sus

Well-known member
Lego Batman IS awesome

Captain America 3: Civil War
Avengers Assemble
Iron Man
Spider Man: Homecoming
Thor: Ragnarok
Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy
Ant Man
Captain America: The First Avenger
Iron Man 3
Dr Strange
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Thor 1
Thor 2
This can't be a real list. Is this a real list? Civil War is bottom-tier, without question
 

version

Well-known member
Alan Moore wound up a bunch of people the other day,

“I said round about 2011 that I thought that it had serious and worrying implications for the future if millions of adults were queueing up to see Batman movies. Because that kind of infantilisation – that urge towards simpler times, simpler realities – that can very often be a precursor to fascism.” He points out that when Trump was elected in 2016, and “when we ourselves took a bit of a strange detour in our politics”, many of the biggest films were superhero movies.

 

version

Well-known member
I agree with him that it's worrying how many adults consume seemingly nothing but material aimed at children, but the fascism thing feels a bit trite at this point.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I wonder if before the advent of comic book culture the majority of adults consumed thoroughly 'adult' content anyway?

What did the average young adult watch prior to the appearance of the MCU etc. – Panorama?

Does anyone watch 'The Boys' on Prime? It's a nakedly satirical take on superheroes which draws a direct connection between the Superman ideal and Fascism ala. Trump. But it's got that queasy self-contradictoriness to it that I've noticed such comics/shows tend to have, asking us to condemn violence while revelling in it at the same time.
 

version

Well-known member
I wonder if before the advent of comic book culture the majority of adults consumed thoroughly 'adult' content anyway?

What did the average young adult watch prior to the appearance of the MCU etc. – Panorama?

You had Star Wars and John Wayne Westerns and whatnot well before the recent Marvel wave, but it feels as though there used to be a bit more room for stuff other than that.

It's bizarre to think of a film like The French Connection winning five Oscars. It just seems so removed from what's considered Oscar material these days.
 
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dawnn

Member
I like Marvel movies a lot. Can't wait for a new one. I decided to rewatch some of them lately, but couldn't find them in good quality. So, I've read this article and installed VPN. Now I can stream anything I want and my data is safe.
 

sus

Well-known member
I've been reading Grant Morrison's Supergods. It's very good. I can excerpt some of his descriptions of Batman & Superman & Wonder Woman if people are interested. He's good at situating them in ancient mythology, modernist art, Gothic literature, pulp sci-fi, horror, history, the works. You get a really rich "thick" description that feels like worldbuilding as much as analysis.

Reading it because I've been watching a little WWE, and got interested in Seth Rollins as a Loki-esque character in his Night of Champions showdown with the Tim McGraw-esque AJ Styles... It all felt very mythological and symbolic. Want to write something about "Modern Gods" and modern myth; if people have reading recs along those lines I'd love to hear.
 

sus

Well-known member
Batman was born of the deliberate reversal of everything in the Superman dynamic: Superman was an alien with incredible powers; Batman was a human being with no superhuman abilities. Superman’s costume was brightly colored; Batman’s was grayscale and somber with mocking flashes of yellow. In his secret Clark Kent identity, Superman was a hardworking farmer’s son who grew up in small-town Kansas, while Batman’s Bruce Wayne enjoyed life as a wealthy playboy—an East Coast sophisticate descended from old money. Clark had a boss; Bruce had a butler. Clark pined after Lois; Bruce burned through a string of debutantes and leading ladies. Superman worked alone; Batman had a boy partner, Robin, who wore green briefs, a black mask, and a yellow cape. Superman was of the day; Batman was of the night and the shadows. Superman was rational, Apollonian; Batman was Dionysian. Superman’s mission was the measured allotment of justice; Batman’s, an emotive two-fisted ask-questions-later vendetta.
 

sus

Well-known member
Lots of stuff like this—Morrison calls Joker the makeup-caked European answer to the American Batman, for instance:

The Joker’s ruined mug was the face at the end of it all, the makeup melting on the funeral mask of Von Aschenbach in Visconti’s Death in Venice, the grinning skull caked under troweled layers of cosmetics. Corrupt and unhealthy, protopunk, proto-Goth, he was skinny, pale, hunched, and psychopathic. He was Johnny Rotten, Steerpike, Bowie strung out in Berlin, or Joel Grey in Cabaret. The Joker was the perfect dissolute European response to Batman’s essentially can-do New World determination, toned physique, and outrageous wealth.
 
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