Personally I'm a sucker for redemption stories, so I really like the concept of villains trying to (or being forced to) reform. Plus the newest one has Man-Thing as the teams transportation, which is great.
That's fair enough. I'm going to give all the comics you mentioned a shot when I have the time.
That's a good point, the only thing I can really say to that is that the difference between Norman's Dark Reign and if it had been Luthor instead, is that Norman is not a power player. Throughout DR Norman is constantly overcompensating in order to show everyone, Dr. Doom, Loki, Iron Man, Spider-Man, etc. that he is a major threat, whereas Lex Luthor would not need to do that, everyone knows not to **** with Lex Luthor. Unlike Norman, no villains would snicker at him and very few would try to **** him over (seriously Luthor would have fed Zodiac his own ass), all the heroes wouldn't be going "Luthor's gonna slip up soon because he sucks.", they would be all "HOLY HELL, WE ARE SO DEAD!". And I just can't see Luthor being manipulated by Loki.
........I think I just went wildly off topic there.
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I agree, I don't think Luthor and Osborne are the same, and I don't think they'd run a cabal the same way. What I mean is that the
way it was written has almost no intrinsic character elements. It is a sure bet that if they had been at DC with this idea, the Loki character (say, Joker) would've totally manipulated Luthor, and Ra's, Savage and the rest would all backstab him. I've seen it before. They're stock characters written in a stock way. Now, they can be written as unique, but it's generally rare, and this whole Cabal nonsense has nothing unique to it. As I say, the whole "Void" thing could
easily be Parallax without any change except names.
Thinking about it, if I were going to do a Marvel "Secret Society" thing, Green Goblin wouldn't be in charge. He's too small-time, and why would he want to? All Green Goblin cares about is Spider-Man. You
can have Osborne be a bigger bad, but then he's just Lex Luthor, so you lose originality. The difference between Lex and Osborne is that Osborne is
insane and
tragic. Lex, on the other hand, is completely amoral and meticulous. Osborne would round up five guys to hunt Spidey without a second thought, while Lex would consider just how to mess up the Justice League with a ten-year plan. Instead, this Cabal wouldn't work in the Marvel universe. Doom would refuse to work with anyone and he would take control of any Cabal. Doom's sheer arrogance would never let him serve under or alongside Loki, the White Queen, and Osborne. This guy says, "To hell with you" to the DEVIL. No one would ever trust Loki, nor would they respect the loner bastard son who created the Avengers. He's a God of Fools, an idiot who's more trouble than he's worth. The White Queen is completely unreliable, switching her allegiances on a daily basis. The same is true for Namor. Kang, Ultron, Red Skull, Baron Zemo... if you look at the Marvel universe, these villains all lead their own teams of loyal henchmen who can routinely 'almost' win, while each of these 'team leaders' is completely incapable of working with each other.
In the DC universe, where it's more of a solo villain with useless henchmen, and the only real teams are the Titans and the League, and you've got villains like Luthor, Vandal Savage, and Ra's Al Ghul, these villains with huge global resources who are routinely trumped by a single hero, they'd band together because they're
practical. Osborne is not a practical man, nor is Doom. This is kinda what I mean; there seems no real effort to consider whether or not these characters would actually form a Cabal at all, let alone have one that could easily be replicated in the DCU.
That's kinda what I mean.
For Hercules: The first arc was a Planet Hulk tie in, and can actually be skipped without too much problem. After that it's relatively smooth sailing.
It gets a lot better IMO.
I'll try both Hercules and probably the Goon again, but the truth is: there are more comics out there than I can ever possibly read.
Bass.... Dude... You're missing out. I read my fair share of indie comics too, and I'm a snob when it comes to superhero comics, but something rubs me the wrong way about how you single-handedly denounce characters as uninteresting. My general rule of thumb is to use writer's who's indie stuff I liked as a barometer as to whether I give their superhero stuff a spin. Superhero comics, of course, have stock parameters, as every genre does, but just the same as every genre, it all comes down to how creative teams subvert and interpret these tropes in interesting ways.
Iron Man is interesting because Fraction makes it a story of corporate politics and sabotage filtered through a superhero lens.
Secret Six is interesting because it has clever writing, clever characters, and a general dismissal of the "heroism" of men in capes stories. It's Thunderbolts without the redemption.
Atlas is unashamed pulpy goodness set in the modern day.
and Wolverine: Weapon X... Well... It's Jason Aaron. And despite being a Wolverine book, it does a pretty great job of jumping through different genres with each story.
Me too. I like John Hickman's FANTASTIC FOUR, so I'm going to try SHIELD and SECRET WARRIORS. I used to like Bendis and Millar, but there it is. Morrison and Ellis are hit and miss for me, so I check it out. I'll try anything by Alan Moore.
The difference is; I've not read anything by Fraction or Aaron that I've liked. Now, I'm behind on the Max PUNISHER, but... I read Fraction's Iron Man (twice) and I really thought it was poor, and I read IRON FIST and it was so boring I returned it. I dislike Gail Simone's writing. I give them a fair chance, I do. I read stuff by the up and comers and always do, I did with Millar, Bendis, Geoff Johns, Greg Pak... currently, the only one who I'm really enjoying is Hickman's FANTASTIC FOUR, so I'm going to try to find more of his stuff.
I try not to be a snob at all: I love Millar's SUPERMAN ADVENTURES and his initial run on THE ULTIMATES. And I'll grab stuff at random and if it's good, it's good. I'll pick up anything. But if I do, and it's not good, I'm not going to keep giving it a 'chance' because it happens to be about a character that used to be good, or because it's the best turd sandwich in the bunch.
I'm not an intellectual slouch. Hell, I'm kind of a literary snob. But there's nothing wrong with superhero comics, as long as they're told well. You don't have to eat cake every meal but, dude.... Dessert is awesome.
I try hard not to sound like a literary or intellectual snob, because while it may sound that way, it's not true. The two comics I've loved the most in the recent years? THE BELLYBUTTONS and GREEN MANOR, and neither one is close to being considered "literary" or "intellectual". In fact, literary, intellectual titles turn me off. What I care about is quality; I read THE ULTIMATES. If I'm going to read an Avengers comic, if it isn't that good, I'm going to drop it. Why should I keep giving it a chance, when THE ULTIMATES worked out of the gate? If someone's doing an elseworlds tale, I'm going to compare it to KINGDOM COME or EARTH X and if it doesn't hold up, I'm dropping it. FANTASTIC FOUR is as entertaining as TOM STRONG for me, which I adore, so I'm loving it. But there's so many different comics out there, and I've read so many good superhero stories, I'm not going to sit there and read substandard ones just to get something new. I don't care. I recently bought IRON MAN: ENTER THE MANDARIN. I was told it was good, hard great art by Eric Canete (which does) and it's written by Joe Casey, who I've enjoyed. It was boring as hell.
I try these guys out all the time, and I love superheroes so damn much, but the vast majority of them are just plain bad, and the ones people claim are good are often just mediocre. At least, that's how I feel. :/
As for me, I only read comics written in France during the 1950s by bearded women.
You sir, are an inspiration.
You are so, so wrong.
So wrong.
Any Daredevil story could easily be a Batman story. All you have to do is change Bullseye for Joker and Bane or Ra's for Kingpin. And then you realise Joker is cooler than Bullseye and Bane and Ra's are cooler than Kingpin. Catwoman is better than Typhoid Mary and Talia is better than Elektra. Scarecrow is better than Mr Fear. Penguin is better than Owl. Killer Croc is more interesting than Gladiator. And Daredevil doesn't even have Riddler, nor Mad Hatter, nor Two-Face.
And that if you were to try it the other way, turn a Batman story into a Daredevil story, you couldn't because Daredevil isn't a detective.
Now, sure, Matt Murdock and Bruce Wayne are very different and you couldn't have the lawyer stuff, but you, know, Jim Gordon. And then Hell's Kitchen is a gothic city like Gotham.
Any Daredevil story can be a Batman story with virtually no change, but Daredevil can't take on Batman's stories.
And it shouldn't come as a surprise; Frank Miller re-invented Daredevil the same time he was writing BATMAN: YEAR ONE and THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, and all Daredevil has been since then is that story repeated again and again.
Seriously. The original tale of Kingpin, Elektra, Bullseye? Imagine if it was Ra's, Joker, and Talia.
It plays the same and is more awesome.