A general discussion thread for all things DC Comics. Topics may be split off into their own threads if necessary. That said, since there's already a thread
for the D Cn U (aka Nu52), this one would probably stick to pre-Nu52 comics to avoid redundancy.
I've always wondered if there's a justification for Wonder Woman's outfit being designed after a modern-day one-piece swimsuit/leotard instead of something that would fit her Greco-Roman mythological background (e.g. Amazons were more often than not depicted as wearing trousers
◊note ). A few attempted redesigns had her adopt Lady Legionnaire Wear for a skirt, but they never stuck. And then of course, there's her pants-wearing design during J. Michael Straczynski's run (courtesy of artist Jim Lee).
edited 27th Dec '13 7:51:31 AM by MarqFJA
I gotta say, that's fascinating.
Like, Morrison actually does like Superheroes, right?
How does someone who loves them that much become friends with someone like Ennis, who despises them?
I'd really like to hear the story, and what they talk about.
One Strip! One Strip!I think it's easy to forget that for writers like them, they understand this is all make believe.
Morrison knows Ennis prefers "realistic" comics but that's not going to affect his opinion of the man personally.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.About the Tommy scene a friend of mine offers the funny headcanon that J'onn immediately erased that memory leading Tommy to be quite mad when he arrives back on Earth.
While J'onn would normally be against tampering with minds, he'd probably make an exception as a little punishment for a gross perversion.
Plus to make sure Diana doesn't kill Tommy if she ever finds out.
Edited by slimcoder on Dec 26th 2024 at 1:07:28 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."There’s the personal level and the likelihood that authors appreciate a wider range of things than they write themselves. But also, while Morrison writes optimistic and superhero-as-examplar comics a lot of the time, they’ve also done a fair few stories with dark humour and horror elements plus characters who don’t live up to the ideals, all of which are closer to Ennis’ territory.
Morrison and Ennis being friends doesn't surprise me. Granted, I didn't anticipate it either, it's just not the kind of thing I think about.
Morrison and Ennis gelling creatively is a little surprising, but contrary to popular belief, Creative Differences doesn't always mean trying to stab your coworker in the throat. I know it's used as a euphemism for employees who want to kill each other, but sometimes there really just are differences of opinion that keep a story from being told until one party just gives up and moves on. Lou Thesz and Karl Gotch had some strong differences of opinion, literally got into a legitimate fight, but they were still friends. Didn't work together well, but kept in touch, had mad respect till the end. J RR Tolkien and CS Lewis had some strong differences of opinion, hurt each others' feelings sometimes, but they were still friends. They still bought each others' books for each others' friends and family.
Morrison and Ennis being friends, yeah, nothing to see there, really. Creative synergy between the two is only surprising to me because I've been told Grant Morrison and Alan Moore don't agree creatively at all. I'd figure one who couldn't get on the same page as Moore would be in an entirely different library than Ennis...but I'm not a big fan of any of the three(don't hate them, all done good stuff, but if I'm going to be critical of Marston, Hummel, Kirby, Perez, Priest, Gaiman, Lee and Ditko you know the limeys aren't getting any passes). Maybe it would all make more sense to me if I was. Maybe that's just one of those things you'd have to know them personally to understand? Maybe they can't even explain it? Or maybe there isn't any creative feud between Morrison and Moore and I've been told a lie? Doesn't change my opinions on their works.(Definitely a feud between Moore and Millar though, and I'm inclined to side with Moore there. Why Millar and not Miller? Who knows? Would I side with Moore over Miller? Not sure.)
Buldogue's lawyerAll things considered it's probably an indication that Ennies is most likely a pleasant enough person to work with.
By contrast I've heard Alan Moore as a person can be fairly odious and he has ruined some friendships. His relationship with Alan Davis was strained when Moore made the decision alone to refuse reprints of their Captain Britain run when Davis really needed the money. And Moore did so because he felt personally slighted when Marvel made him change the name of Marvelman to Miracleman so Marvel would publish the book.
In another case with Morrison he used to be a mentor to Mark Millar and they were quite close back in the day. But the relationship soured apparently cause of Millar and they are no longer friends anymore.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."Moore is rather dismissive of people who followed in his superhero-deconstructionist footsteps after he’d felt he’d moved on. Morrison, I’d say, hits the sour spot of being talented, prominent, and not personally that close to Moore (unlike Delano, Veitch or Gaiman). On Morrison’s side, I think it’s more anxiety-of-influence.
(Miller may have developed along similar lines to Moore, but his Daredevil predates Moore’s breakout works, so seeing him as an imitator would be outright wrong, not just ungenerous.)
Edited by Dayraven1 on Dec 26th 2024 at 4:52:19 AM
Ennis and Morrison shared similar backgrounds at working for 2000 AD after being fans of those comics.
Plus they seem to have some common political ground. None of them seem to be big fans of the British government, especially not during the Thatcher age.
You might probably throw Alan Grant in there too. For all the reverence he showed Batman he seemed to like taking shots at the rest of superheroes, especially when writing Lobo, but unlike Ennis it seemed to be 'good fun' so he was at the middle of Ennis and Morrison.
Edited by TomWithoutJerry on Dec 26th 2024 at 9:50:49 AM
Please remember that, ultimately, fictional works of entertainment are just that.With all the meanspirited jokes and tear downs Ennis does with his characters, honestly there should be more scenes of his guys being punked by superheroes.
If Ennis can have Kyle Raynor sexually assaulted by one of his offensive joke characters (actual thing that happens in Hitman) cause he hates superheroes then turnabout is fair play.
Which not saying I want Tommy to be assaulted but you get my point.
Something like a hero saying "Just because you admit to being a hired killer doesn't make it better. You are still a guy who kills for money, honesty doesn't make it honorable or noble."
Edited by slimcoder on Dec 26th 2024 at 6:03:13 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."JLU did that of sorts when the only mention of Tommy Monaghan was casually saying he'd been ran down by a train or something like that. He was just some punk of no relevance.
Edited by TomWithoutJerry on Dec 26th 2024 at 10:09:32 AM
Please remember that, ultimately, fictional works of entertainment are just that.Ennis and Morrison DEFINITELY have similar opinions on the British upper crust if nothing else. Ennis’ Hellblazer run has an arc where Constantine uncovers a conspiracy between British VIPs and demons to destroy democracy in the UK and bring back the mass murdering, serial raping good ol’ days of absolute monarchy, and while only one (fictional) member is positively identified it’s all but expressly stated to comprise several real people, including Princes Charles and Andrew.
Meanwhile The Invisibles has the Queen show up as a brainwashed thrall of the villains’ Religion of Evil, just keeping the throne warm until the “real” monarch, who in true Morrison fashion is an inter dimensional horror worshiped by said villains, shows up.
I was already kinda suspicious when Tom King described being influenced by pro wrestling for Black Canary: Best of the Best (why would you use pro wrestling as a template for what's supposed to be an actual fight?), and issue #2 is convincing me there will be another twist that (spoilers just in case it happens) Shiva and Canary are working together for some reason, and the whole thing is a worked shoot or similar between them.
My stories on AO3.
Oooh thats an interesting theory. The fact Shiva has not currently said anything and we haven't witnessed her perspective yet leaves her position in the book a myster.
And here's a look at weird Superman takes at the time. Here Ennis through Tommy espousing how Superman is the "greatest immigrant" by not having any cultural remnant of his heritage and integrating fully into the US.
Which was a popular perception at the time.
Golden Age Superman didn't even know he was an alien until he did some research about why this strange red rock kept making him collapse. Silver Age Superman, though, he was all about clinging to that Krypton baggage.
Kryptonite was originally red. And it was originally green suns that took away his powers. Weird they flipped that. Adventure Comics #397 depicts a realistic red sunrise, and the sun aliens aren't bothered by it all.
Buldogue's lawyerHave their ever been any stories from Onomatopoeia's perspective before as this month's Batman: The Brave and the Bold had one where he is dealing with his paranoia while echolalia acts up due to building work outside it's house. It's weird hearing his internal monolog and finding out he has a wife and kids.
x4
Possibly because there aren't any green stars? Not that reality ever bothered them before...
Oh, and Superman first lost his powers under a red sun in Action Comics #262 (March, 1960) though it isn't explained in the story just why he loses his powers, only that the red sun is responsible.
Edited by Robbery on Dec 27th 2024 at 2:19:04 AM
Yeah it does ready like a case of Science Marches On here.
For reference the stars can be seen white, blue, and warm colors, but green and violet ones are absent. Despite this Zubeneschamali
the brightest star of Libra, was claimed to had been green by observers. Though IMO that is more a trick of the light.
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Dec 27th 2024 at 2:48:38 AM
It was a trick of a light in the comic books too, at first. Originally the villain put a giant filter in the sky after Superman landed on the planet that made the star look green, and that caused Superman to lose his powers. It was very silly, but once your character is gaining or losing power due to colors, you've already committed to telling a silly story.
Later, the stars were turned green with magic, which kind of raises the question of why the magic man doesn't just use magic directly on Superman, but I almost got the impression the writers kind of knew green stars weren't natural and were trying to get around the fact. But red stars are still unrealistic, and silly.
It was the golden age of comic books, so there a lot of silly things, like asteroid between Earth and the moon kangaroos with extra oxygen storing space lungs could jump between as they traveled through space. There were forest with wooden trees on Venus, ether trails one could ride to any planet in the solar system, the red spot on Jupiter was a giant amoeba thing eating the world, Pluto was made of ice and plastic...but DC has retconned all of that. Pretty much all except the sun colors, except it swapped out green for red and made the red rocks green, except when it brought the red rocks back but gave them new effects.
Buldogue's lawyerThe Golden Age had more blood, dismemberment, sex appeal, romance, horror, politics, politics that both challenged norms and reflecting some unfortunate ones. It was overall less infantile than the Silver Age, with a few Silver Age exceptions that stood out all the more. But when it came to, things like geography, physics, medicine, history, the Golden Age was very silly.
Some of this is due to advancements in certain fields, but a lot of this is due to writers not caring, it's cheap entertainment to be fairly rapidly turned out, and a lot more of this is due to many of the educational advisors for the comic book companies not being nearly as qualified as they claimed to be. Now, yes, the Silver Age still had a lot of silly "science", but there appeared to me to generally be more effort put into it. We've got such gems as "ice missiles attracted to speed", but we aren't telling kids electricity can't hurt you if it isn't a direct current. The Flash is running on clouds by molecular vibration or what not, but the characters aren't surviving being buried alive because they swallowed their tongues...which just kind of makes the star colors stuff stand out that much more to me. They were slowly, steadily closing the gaps on the most easy to confirm stuff, but the star sized elephant on the solar system sized room, just ignore that one.
Edited by IndirectActiveTransport on Dec 27th 2024 at 5:19:35 AM
Buldogue's lawyerPreview for Justice League: The Atom Project #1
Since he was the discussion of a recent topic, John Ridley is back on the main DCU writing this back alongside Ryan Parrot.
The book will center on Captain Atom and the 2 Atom's (Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi), and as expected its going to be more sad superhero stuff looking at the apparent storyline Cap Atom is going to go through.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

On DC One Million, Morrison gave detailed directions to most writers and just told Ennis to take the piss.
Edited by Dayraven1 on Dec 25th 2024 at 8:16:12 AM