Hi guys!

1) Sid...*hugs hugs hugs hugs*

2) I can't read your random non-English text

Fine, you've avoided the costume talk plus examples... for now...

And HEROID, you're still bad. Bad, I say.

Ctrl+F Buffy.

No matches.


No, it's not ok.

*runs off to make Floorwax Man in game RIGHT NOW!*

Make room for me in tht scarf. I never liked Buffy once I started to actually wear a bra (equivalency of a man's voice changing). I mean even when I watched it on tv as a child u knew it was kinda lame then...like Lois & Clark lane or Xena. You watched it sure but...you knew what you were in for.

I know that is heresy.

And it worked out so well for him. How many TV series does he have in production still?

Toy Story is the only movie that he wrote for that has seen any kind of recognizable "success".

Sorry, I have never been impressed with any of his work.

I keep forgetting not everyone has Asian characters installed on their system. Also, set the page to Unicode (UTF-8).

Which is why marvel will one day be The OC / The Hills of the comic book world. Where no-one wears costumes, and everyone looks like normal people with powers. Sometimes I want characters to STFU about their "life story / deep troubled past" and just tell...um...the CURRENT story.

NBC's "Heroes" is losing viewers and retro is back in fashion again. Costumes FTW. Case in point: Watchmen & X-men & the new Batman movies. Costumes can be done well, they just need to be "darkened" up for the modern age.

Anyone who's trying to pull off superpowered normal people is:

1. Not creative.
2. Trying to be like "Heroes" (that ship has sailed...)
3. Doesn't realise that a lot of other people are doing the SAME DAMN THING with the SAMN DAMN STORYLINES and the SAME DAMN CHARACTER DEVELOPEMENT.

Sorry...went off on a bit of a tangent.

The difference between "character" and "situation" can be best explained by story. Now if I have to go pick up my drycleaning at 4pm, but also I need to go to the bank at 4pm...that is a PROBLEM.

If I have to go pick up my drycleaning at 4pm instead of saving my brother from his diabolical girlfriend's manipulations but he is unaware of her inane evilness and if I overtly try to do anything my lifelong familial relationship will be forever changed and I don't like change and he is my "emotional rock" since I was kid... That's a CONFLICT.

Character conflict is more interesting than a situational problem, and ultimately leads to audience self examination and self discovery. Look, I love Michael Bay films, but when I want something more than a popcorn fun film, I go watch an Eric Schaeffer movie. See the difference? Having a vehicle for a story to be told is fine, but if the character doesn't evolve, people don't care. Case and point - Superman Returns.

What you described about "life story" and all that crap? It's glorified, ripped off of cheap crappy anime-storylines. It's true. Go do some research on the basic crap structure of a crappy little anime story-arc. And that's not character developing, that's character explanation, which is DULL. (That is why MOST origin stories don't DO well and yet writers in the last 5 years or so have been able to pull them off interestingly - Batman Begins, Iron Man, etc). Look at Tropic Thunder. They explained the archetypes of those characters in quick little faux-previews, but the movement of the story came from how each of those characters CHANGED.

I will disagree. Heroes is losing viewership for a MYRIAD of reasons...but you also have to understand that Heroes is a crap knock off of other storylines, characters, etc. The FUN thing about Heroes was that, for ONCE, they were able to bring that superhero/character driven stuff to a GENERAL audience. But they didn't know what to do afterward. So they get into their origin crap without it being interesting...and plus the writing on that show was AWFUL. I was into Season 1, liked Season 2, and had to apologize to a friend of mine for making him watch the opening of Season 3 with me -_-. I mean really? That was god awful. Haven't watched it since. (And that's saying a lot since I like to watch general train wrecks of shows HA!)

Back to point, Heroes is not losing viewership because of a lack of costumes, it's losing viewership because of a lack of vision, and general cliche, crappy writing. I also argue the over-exposure of Hayden Palskcnalkscn however you spell her name. A friend of mine uses Bruce Willis as an example of this. Bruce Willis is a movie star because women like him (he has that charming thing), and men like him because he's a man's man. Kinda like Sean Connery. However, while girls love Jude Law (myself excluded), guys don't like him (he's too 'pretty,' or even feminine). Bringing this back to Hayden...apparently, neither sexes really like the girl. :P

ALSO, how DARE you qualify Watchmen OR X-men into the same category as the new Batman flicks. Apples and oranges.

Watchmen was universally panned, it did okay box office wise, but all in all? It missed its VERY high mark. And that's where you had a "good story," with well written characters and they had updated darker costumes. Execution sucked. Message was lost. It wasn't a bad movie but considering the story was one of the most celebrated comic of all time...how it failed so miserably is sad. And I can go into the Hollywood ins and outs for you if you want, but here's a simple way to look at it.

Director David Nutter said it best, "There is a difference between a good movie and a good Hollywood movie." He was referencing, specifically Paul Blart Mall Cop. Good Hollywood movie, horrible movie. Where as Batman Begins was a great Hollywood movie, AND a great movie. Watchmen was SUPPOSE to be a great movie and a great Hollywood movie (as in, quality AND brings in a crap load of cash). It didn't really do EITHER. When people ask me why I didn't really like the movie (and it wasn't just me, most of individuals of my generation didn't like it), I answer them with something very simple, "Alan Moore was tapping into the social psyche of the fear of Nuclear War, the knowledge living with Nixon in power, etc...those things mean very little to me. So for me, at 23, meh." Also, need I bring up that absolutely god awful sex scene? I love sex in movies, but I equate that to the sex scene between Neo and Trinity in Matrix II (useless and gratuitous) AND...at least Matrix's sex scene had hot people boinking. Let's be honest. But see, I know what they, in both movies, were TRYING to communicate in those sex scenes, it was a celebration of humanity, of life, of being alive...unfortunately, the message is lost for two different reasons in both movies.

Do not get me started on the molestation of my childhood (and not in a fun way) that was X-men 1, 2, and 3. I will give those films credit for ONE thing and ONE thing only...showing Hollywood morons that comic book movies CAN be profitable. They weren't good movies, but they were good HOLLYWOOD movies.

BTW, Matrix was a 'non-costume' comic book movie that was awesome (the second and third films never happened in my mind). Sure, they had a "look" but it was also relatively FUNCTIONAL...which brings me to my next point...

I didn't say I didn't like costumes as IS, I said costumes that serve no function annoy me. And no offense but yea, Golden Age is dead. The public mindset doesn't like glorified perfection anymore, they wanna see humanity at it's worst then only to see it become the finest in humanity. Which brings us full circle to the whole CHARACTER thing - it's character DEVELOPMENT, growth, and ultimately ATTACHMENT. It's the same when you make a character on this game...

The more INVOLVED you are in the creation of your character, the more time you put into it, the stories, the artwork, the development of friends...the more money you are going to keep paying NCSoft to keep playing that character. If you had to play a character forced down your throat, you probably wouldn't want to PAY to play that character unless of course...you were like the MAIN focus of an MMO...so say YOU got selected out of THOUSANDS of people to play DC's Batman...and every other person in the MMO had to treat you LIKE Batman...okay THEN MAYBE that would be the situation where that would work...

Look, my point is, as an audience member/reader, when you get to watch a character develop, you grow attached, you feel like you KNOW them, you sympathize with them, etc. It's not that people are looking for darker takes on things, they are looking for a relative realism. Golden age crap doesn't work in today's day and age not JUST because of the ridiculous 'perfection' but also just in LOGIC...in this hyper-connected world, Clark Kent getting away with being Superman by a pair of ******* glasses is stupid. It was kinda stupid back in the day, I mean, seriously, I could take a pic with my iPhone, throw that sucker up on the internet and he'd be identified within SECONDS. Spider-man got away with it due to him wearing a full mask!


Super-powered is a 'broad' term in today's market. Batman is considered a superhero, but he doesn't HAVE any superpowers other than being stupid rich and oh-damn-so-sexy (but so is every A-list celebrity, and we don't consider them superheroes). But if we're going real superpowers...the majority of those stories in which you are complaining about, I'm assuming is from the Marvel side since that's what we're talking about, and also along the lines of "X-men" or "Hulk" storylines, where they have 'developed' into being superheroes or whatever...

Look, while that sounds cliche NOW, it wasn't THEN (when that **** was new). ALSO, you can take a cliche concept and take it somewhere NEW. Anyone here see MOON? With Sam Rockwell? FREAKING AWESOME movie (I swear he better get an Oscar). The concept has been done MANY MANY times, the message was simple, however, it was the WAY the story was told that made it so good.

FYI, most stories are just ******* rip-offs of classics ANYWAY. Almost NOTHING in comics OR Hollywood (which are becoming synonymous these days) is "NEW." But just like you can line up comic artists A, B, and C (all of whom are DAMN good artists) the deciding factor on who to work with usually goes down to who tells a story BETTER? THAT's where the ART comes in. Same thing for films...you know for a fact that you could have the SAME script and you give one to Joe "OMG I WANNA DIRECT FILMS" Blow and Martin Scorsese and the latter would make something brilliant. Even if that story was something as benign as "Little Bunny Fufu."

Okay now I went on a tangent...and I'm not entirely sure if that all made sense...:P

My theory on this:

Everyone knew Clark was Superman. They just didn't say anything because they were afraid. Seriously, this guy is running around in tights with the strength to punch a planet into the sun then he comes into the office wearing glasses that he apparently doesn't need acting COMPLETELY different. It's clear he has some severe psychological problems. Are you gonna try and push that guy's buttons? No way! Just nod, play his game, and hope he doesn't turn you into a fine mist.

ROFLMAO. I edited my original post. It's longer now and makes more sense.

I clarify my position on Superman a bit

I don't agree with this. Stories which focus too much towards character developement are boring, and stories which focus to much towards the plot at the expense of the characters are boring. They are not supposed to be two different styles of writing, they are supposed to be two equal parts of every story. They are supposed to compliment one another. (OMGZ NO WAI!) To me, using one without the other amounts to something as crazy as writing a story with nothing but grammatical words. (Leaving out the Lexical ones because "that's the way we do things.") It would make no sense and move for a poor story.

Origin stories are examples of what every story should be like in comic books. The character enters the story, significant change occurs, the character exits the story. The only real changes the majority of superheros have are the moment they get their powers. After that point they basically plateau. If you are writing a story and a character is not able to undergo significant change...then let someone else be the protagonist. Let Green Lantern become a background character while "Ginger Lantern" copes with the death of his wife. I have always thought that a characters book should focus more on the characters mythos/lore than it should the character themselves.

I don't think you quite understood why I mentioned the movies. The only reason I mentioned X-Men, Watchman, and Batman Begins, was because the costumes the heroes have are all much more dark costume wise than their source material. That was the only comparison. It shows that the style of the costumes have changed. Costumes are still needed as part of the superhero mythos. "Random guy in a suit who can shoot lasers out of his eyes" is BORING. The entire concept of the costume is hard-wired to the very central theme of what superheroes ARE. They are supposed to be exaggerations of human potential. By day I am John Smith, but when I put on my mask/cape/cowl/whatever I can be ANYTHING.

Basically the sentiment of the latter part of my message was this:

Morales != Costumes.

The golden age of morales is dead, but superhero costumes have not died with them.

Rookery likes living dangerously....*gives hera bulletproof vest and a helmet*