What comics are you reading?
- Thread starter Vesvius
- Start date
So DC continues to further my disappointment with them. Read the new Batman annual which covers Mr. Freeze's new 52 origins that are being addressed due to his involvement in the Night of the Owls event.
Spoilers, for those of you who don't want to know.
The issue starts out with a young Victor and his mother going to build a snowman, the mother having brought a red apple to make the snowman's eyes and she tells him to enjoy the beauty of fresh snow before it gets sullied. Victor talks about the snowman he wants to make for some competition, his mother asks if he wants it to be as big as him. he turns around for his mother only to see her gone, a hole in the ground revealing it to be a frozen-over lake and she fell in.
Cuts to a therapist? talking to Mr Freeze who asks if his mother died there, Freeze responds that she was preserved by the cold until the paramedics got there. There's also some talk about how he experimented on freezing/unfreezing animals as a kid somewhere in this issue. The therapist parallels the situation with Nora and Freeze clams up before asking for the crayon the therapist is writing with. The man makes a comment about Freeze can't have it and that its alcohol based and not freezable. Freeze then snaps the man's neck and takes the crayon, using it to meddle with the circuitry surrounding his cold cell.
Cut to security freaking out because the whole prison is now matching Freeze's cell which is FUCKING COLD. Freeze walks out, kills cops using coolant pipes including on part where he takes a sip like its a water hose and spits it on more cops, horrifically killing them. He gets his suit out, which is now stupidly designed and no longer has sleeves, and apparently he is now cold enough to freeze people touching his bare skin. He steals a truck, drives it into penguin's place and demands his guns. Penguin's civil and they discuss how to make it look like just a robbery so penguin ain't screwed and freeze is good to go.
Point is that he's going to save Nora using the formula used to revive the Court of Owls who were frozen because it he made it to also unfreeze Nora. He's also going to kill Bruce Wayne. Cut to scientist Fries in a lab working and Lucius Fox and Bruce Wayne walks in, and basically says that the cryogenic shit is unethical and that no more work will be done on unfreezing people, they're more concerned about organ transplants. Fries claims that both can be done and there's almost a breakthrough on cryogenics.
Cut to Fries talking to Nora, frozen as she is, and talks about how there's now a surgery that can save her available now and that he's been working on something that can unfreeze her. Cue Bruce Wayne going nope and saying this shit was shut down and it ain't happening. Fries says he's her husband and has the right to attempt this. Wayne refuses and tells Fries that he's fired and never going near Nora again. Fries freaks out and throws a chair at Wayne which misses and hits a pipe which hits Fries with cryogenic liquids stuff. Cut to Freeze awakening, with people talking about how his body has chanced and exists at below twenty degrees Fahrenheit and that his body's cells 'stores cold' now. He opens his eyes and there's quickly red goggles shoved onto his face, as they explain his eyes are still liquid and that he needs to now wear these goggles so his body don't freeze them. He kills the nearest person with his frosty hands and escapes. There's also the fact that his blood will boil and he'll die if his body temp got over a certain temperature.
Cut to present where he gets into the old, dusty, and long abandoned cryogenics department still filled with frozen people. He talks to Nora's cryogenic pod and wipes away the frost to reveal its some dude. Cue Nightwing and Robin are there and he easily dispatches them, about to kill them if they don't tell him where Wayne and Nora are when Wayne comes in on over the intercom telling him they're both on the top floor. Freeze drops Nightwing and Robin and heads to save his wife and vengeance. Cue top floor where he sees Nora, and goes talking of how he can save her now.
Batman appears, says Wayne is safe and away and then tells Freeze he's stopping him and that he's also crazy... because he was never married. The woman's name is Nora Fields, born in 1943 and engaged to a lawyer, and that she was the first person put in cryogenic stasis because she had an incurable heart condition and in the future there might be a cure.
In fact, Victor wrote his doctoral thesis on her over a decade ago, and was hired at Wayne Industries for a chance to study her. Batman then mocks the well beloved Freeze origin, calling it all nothing more than a farce. He then beats Freeze by injecting him with the serum Freeze was going to use on Nora, which causes the body to thaw. Batman says that he even knows as much and that Freeze will be locked away again.
Cut to Young Victor, who is wheeling him mother across the snowy fields. She looks unwell, and it quickly becomes clear that when she went under the ice before she was badly brain damaged. She makes a comment about how she forgot an apple, Victor comments that they'll just buy one. She then goes 'wait, here's one, I even carved it up!' She then presents him with a bandaged hand which is bloody. Victor looks at his mother sadly before pushing her chair so she's falls out into a hole in the water, perhaps even the same hole from before, which she quickly sinks, euthanizing her. It zooms in on her hurt hand, which has two red holes cut into it which look like eyes, paralleling that Victor becomes his family's snowman, a snowman as big as him, with the apple red eyes represented by his red goggles.
tl;dr: Freeze is now crazy, his sympathetic past as a loving husband driven to the point of desperation is now gone and he's a psycho who has an Oedipal complex who only loves the cold.
According to the writer, Scott Snyder is "The idea is that he falls in love with the cold for its power and beauty, but refuses to see its destructive qualities & limitations" and that "And again, we weren't trying to be shocking. Just trying to take 2 parts of the character we love but that don't quite seem to fit together - his desire to heal and thaw nora being one, and his desire to freeze the world being the other - and making them work together while also making him more of a parallel to Batman."
He's more of a parallel with Batman, Snyder, further comments, because "both obsessed w/something unattainable"
I actually liked the idea of changing Freeze some, but it was written in such a way that makes him less sympathetic by REMOVING that tragic parallel with Batman at the loss of the dearest person in your life being what drives you, because it was the snow and cold he loves now, according to Snyder.
I wish, what with the fact that they introduced the mother, that if they were going to make him more paralleled to Batman, make it Victors MOTHER (a woman named Nora, perhaps?) who was frozen to save her life because of the accident of her falling into the frozen pond, and Victor spent his whole life trying to save his mother by going into the field of cryogenics. Then have people, by this time, misunderstand the relationship between Victor and Nora as husband and wife or believing his motives Oedipal based and tragedy occurs creating Mr Freeze.
There, I changed Freeze's backstory by making him have more parallels to Batman. The same Freeze aspects of sympathy are still there, but there's also the fact that Freeze is trying to save his mother, who would be horrified at what her son had done and become to save her. This keeps the sympathetic feel that Freeze had because either way, Nora is saved or dies, he'll never get back the same relationship he once had with her.
Spoilers, for those of you who don't want to know.
The issue starts out with a young Victor and his mother going to build a snowman, the mother having brought a red apple to make the snowman's eyes and she tells him to enjoy the beauty of fresh snow before it gets sullied. Victor talks about the snowman he wants to make for some competition, his mother asks if he wants it to be as big as him. he turns around for his mother only to see her gone, a hole in the ground revealing it to be a frozen-over lake and she fell in.
Cuts to a therapist? talking to Mr Freeze who asks if his mother died there, Freeze responds that she was preserved by the cold until the paramedics got there. There's also some talk about how he experimented on freezing/unfreezing animals as a kid somewhere in this issue. The therapist parallels the situation with Nora and Freeze clams up before asking for the crayon the therapist is writing with. The man makes a comment about Freeze can't have it and that its alcohol based and not freezable. Freeze then snaps the man's neck and takes the crayon, using it to meddle with the circuitry surrounding his cold cell.
Cut to security freaking out because the whole prison is now matching Freeze's cell which is FUCKING COLD. Freeze walks out, kills cops using coolant pipes including on part where he takes a sip like its a water hose and spits it on more cops, horrifically killing them. He gets his suit out, which is now stupidly designed and no longer has sleeves, and apparently he is now cold enough to freeze people touching his bare skin. He steals a truck, drives it into penguin's place and demands his guns. Penguin's civil and they discuss how to make it look like just a robbery so penguin ain't screwed and freeze is good to go.
Point is that he's going to save Nora using the formula used to revive the Court of Owls who were frozen because it he made it to also unfreeze Nora. He's also going to kill Bruce Wayne. Cut to scientist Fries in a lab working and Lucius Fox and Bruce Wayne walks in, and basically says that the cryogenic shit is unethical and that no more work will be done on unfreezing people, they're more concerned about organ transplants. Fries claims that both can be done and there's almost a breakthrough on cryogenics.
Cut to Fries talking to Nora, frozen as she is, and talks about how there's now a surgery that can save her available now and that he's been working on something that can unfreeze her. Cue Bruce Wayne going nope and saying this shit was shut down and it ain't happening. Fries says he's her husband and has the right to attempt this. Wayne refuses and tells Fries that he's fired and never going near Nora again. Fries freaks out and throws a chair at Wayne which misses and hits a pipe which hits Fries with cryogenic liquids stuff. Cut to Freeze awakening, with people talking about how his body has chanced and exists at below twenty degrees Fahrenheit and that his body's cells 'stores cold' now. He opens his eyes and there's quickly red goggles shoved onto his face, as they explain his eyes are still liquid and that he needs to now wear these goggles so his body don't freeze them. He kills the nearest person with his frosty hands and escapes. There's also the fact that his blood will boil and he'll die if his body temp got over a certain temperature.
Cut to present where he gets into the old, dusty, and long abandoned cryogenics department still filled with frozen people. He talks to Nora's cryogenic pod and wipes away the frost to reveal its some dude. Cue Nightwing and Robin are there and he easily dispatches them, about to kill them if they don't tell him where Wayne and Nora are when Wayne comes in on over the intercom telling him they're both on the top floor. Freeze drops Nightwing and Robin and heads to save his wife and vengeance. Cue top floor where he sees Nora, and goes talking of how he can save her now.
Batman appears, says Wayne is safe and away and then tells Freeze he's stopping him and that he's also crazy... because he was never married. The woman's name is Nora Fields, born in 1943 and engaged to a lawyer, and that she was the first person put in cryogenic stasis because she had an incurable heart condition and in the future there might be a cure.
In fact, Victor wrote his doctoral thesis on her over a decade ago, and was hired at Wayne Industries for a chance to study her. Batman then mocks the well beloved Freeze origin, calling it all nothing more than a farce. He then beats Freeze by injecting him with the serum Freeze was going to use on Nora, which causes the body to thaw. Batman says that he even knows as much and that Freeze will be locked away again.
Cut to Young Victor, who is wheeling him mother across the snowy fields. She looks unwell, and it quickly becomes clear that when she went under the ice before she was badly brain damaged. She makes a comment about how she forgot an apple, Victor comments that they'll just buy one. She then goes 'wait, here's one, I even carved it up!' She then presents him with a bandaged hand which is bloody. Victor looks at his mother sadly before pushing her chair so she's falls out into a hole in the water, perhaps even the same hole from before, which she quickly sinks, euthanizing her. It zooms in on her hurt hand, which has two red holes cut into it which look like eyes, paralleling that Victor becomes his family's snowman, a snowman as big as him, with the apple red eyes represented by his red goggles.
tl;dr: Freeze is now crazy, his sympathetic past as a loving husband driven to the point of desperation is now gone and he's a psycho who has an Oedipal complex who only loves the cold.
According to the writer, Scott Snyder is "The idea is that he falls in love with the cold for its power and beauty, but refuses to see its destructive qualities & limitations" and that "And again, we weren't trying to be shocking. Just trying to take 2 parts of the character we love but that don't quite seem to fit together - his desire to heal and thaw nora being one, and his desire to freeze the world being the other - and making them work together while also making him more of a parallel to Batman."
He's more of a parallel with Batman, Snyder, further comments, because "both obsessed w/something unattainable"
I actually liked the idea of changing Freeze some, but it was written in such a way that makes him less sympathetic by REMOVING that tragic parallel with Batman at the loss of the dearest person in your life being what drives you, because it was the snow and cold he loves now, according to Snyder.
I wish, what with the fact that they introduced the mother, that if they were going to make him more paralleled to Batman, make it Victors MOTHER (a woman named Nora, perhaps?) who was frozen to save her life because of the accident of her falling into the frozen pond, and Victor spent his whole life trying to save his mother by going into the field of cryogenics. Then have people, by this time, misunderstand the relationship between Victor and Nora as husband and wife or believing his motives Oedipal based and tragedy occurs creating Mr Freeze.
There, I changed Freeze's backstory by making him have more parallels to Batman. The same Freeze aspects of sympathy are still there, but there's also the fact that Freeze is trying to save his mother, who would be horrified at what her son had done and become to save her. This keeps the sympathetic feel that Freeze had because either way, Nora is saved or dies, he'll never get back the same relationship he once had with her.
Care to elaborate?
Or....you know....you could've droped the'Freeze the World' concept and focused on him trying to save his wife, and getting revenge on all the people he felt screwed them over. It's perfectly fine to have a Batman villain that dosen't belong in Arkham Asylum.
Edit:
DC I'm going to help you out, <a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFDTMW3_ilE' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>this</a> is how you write Mr. Freeze.
Now....let's take a look at some cool designs....
Now...the new Freeze.
Or....you know....you could've droped the'Freeze the World' concept and focused on him trying to save his wife, and getting revenge on all the people he felt screwed them over. It's perfectly fine to have a Batman villain that dosen't belong in Arkham Asylum.
Edit:
DC I'm going to help you out, <a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFDTMW3_ilE' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>this</a> is how you write Mr. Freeze.
Now....let's take a look at some cool designs....
Now...the new Freeze.
They're just shitting all over Batman's villains aren't they?
I'm glad I'm avoiding current comics in general. Looking at the New Harley and Freeze... I'm expecting Scarecrow to be some guy who was afraid of the dark and had an abusive parent lock him in a cellar till he snapped. Or Mad Hatter using hats with power drills in them. Maybe Poison Ivy who has no tie to plants but just uses poisons? Or Clayface being an entity born in a Play-Dough factory.
I'm glad I'm avoiding current comics in general. Looking at the New Harley and Freeze... I'm expecting Scarecrow to be some guy who was afraid of the dark and had an abusive parent lock him in a cellar till he snapped. Or Mad Hatter using hats with power drills in them. Maybe Poison Ivy who has no tie to plants but just uses poisons? Or Clayface being an entity born in a Play-Dough factory.
Okay, there is a bit of a leap between freeze the world and unfreeze his wife. Mind you, this has been fine for years, but I could buy that. Reeks of trying to fix what isn't broke as that episode still stands as one of the greatest Batman episodes ever in anything, but they have a decent reason for it to attempt to justify it.
Hows about this to bridge the gap: Freeze determines that due to the length of time she's been frozen, or perhaps a certain quirk of the cure he's been trying to perfect, the only way to be able to bring his wife back is to make her like him, dependent on the cold, and so in order for his wife to be able to exist in the world he must make it a frozen wonderland. After all, the suit itself is mainly a temporary solution, he has to maintain it for two people if this comes to pass without that and even one careless move could leave to the death of either of them, which is something he cannot risk.
So of course freeze the world is the natural conclusion to fix this problem, to someone who has become as emotionally numb as freeze has. Naturally Batman can't deny this shit due to the fact that Freeze is indeed the leading expert in this field, but at the same time can't just let him freeze the bloody world so those two can live. BAM. Rectified in an instant, and the tragedy is maintained without just making him 'just insane' like all the other batman villains.
I didn't even have to think that hard, Christ, the hell are you guys doing?
Hows about this to bridge the gap: Freeze determines that due to the length of time she's been frozen, or perhaps a certain quirk of the cure he's been trying to perfect, the only way to be able to bring his wife back is to make her like him, dependent on the cold, and so in order for his wife to be able to exist in the world he must make it a frozen wonderland. After all, the suit itself is mainly a temporary solution, he has to maintain it for two people if this comes to pass without that and even one careless move could leave to the death of either of them, which is something he cannot risk.
So of course freeze the world is the natural conclusion to fix this problem, to someone who has become as emotionally numb as freeze has. Naturally Batman can't deny this shit due to the fact that Freeze is indeed the leading expert in this field, but at the same time can't just let him freeze the bloody world so those two can live. BAM. Rectified in an instant, and the tragedy is maintained without just making him 'just insane' like all the other batman villains.
I didn't even have to think that hard, Christ, the hell are you guys doing?
Isn't the natural conclusion that Freeze should move out to the Arctic and live there with his wife (granted, she was still in the tank) like he was doing in that one animated movie?
I haven't read the comic yet, but from what I've heard, doubt I'd particularly enjoy it. I can see why they'd change it, the wife motivation has never really worked for the neverending stories of comics but this change just doesn't feel like the best way to do it.
And Snyder's started disappointing me lately, considering his Court of Owls storyline is making increasingly less sense and his last month's issue of Batman was completely blown away by the return of Batman Incorporated.
It's a hit/miss thing.
Penguin had a decent miniseries a while back, Poison Ivy's been good in Birds of Prey, Talia's a bigger threat than her father-
And before the reboot, Mad Hatter had been established to be unable to eat food unless it had a miniature hat on. You can't get more ridiculous than that for him.
I haven't read the comic yet, but from what I've heard, doubt I'd particularly enjoy it. I can see why they'd change it, the wife motivation has never really worked for the neverending stories of comics but this change just doesn't feel like the best way to do it.
And Snyder's started disappointing me lately, considering his Court of Owls storyline is making increasingly less sense and his last month's issue of Batman was completely blown away by the return of Batman Incorporated.
It's a hit/miss thing.
Penguin had a decent miniseries a while back, Poison Ivy's been good in Birds of Prey, Talia's a bigger threat than her father-
And before the reboot, Mad Hatter had been established to be unable to eat food unless it had a miniature hat on. You can't get more ridiculous than that for him.
It's not so much a comic that I just read, but a pulp sci-fi magazine.
AMAZING stories, April-May 1953, volume 27 no.4
Printed in that particular volume was 'Here there be Tigers' by Ray Bradbury.
What I find most interesting about this, is that my grandfather, was the managing editor of this publication when it was published.
So this means, that I am related to someone marginally famous. :yay:
AMAZING stories, April-May 1953, volume 27 no.4
Printed in that particular volume was 'Here there be Tigers' by Ray Bradbury.
What I find most interesting about this, is that my grandfather, was the managing editor of this publication when it was published.
So this means, that I am related to someone marginally famous. :yay:
Just Finished Reading "Midnight Nation" By jm straczynski. It was pretty interesting overall. I liked the subject matter the series dealt with, the characters were interesting and likable, and the resolution felt right all told. honeslty it could've had a longer run but I feel it told the tale it needed in the time it had.
Dawn of The Jedi:
I see a fair amount of potential in this story. I mean we have three young Jedi rangers, a 'Darksider' whose never known anything but the ways of evil, and a very rich fantasy world. Honestly if I were to make a 'Skyrim' style game set on one planet in the Star wars univers I'd likely use this world and time period.
Since Disney now owns Star Wars the comics fate is unknown but I hope it manages a satsifactory conclusion.
Dawn of The Jedi:
I see a fair amount of potential in this story. I mean we have three young Jedi rangers, a 'Darksider' whose never known anything but the ways of evil, and a very rich fantasy world. Honestly if I were to make a 'Skyrim' style game set on one planet in the Star wars univers I'd likely use this world and time period.
Since Disney now owns Star Wars the comics fate is unknown but I hope it manages a satsifactory conclusion.
So I just found out from someone on another board that there is a site which is hosting scans of all the Archie Sonic and Megaman Comics to date. In reading them it is amazing just how much the Sonic Comic has evolved over the years. Art, characters, storylines, it is amazing just how far it has progressed. It not "high art" by an stretch of the imagination, but it has progressed from being essentially a "90's Saturday Morning Cartoon Show" in style and approach to something much much more.
While it does have the dreaded "retcons" it is nowhere near as bad as Marvel and DC are. I recommend that anyone interested in the "evolution" of a comic book universe take a look.
It's really quite impressive how the teams at Archie have expanded on Sonic and created their own unique and fascinating version of the franchise. And the direction they are taking with Megaman is also intriguing.
I cannot wait to see how the Worlds Collide storyline is handled.
While it does have the dreaded "retcons" it is nowhere near as bad as Marvel and DC are. I recommend that anyone interested in the "evolution" of a comic book universe take a look.
It's really quite impressive how the teams at Archie have expanded on Sonic and created their own unique and fascinating version of the franchise. And the direction they are taking with Megaman is also intriguing.
I cannot wait to see how the Worlds Collide storyline is handled.
