Re: Justice League of America #8: How Can You Read This (Spoilers)

On Apr 23, 7:37 pm, Tim Turnip <timtur...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Come on, Denny. You're essentially saying that a character's fighting
skill should be directly proportional to their popularity with
readers. That is nonsense.

Actrually, I'm saying the opposite - BECAUSE he's so popular, they
need to believably justify this IN-STORY so it makes sense that he's
so feared and respected and will never be killed. He's one of the ONLY
major character in the DCU who has NEVER BEEN KILLED! Flash, GL, GA,
WW, Superman, Atom - they've all died. I'm not saying he's the best
fighter on paper, but he should be the best survivalist or something.
Regardless of the fact that Shiva or Batgirl are better trained than
he, he should be able to beat them using his wits and weapons and
environment and so forth.

Think about it - editorially, Shiva or Cassandra could be killed for
whatever minor shock value they might provide EASILY. But they'd never
do that with Bruce Wayne. Why? Because Bruce is so much better than
them? Not according to certain writers and posters here. According to
them, Shiva and Cassandra could kill Batman with their nose hair in
half a second. So why don't they? Why haven't they? That's the problem
I have - some douche creates a character out of nowhere and just
labels them the best and then writes a scene where they kick Batman's
ass to prove that their new character is really as bad as they said
they are. Great. But NOW WHAT? Now that you've created a villain or
anti-hero who can kill Batman easily and maybe has reason to, you have
to constantly come up with stupid ass reasons why they DON'T. It
annoys me. I think it's cheap and lazy writing, that's all.


Batman should be the best all-around general purpose fighter in the
DCU. But he has plenty other compensatory skills sufficient to
justify his slot as one of DC's iconic big guns. He does not need to
come across as totally unkillable, as to me that actually takes
something away from his humanity.

I agree and I think they need to play this up more. It's one thing if
someone captures him and ties him up so he can escape. But if some
ruthless hired killer gets the best of him it's over. So they should
never let that happen, and the reason is because he's too friggin
wily. He cheats. He's scary. His will is infiinitely deep. but
Deathstroke should never be able to beat him and then for some stupid
reason not kill him. I'm just asking that writers don't write
themselves into a corner that they have to ump the shark to get out
of.

And in a fair fight with all other
factors being equal, there should be a (very small) handful of pure
martial artists, such as Shiva and Karate Kid, whose focus allows them
to stand a decent chance of beating the stuffing out of Bruce. To put
it a different away...

Green Arrow is pretty popular, but
does anyone think he's all of a sudden going to be considered better
than Batman?

At aiming and shooting a projectile at something -- HELL, yes (even if
Batman has almost peerless hand-eye-coordination).

I meant at hand-to-hand combat. Sorry for the confusion. But, hey, is
Connor Hawke better than Ollie at archery? is Roy? Is Shiva? Did some
writer invent a character who all of a sudden is better than somebody
else because they said so? That's what bugs me. It's like Doomsday.
Oh, all of a sudden there's this friggin crazy powerful dude who no
one had heard of before and he's just as strong as Superman. Of
course. At least let the character build up or something, especially
if they're going to be taking on the biggest names in comics.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Justice League of America #8: How Can You Read This (Spoilers)
    ... Regardless of the fact that Shiva or Batgirl are better trained than ... I have - some douche creates a character out of nowhere and just ... anti-hero who can kill Batman easily and maybe has reason to, ...
    (rec.arts.comics.dc.universe)
  • Re: Justice League of America #8: How Can You Read This (Spoilers)
    ... Flash and Green Lantern don't defeat every one in two pages ... character who already has no chance of being killed? ... little too hung up on this "Batman must be the best" concept. ... Not to mention he's got other skills people like Shiva lack. ...
    (rec.arts.comics.dc.universe)
  • Re: Jason Todd vs Joker
    ... "cares" about is one large reason why I prefer Todd. ... Batman is, more than any other character, ... Jason Todd was far more interesting in death, ...
    (rec.arts.comics.dc.universe)
  • Re: Blackest Night: MEGO
    ... anybody not a huge GLC fan, let alone a casual reader. ... There's Superman and Batman, and another character DC ... she has a better "in story" reason to accept her as such than ...
    (rec.arts.comics.dc.universe)
  • Re: Batgirl: RIP
    ... that, as far as I know, the character hasn't been seen since. ... reason, the official daughter of Batman, who always was said to be the ...
    (rec.arts.comics.dc.universe)
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