Peasant Phill
09-10-2009, 15:32
There's a movie review thread in the front room. You can get lots of tips to get in shape as well. LEN's footballodium …
I'm a fan of strips, BD's, comics, graphic novels, … whatever you want to call them. So why not start a comic review thread.
I'll kick off with "The Dark Knight Returns" by Frank Miller (1986)
In which senior citizen Wayne gives in to the bat once more and people lose their ability to reason logically.
Not being of American origin, I haven't read any American style comic book until recently. Determined to correct this hiatus, I asked around for some excellent series. As answers I got Sandman, V for vendetta, Watchmen, Maus and finally The Dark Knight Returns. I've read them all. Some were great, some were underwhelming. In which category should I put TDKR?
Firstly the format and the premise
I like shorter stories that run for only a few issues. Par definition, ongoing series can never build up to an equally powerful ending.
I don't much care for superheroes. Without excellent writing superhero stories can be prone to drift towards trying to One-up the previous story arc or "I'll get you next week"-situations. Therefore I liked the premise of an almost elderly batman giving it one last go. It's a standalone story with the potential for a good ending.
Graphically TDKR was decent. Good for the period it was made in. By today standards (or at least mine) it's average when it comes to line art and coloring.
Storywise I'm less than satisfied. The story simply boils to Bruce Wayne going up against the same people he always goes up against with the twist that they're all older now. No character development, no new insights.
There's absolutely no flow or rhythm. Walls of text just halt the story to a crawl. A picture is worth a 1000 words according to a well-known cliché. It's a good idea to show the controversy around batman by means of talk shows. Just don't let it crowd those few pages you have. And for the love of god make it believable. There are far better arguments for condemning batman than accusing him over and over again of murder by proxy. Seriously Harvey Dent/the joker only kills because batman exists. At least make a good argument if you want to convey a pro/con batman conflict to your readers.
Happy endings are a touchy thing for me. I don't mind them in feel-good stories and the likes but some stories just don't fit with a happy ending. Would braveheart be as compelling if Wallace escaped beheading at the last minute? Would Saving private Ryan be believable if they would've won the last battle without much loss of life?
The mock death and resurrection of Bruce Wayne felt IMO forced. A real death or forced retirement would've been better. Now it just looks like Miller awkwardly left the possibility open for a sequel. And guess what …
I'm a fan of strips, BD's, comics, graphic novels, … whatever you want to call them. So why not start a comic review thread.
I'll kick off with "The Dark Knight Returns" by Frank Miller (1986)
In which senior citizen Wayne gives in to the bat once more and people lose their ability to reason logically.
Not being of American origin, I haven't read any American style comic book until recently. Determined to correct this hiatus, I asked around for some excellent series. As answers I got Sandman, V for vendetta, Watchmen, Maus and finally The Dark Knight Returns. I've read them all. Some were great, some were underwhelming. In which category should I put TDKR?
Firstly the format and the premise
I like shorter stories that run for only a few issues. Par definition, ongoing series can never build up to an equally powerful ending.
I don't much care for superheroes. Without excellent writing superhero stories can be prone to drift towards trying to One-up the previous story arc or "I'll get you next week"-situations. Therefore I liked the premise of an almost elderly batman giving it one last go. It's a standalone story with the potential for a good ending.
Graphically TDKR was decent. Good for the period it was made in. By today standards (or at least mine) it's average when it comes to line art and coloring.
Storywise I'm less than satisfied. The story simply boils to Bruce Wayne going up against the same people he always goes up against with the twist that they're all older now. No character development, no new insights.
There's absolutely no flow or rhythm. Walls of text just halt the story to a crawl. A picture is worth a 1000 words according to a well-known cliché. It's a good idea to show the controversy around batman by means of talk shows. Just don't let it crowd those few pages you have. And for the love of god make it believable. There are far better arguments for condemning batman than accusing him over and over again of murder by proxy. Seriously Harvey Dent/the joker only kills because batman exists. At least make a good argument if you want to convey a pro/con batman conflict to your readers.
Happy endings are a touchy thing for me. I don't mind them in feel-good stories and the likes but some stories just don't fit with a happy ending. Would braveheart be as compelling if Wallace escaped beheading at the last minute? Would Saving private Ryan be believable if they would've won the last battle without much loss of life?
The mock death and resurrection of Bruce Wayne felt IMO forced. A real death or forced retirement would've been better. Now it just looks like Miller awkwardly left the possibility open for a sequel. And guess what …