The only local comic shop in town discounts 10% for pre-orders. My subscription service discounts all my comics 35%, all the comics come bagged and boarded, and they provide a title group service that my local shop doesn’t. With the large number of books to which I subscribe*, that discount saves me a lot of money.
My orders ship every other Thursday, and arrive the following Tuesday. I could have weekly shipments, but I prefer to save a few bucks.
*I just counted up my subs, and I have 77 titles listed. About a dozen of those are limited series or one-shots, and a few others are publsihed less than monthly, but still, on an order that large, a big discount makes a big difference.
I realize that I’m getting here kinda late, but I was in the Rockies for a family reunion and didn’t see the episode until last night.
If air date is any indication, it seems that Superman and I share a birthday . I always thought that there was something special about me so this weekend I am going to test my bullet stopping ability and then test my X-Ray and Heat visions.
I never read For the Man Who Has Everything but I have to wonder what is it based on? The general concept of the story seems to be a staple of Sci-Fi - where the hero is trapped in a, usually but not always pleasant, alterna-reality and has to fight through it. Hell Star Trek has probably gone to that well a half-dozen times over the years.
Also, is Mongul the same guy from the War World episode?
Alan Moore wrote in his serialized The Comics Journal essays ***Writing For Comics *** (collected by Avatar Press) in that the idea behind “For The Man Who Has Everything” was “to examine the idea of escapism and fantasy dreamworlds, including happy times in the past we look back on and idealize and longed-for points in the imagined future when we finally achieve whatever our goal happens to be. I wanted to to have a look at how useful these ideas actually are and how wide the gap is between the fantasy and any sort of creditable reality,” – he goes on to cite people who fixtate on certain points in their pasts where things might have gone differently, if only I hadn’t married this person, or if only I had stayed in college…
The most obvious literary inspiration for this idea is The Ghost of Christmas to Come in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”, where Scrooge changes his present behavior in order to avert his future pitiful unmourned death. Possibly Moore was inspired by Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder,” (which was spoofed in that Simpsons Treehuse of Horror episode where Homer travels back in time via toaster.) or Norden’s “The Primal Solution”. Another movie might have been the other Christmas classic, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” where George Bailey glimpses his community’s changes against the backdrop of his own oblivion.
This is all speculation on my part. Who the hell knows how Moore’s mind manages? As a comic book, “For The Man Who Has Everything” was written in 1985 and predates Star Trek: The Next Generation, Quantum Leap and Sliders by a few years.
Yes, that is the same Mongul, which is how Batman knew who he was (depriving the adaptation of perhaps my favorite Mongul dialogue, beginning “If you don’t already know my name…”)
I thought they made excellent use of the Kents being alive in the Conduit arc. He’s a super-villian who knows that the Kents are Superman’s parents, and it takes everything Superman has to keep them from being assassinated. Pre-Crisis we heard ad nauseum about secret identities being to protect heros’ loved ones: in the Conduit arc we saw why.
The comic-book version specifically names the date as February 29th, which was pre-Crisis canon for Supe’s “birthday”.
One aspect with the new show I find a little offputting is the showing of clips during the opening theme. I can understand the opening theme giving brief highlights of the characters featured in that particular episode (just as the Justice League comic had a “roll call” on the first page), but fifteen seconds of airtime was blown showing Supes/WW/Bats tangling with Mongul/Mercy. It ruins the drama of Mongul’s first appearance in the episode, for starters.
It’s a pity the “go to hell” had to be muffled. Overall, a good interpretation of one of my favbourite stories, though crippled by the half-hour format. There simply wasn’t enough time to get Kal-El emotionally involved in the fantasy, and while it’s mildly amusing to learn Batman’s heart’s desire is to see his father whale on a guy, the brevity doesn’t help there, either.
A large part of the charm of the original story is the number of pre-Crisis Krypton factoids thrown into the background. It’s a shame those had to be lost.
The Dana Delany character is listed in the closing credts as “Loana”, and Eric Roberts is credited as the voice of Mongul. I’ll admit, he does a pretty good Michael Ironside impression.
But no moment of:
[sub]Mongul…[/sub]
MONGUL!"
??
Damn. I loved that bit. Also lost: Mongul’s “Perfectly.” reply. I did chuckle at the neck-cracking bit, though. Overall, a good adaptation of a difficult work. If they ever adapt Watchmen, they’re going to have to give it the time it deserves.
That little fantasy was Batman’s father preventing the mugging that cost little Bruce Wayne his parents’ lives and sent him down the path that led to him becoming Batman instead of a well-adjusted member of society. It wasn’t just Thomas Wayne going to town on “some guy”, that guy was the murderer that started the whole story for Batman. Whenever Batman’s fondest wish is shown either in the comics or the animated shows, it has to do with the mugging being foiled or the shortcut that led them to that spot not being taken and his parents not dying. I didn’t find it amusing, it was just kinda sad and appropriate that the best thing his mind can come up with is the elimination of the one event that led to a lifelong obsession.
The comic-book version of this story dedicated a page to showing Batman’s fantasy, as well as his brief account afterward (he remarks on marrying Kathy Kane, having a daughter, etc). I realize this level of detail isn’t likely to get shoehorned into a half-hour cartoon, but let’s go to the tape:
[ol]
[li]Batman pulls the Mercy off of Superman and it promptly gloms onto him. His fantasy begins and Thomas Wayne hits the mugger five times[/li][li]Superman recovers, flies off to get Mongul, just as Mongul is about to kill Wonder Woman[/li][li]Superman pounds Mongul[/li][li]An injured WW crawls away[/li][li]Mongul turns the tide, begins to pound on Superman[/li][li]WW spots Batman, crawls to him[/li][li]Superman v. Mongul: “Burn.”[/li][li]WW gets to Batman, sees the Mercy has him and starts to pull it off of him[/li][li]Back in Batman’s fantasy, Thomas Wayne is still beating up the mugger, landing at least eight more punches.[/ol][/li]
Now, points 2-8 take up about 2.5 minutes of screen time[sup]*[/sup]. That’s one looooong time to be beating up the mugger. Point 8 could have shown an adult Bruce married with a child of his own, and the fantasy’s progression would have been apparant. It just cracked me up that Batman’s fantasy involved sustained violence. I don’t know that I’d call it sad, since I’m not that emotionally invested.
Then again, I’ve just analyzed a cartoon whose last third is almost entirely sustained violence and that is kinda sad. Heh.
[sup]*[/sup]Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have no way of knowing if the Mercy’s “dream-time” moves at the same pace as real-time.
This is interesting to me - because to me the woman in Superman’s hallucinations did seem to be drawn like Lana Lang, but had Lois’ voice - so Loana makes sense to me.
It was a story that I wish they had done when the series was still in hour-long episodes - too much of a story to be crammed into the half-hour.
I’ve seen three episodes of Unlimited so far - and I definitely miss the old show format - and Hawkgirl.
You guys are welcome to debate whether the intensity of Batman’s fantasy-Dad beat up of Joe Chill went over the top…I had not read the comic-book version before I watched the cartoon - y’know what I thought would’ve been cooler and better:
the Mercy gets pulled off of Superman and it gloms onto Batman. Batman goes still, and you see a dazed smile begin to form on his face. But then, he shakes it off and rips the damn thing off his own chest and says something like “…nice try - you think I haven’t spent time there? I know my reality” and stomps it to shit.
I have always thought that while Superman has superior physical attributes, Batman’s strength came from within - the whole “…if he was prepared, he could beat anyone” vibe we see in SDMB threads.
That was immediately came to mind when it went after Bats…
That’s an interesting notion but I think it’s starting to beomce a cliché that the unpowered or less-powered characters invariably end up showing stronger willpower or game-saving cleverness or whatnot. The same sort of thing happened in the previous episode when Supergirl, Green Lantern and Captain Atom were essentialyl helpless leaving (dun-dun-DUNNNNN!) Green Arrow to make the goal.
Then again in the original comic, it’s Robin that saved the day. Go figure.
Basically, I’m just getitng tired of Superman getting into pointless slugfests or being taken out by forcefields or zapped with electricity or whatnot, while Batman throws a batarang and hits the power switch or something like that.
I was on vacation this weekend, and set my VCR to tape it. What I didn’t do was readjust the clock! So what I have is about 4/5 of the show. Who wants to give me a good rundown of what happens after WW starts pulling the Mercy off of Bats?
The Mercy makes a few angry attempts at WW, but she holds it off. Supes gets off a whole series of slams on Mongul, stunning him. At a critical moment, though, when Supes is on the verge of delivering a coup de grace, he looks up and notices they’re next to the large statues of Jor-El and Lara holding up the model of Krypton. Supes hesitates and Mongul gives him a knee to the gut, stunning him.
Mongul: You know, for a moment there I almost believed you were going to kill me. How stupid of you to hesitate like that. [picks up large rock] Not a mistake I’ll make, I can assure you.
WW: Excuse me, but I think this is yours. [she throws the Mercy at Mongul]
Some brief time passes and the big three are staring down at a Mercy’d Mongul. WW gives Superman his present, a new breed of rose called “The Krypton”, but it had been stomped during the battle and is now dead. Superman looks up at the statutes and says to them that he promises he’ll never forget. Then the heroes speculate on what fantasy the Mercy is creating for Mongul.
Batman: Whatever is it, it’s too good for him.
Close-up on Mongul’s badly-beaten face. Faintly, the sounds of his fantasy can be heard, rife with explosions and tortured screams. The end.
I finally got to see the ep (my first of JLU) and enjoyed it a lot. I did kind of miss Robin, though.
I know they never would have done it, but I thought it would have been neat if, once the Black Mercy is on Batman, he winds up in the same fantasy he created for himself in the Batman: TAS episode “Perchance to Dream”, where the Mad Hatter basically does the same thing to him.
Oh, and I thought Superman’s “Burn!” sounded really, really lame. There was barely any rage behind it at all! It was like he was making an observation or something.
I’m starting to like the new JL even though I am not much of a fan of DC in general. If I may, however, I would like to hijack this thread ever so slightly and jump on Mr. Moore.
I do not rate Moore as anything other then a demented socialist hack. I do not put the Watchmen any higher than a decent dime store horror yarn. I think both he, and the Watchman, are so vastly overrated that it is almost comedic to watch people fall over themselves with praise. My problem with the Watchman is twofold. Firstly, it takes itself and its medium far too seriously. It wasn’t a particularly deep storyline and it would have translated into a potboiler in a Sci Fi. short story compilation. It has been elevated into great literature, which it most certainly isn’t, due to the fact that it was the first “mature” comic. I have more respect for Miller’s TDKR as at least it stays within the genre and recognizes that, at its heart, it is a comic book. It stays true to its origins and, in my mind, it results in a vastly better end product. The Watchmen always struck me as the efforts of someone who wasn’t a particularly good writer invading an easier medium it terms of critical and peer review.
My second issue with the Watchmen is that it is excessively violent. I take umbrage with the cynicism of a medium that is earmarked towards children but then expects them to avoid a “mature” title such as the Watchmen. I was 12 when it first came out and I read it and quite enjoyed it. It was, however, so beyond the pale of what I was used to reading that I was more than a little creeped out by the thought of a 30+ year old man writing these sorts of books for what is, in essence, a children’s market. Also, there was less distinction then between “mature” lines and your average comic.
I don’t consider comics to be literature or to have any higher meaning beyond entertainment. They are, in essence, a soap opera and should be treated accordingly. I have collected comics for most of my life (I still do, you can find me buying my comics on Broadway in Lakeview in Chicago) but I have never elevated them to the status that many seem to hold the rather creepy Alan Moore.
I’m not up to arguing objective opinion or defending comics as a medium, so I’m just going to quash the one glaring factual error in your post. Watchmen was nothing like the first “mature” comic, even if you only take the American comic market into consideration. Which would be stupid, because Moore is a product of the much larger adult-themed comics market that exsisted in England and Europe in the late seventies/early eighties. Judge Dredd ring any bells?
Incidentally, have you read anything else by Moore? Watchmen aside, his reputation really resides on his unparalleled ability to jump into almost any genre and write a compelling story. His Tom Strong book is a lot more like the sort of idealized superhero comics you seem to prefer.
If I have the time and inclination, I’ll come back again tomorrow to reply to the stuff about the integrity of comic books as a medium, and the individual merits of Watchmen in particular.
. I always thought that there was something special about me so this weekend I am going to test my bullet stopping ability and then test my X-Ray and Heat visions.
Sorry. We can step outside any time you want, I live in Chicago so feel free to swing by 