batman within their own book? And that he offed one of his kids already? One of the reasons I ask, aside from my liking of the character, is that I'm a long serving member of the Complete Monster Clean Up Thread. We recently approved a write-up for this most recent version of Mongul, but had reservations about which version of Mongul it was; we also didn't know about the whole "whacking one of his kids" thing, which should logically be there. If you've got all the information on what he's done thus far, could you possibly visit the thread here and fill us in? It sounds like there's somethings it would be good for us to know.

edited 13th May '14 7:45:47 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

So... standard procedure for DC since the 50s?

http://techgnotic.deviantart.com/journal/Secrets-of-Superman-s-Underwear-453097017?offset=0#comments

Exactly. When it comes to what's canon with DC at any given time, I don't really give a rat's arse, because they've been changing and altering their continuity since time immemorial. (Or more specifically, ever since they retconned Superman into having been active as Superboy since his teens. And then they rectonned it again when they slapped all of the Superboy stories onto the Silver Age Superman so that the Golden Age Superman was never Superboy. And then they just scrapped both GA!Superman and Superboy altogether, and so-on and so-forth.) DC couldn't give a darn about keeping things straight, and if they won't, then why should I? For me, what matters to DC isn't the universe as a whole, but specific runs by specific writers: Giffen's JLI&JLE, Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, Geoff John's JSA, (which is no longer in canon,) and many more, but in regards to Superman, a standout story would be For The Man Who Has Everything. (Which is also no longer canon.) So, while it would be nice to have a straight continuity, it doesn't really matter that much at the end of the day. (Of course, the DCAU shows that it can be done, but I don't think the comics can really salvage their timeline enough at this point to follow the DCAU's example.)

Anyone remember Batman's little speech to Superman during their final fight at the end of Dark Knight Returns? The "I want you to remember the one man who beat you" speech? What strikes me as odd, or interesting, or whatever, about it is that it clearly displays that Frank Miller (or perhaps just Batman as written by Frank Miller) doesn't really understand Superman. Superman's not an Alpha Dog who's going to hang his head if he gets beaten, or back down from someone who HAS defeated him, should the need arise. The speech just ends up making Batman look like a bit of a thuggish ass (though I did know a lot of guys in middle school who thought it made him look totally badass). His managing to defeat Superman seems to mean a whole hell of a lot more to him than it does to Superman.

edited 17th May '14 12:45:42 PM by Robbery

Frank Miller's Batman is a stupid, dumb, arrogant asshole thug who's obsessed with how much better he is than Superman to the point of Tsundere Foe Yay.

That's a bit of an overstatement. But yeah, I can vouch for this attitude being stupid... and also for me completely falling for it a few years ago, back when I used to find Miller's writing to be shiveringly compelling. Nowadays, I find it almost unbearable.

He sure likes to repeat himself.

And he loves the Terse Talker trope.

Mostly, he likes to repeat himself.

I used to find it dramatic (We march.).

The way he likes to repeat himself.

His writing was shiveringly compelling... and then he started getting Protection from Editors.

edited 17th May '14 1:05:09 PM by SaintDeltora

The first half of tdkr was pretty good.

Then the 80s bleeds in and its all Reagan and Soviets and Nukes and Superman.

Goddamn it the 80s; you fucked with Watchmen too.

Oh, come on; DKR is one thing, but Watchmen is still a masterpiece. What's wrong with it?

Not to speak for him, but I think Hyper Albion means that the topical 80's references kind of date the Watchmen a bit. They do reflect the time it was written, and they serve to place it, but storywise they don't really serve anything. You could life them out and replace them with less era-specific stuff that denotes politcal tension and so forth and the story would survive just fine. It ends up feeling like Moore's means of needling the conservative junta that was running things in the US and England at the time (he wasn't a fan of Thatcher, I know that). When in Dark Knight Returns Miller hauls out Reagan, literally draped in the American flag, it tends to strike one as so ridicuolous and cartoonish (in a bad way) that it risks pulling you out of the story.

Hell, I lived through the 80's and it's remarkable to me how much that late cold war mindset just feels so alien now ('course with the way things are shaping up now, it may make a comeback, but that's a thought for a different forum, perhaps).

I honestly feel like Watchmen is a bit overrated. To me, Justice Society: The Golden Age tells the same story, but without being so bleak and miserable.

God forbid, other people who don't think TDKR was the most brilliant comic book ever. I think the first section, with Two-Face, is decent enough, but the rest of it? The Camp Gay Joker with the transsexual Nazi boyfriend (way to not understand who the Nazis hated, Miller)? The "psychiatry is bad and we should just lock up/kill the criminals" message? The idolization of fascistic figures? And of course, Superman, the stooge of the government? Christ Almighty it's a bad book.

More than being good works, necessarily, I think they're both important works. What anyone thinks of them as stories is, of course, their own affair, I don't think anyone can look at the history of mainstream American comics and not admit that they're both important. Story-wise, however....While I found TDKR to be great the first time I read it (except for it's treatment of Superman) I found myself liking it less and less as time went on. I think Watchmen holds up better as a story, but I have to say it's something that suffers a bit from the works that came after it. It's influenced so much stuff that it doesn't feel as unique and original. It's unusual treatment of familiar super hero tropes was supposed to be part of it's appeal, but it's point of view isn't as unusual anymore. It's a bit thin if you keep defending a story's greatness with "But it was groundbreaking at the time." For a story to be REALLY great, it has to hold up when it isn't groundbreaking anymore. Watchmen does hold up, but it definately loses something in an atmosphere that it helped to create.

So, Seinfeld Is Unfunny?

And I think Watchmen remains exceptional, not because of the miserable heroes, but because of the beautiful literary devices. Especially how the dialogue in one panel blends into the action in another. The fight and the hostile interview, for instance, or everything regarding the Tales of the Black Freighter. "I had swallowed too much seawater. I had swallowed too much horror." The whole character arc of the newsstand guy was captivating... well, all of the side characters that end up dying. I especially liked how, in the comic, the psychiatrist didn't just have a Critical Psychoanalysis Failure, but became a genuinely better person for it.

THIS IS BLEAK AND RELEVANT.

I will always state that Alan Moore is a brilliant storyteller who tells medicore stories.

Like Wathcmen at its core is very shallow but Moore and Gibbons sell it so hard you dont notice.

Same with Supreme.

Whatever Happened... though is a Silver Age snuff film.

I think you may have a point there. Alan Moore writes very well and you can just feel his strong mastery of the English language (which makes his works a pain in the ass to translate, let me tell you), but what he writes is relatively lame, by and large. Grant Morrison has grand designs that always seem to peter out into a shrug (although the Myzplk arc in New52 Superman had a delightful climax, for once), but he makes some truly unforgettable moments. I can see you!

Neil Gaiman is good. I've got no complaints about Neil Gaiman, so far. Snow, Glass, Apples really demonstrates his adage: "Stories have power."