Superman's New Look

[MA-Caver]

DC comics revamped the man of steel ... here is a sample of the comic and a cover pic. My first thought is... why are the cops shooting at Superman?

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/dc-s-n...53-slideshow%2Fsuperman-photo-1314970872.html

 

[punisher73]

If you click through the pictures you see why.

Not a big fan of the new costume. Who wears a t-shirt and a cape? At least the old costume(s) for superheroes were pretty much the same type of idea so there was a congruency. It doesn't look right trying to combine the traditional costume with street clothes.

 

[Omar B]

I got it. It's f-ing stupid. DC are restarting everything, which means 70+ years of history just went out the crapper. Superman's just starting up, and like the original at the start is not as powerful now/then/as of last week.

Now he's just a vigilante the police don't know what to make of.

Unnecessary changes ruining great stories.

 

[crushing]

This time he is not unaware of how to wear underwear.

 

[Randy Strausbaugh]

Two months in now, and this restart is a worse flop (IMHO) than I thought it would be. Even Batman knows that a forced confession won't hold up in a court of law ("Your honor, he was holding me off a balcony. I'd have confessed to killing Lincoln if he wanted me to.). The only "New 52" I can stand are Nightwing and Deathstroke.
Hopefully, DC will reconsider, and just say "never mind".
Maybe they could claim it was all one of Pam Ewing's dreams.

 

[Sukerkin]

Mmm ... Victoria Principle in the 80's ... now there's a topic worth getting hot under the collar about .

Guess that means I don't care about comic books very much :lol:.

Well that is true. Call them "graphic novels" if you wish and add in all the 'adult themes' you want, they're still for 'big kids' who can't read very well .

More seriously, I know some people take these things very seriously indeed as an art form but is it possible they are having a bad effect on other creative industries, primarily film making?

Quite a few films I've seen over the past few years suffer from comic-book-frame-itus, a malfunction that affects directors, such that they can only tell a story in terms of 'cell-by-cell-set-pieces'. Of course, that has been facilitated by the rise in special effects technologies. Combining the two negative influences leads to films that look flash, with pseudo-dramatic sections strung loosely together but which fail to have 'satisfying' content, even if it tastes nice at the point of consumption - the filmic equivalent of Chinese food maybe?

 

[Buka]

It's just WRONG!

 

[billc]

If they were going to do this they should have just followed the show Smallville's lead. They seemed to handle a revamp of the superman legend really well, at least at the beginning of the show.

 

[Mike Melillo]

DC knew it would be controversial, and there you have it... It made people talk about their product. When the original Supes reappears, a similar wave of free publicity will happen. Comics are a dying industry, and it's not surprising to see the big companies grasping at straws for public attention. It's almost cyclical.

 

[Drac]

I got it. It's f-ing stupid. DC are restarting everything, which means 70+ years of history just went out the crapper. Superman's just starting up, and like the original at the start is not as powerful now/then/as of last week.

Now he's just a vigilante the police don't know what to make of.

Unnecessary changes ruining great stories.

Didnt they do that about 10 years ago? Took everything back to square one. I have the new storyline ( at the time) Superman comics. He wasnt a wimp, he played sports and was dating Lana. The only thing I really liked was they finally dumped the the whole "Mom made his costume from the blankets he came to Earth wrapped in"..

 

[Dirty Dog]

The uniform in the last picture would be a much better choice than the jeans & t-shirt...

 

[Omar B]

Didnt they do that about 10 years ago? Took everything back to square one. I have the new storyline ( at the time) Superman comics. He wasnt a wimp, he played sports and was dating Lana. The only thing I really liked was they finally dumped the the whole "Mom made his costume from the blankets he came to Earth wrapped in"..

You are talking about John Byrne's restart that happened. So that about 10 yeras ago yu are talking about was 1987.

 

[Sukerkin]

:chuckles: That (time dilation memory distortion ) happens more and more the older you get, Omar . Years fly by once you hit the other side of forty .

 

[Omar B]

This time he is not unaware of how to wear underwear.

They are not and were not ever mean to be underwear. They are athletic trunks of the type Charles Atlas, Eugene Sandow and many of the circus strongmen (who S&S took influence from Superman's look from). Considering that's the type of entertainment the middle of Kansas would get back then, heck, his mom even talked about Able Linclon's wrestling days back when she was a child in the comics.

There's also the modesty issue. Many old strongmen posed naked, but for public display they wore trunks. My sister is a ballerina and many of the men she works with wear tights and trunks of the same color also for a modesty issue when on stage.

The trunks are/were a simple fix for the old comic 4 color printing process. Differentiation in shades were impossible so a blue character flying in a blue sky does need a red cape, gold belt and red trunks so he's not simply an outline.

 

[Carol]

He looks like a caricature of what Superman was supposed to be.

 

[Omar B]

You are correct. Sure his costume was a combo of circus strongmen of that part of the century and a limited printing process. But it is what it is now, he's the most iconic, the greatest, the most copied because he's the first and genuinely all those things. Nobody questioned Batman wearing black because anyone who had read a comic knows from text he is wearing black (just you can't have a character in black hiding in the shadows at night, just paint the whole page black). Anyone who has read a comic kknows the X-men wear black, not blue either.

 

[Josh Oakley]

Mmm ... Victoria Principle in the 80's ... now there's a topic worth getting hot under the collar about .

Guess that means I don't care about comic books very much :lol:.

Well that is true. Call them "graphic novels" if you wish and add in all the 'adult themes' you want, they're still for 'big kids' who can't read very well .

More seriously, I know some people take these things very seriously indeed as an art form but is it possible they are having a bad effect on other creative industries, primarily film making?

Quite a few films I've seen over the past few years suffer from comic-book-frame-itus, a malfunction that affects directors, such that they can only tell a story in terms of 'cell-by-cell-set-pieces'. Of course, that has been facilitated by the rise in special effects technologies. Combining the two negative influences leads to films that look flash, with pseudo-dramatic sections strung loosely together but which fail to have 'satisfying' content, even if it tastes nice at the point of consumption - the filmic equivalent of Chinese food maybe?

Watch V for Vendetta​ and get back to me on that one.

 

[Josh Oakley]

Mmm ... Victoria Principle in the 80's ... now there's a topic worth getting hot under the collar about .

Guess that means I don't care about comic books very much :lol:.

Well that is true. Call them "graphic novels" if you wish and add in all the 'adult themes' you want, they're still for 'big kids' who can't read very well .

More seriously, I know some people take these things very seriously indeed as an art form but is it possible they are having a bad effect on other creative industries, primarily film making?

Quite a few films I've seen over the past few years suffer from comic-book-frame-itus, a malfunction that affects directors, such that they can only tell a story in terms of 'cell-by-cell-set-pieces'. Of course, that has been facilitated by the rise in special effects technologies. Combining the two negative influences leads to films that look flash, with pseudo-dramatic sections strung loosely together but which fail to have 'satisfying' content, even if it tastes nice at the point of consumption - the filmic equivalent of Chinese food maybe?

NO, there's a clear line of distinction between comic books and graphic novels. If you want fantastic examples of graphic novels, try MAUS, Preacher, A Contract With God (By the immortal Will Eisner).

Alibaba just came out, but I haven't read it yet.