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Post by Fanboy Menace on Jul 29, 2009 21:38:34 GMT -5
The "death" of Batman that is. Sure it's a gimmick and it's temporary and we all knew it, but couldn't they at least held up the suspense a little instead of just giving it away the very next month?
Marvel went through the "Death of Superman" playbook with Captain America and did a pretty good job. The story was well-received, the mantle passed in a believable fashion, and they stayed tight-lipped on Cap's status for a long time. There was enough reasonable doubt there to at least make you think somewhere in the back of your mind, "maybe they really do have the balls to make a major change like this". You could buy into the event death a little and it did make it a little more exciting.
But with Batman, you already know. Dick's getting his shot at playing Batman for awhile, but eventually Bruce will be back. They went to all the trouble of trading up the Batman dynamic and playing up the whole event death structure (competition of the mantle, etc.), but then there was that all-too-soon spoiler at the end of Final Crisis. So... why?
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Post by Motherfucking Awesome!! on Jul 29, 2009 22:16:20 GMT -5
I don't see the problem here. Bruce Wayne didn't "die", so why use the Death of Superman or Death of Captain America playbooks. This is a different story, one that hasn't finished yet....so enjoy the ride.
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Post by Ramon133 on Jul 29, 2009 23:03:05 GMT -5
Yes, that exactly. Batman's not dead.
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Kris
Junior Member
Posts: 85
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Post by Kris on Jul 30, 2009 1:41:01 GMT -5
I like that they didn't insult our intelligence and "kill" him. We all know he'd be back and we've seen big, "shocking" deaths in comics before, so it's not like it would have been a novel idea.
And with what's going on at Marvel, my stance here is only reinforced. While I knew Steve Rogers would be back one day, he's not nearly as iconic as Bruce Wayne where the company couldn't have gone on for years and years without him. Bucky was filling out the role great and sales were still phenomenal as were the stories. Marvel could have gone in this direction for a long time, but now all of a sudden we find out Brubaker only wanted Rogers to be "dead" for a couple issues and he was never really dead and it's all part of some masterplan... Whatever. I feel strung along, like all this time I invested in Bucky was a waste. I thought he'd be given much longer than he got to be Cap and I thought this because Marvel played it like Rogers was really dead. If they were going to bring him back so quickly, I would have rather been in on it and prepared for his return, instead of, quite honestly, disappointed that he's coming back. As it is now, I only plan on picking the rest of Brubaker's Cap up in trades, but I think I'd be way more excited for this rebirth had I known the last two years were really building toward it.
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Post by Motherfucking Awesome!! on Jul 30, 2009 13:25:17 GMT -5
I like that they didn't insult our intelligence and "kill" him. We all know he'd be back and we've seen big, "shocking" deaths in comics before, so it's not like it would have been a novel idea. And with what's going on at Marvel, my stance here is only reinforced. While I knew Steve Rogers would be back one day, he's not nearly as iconic as Bruce Wayne where the company couldn't have gone on for years and years without him. Bucky was filling out the role great and sales were still phenomenal as were the stories. Marvel could have gone in this direction for a long time, but now all of a sudden we find out Brubaker only wanted Rogers to be "dead" for a couple issues and he was never really dead and it's all part of some masterplan... Whatever. I feel strung along, like all this time I invested in Bucky was a waste. I thought he'd be given much longer than he got to be Cap and I thought this because Marvel played it like Rogers was really dead. If they were going to bring him back so quickly, I would have rather been in on it and prepared for his return, instead of, quite honestly, disappointed that he's coming back. As it is now, I only plan on picking the rest of Brubaker's Cap up in trades, but I think I'd be way more excited for this rebirth had I known the last two years were really building toward it. I was going to say something similar about DC not insulting our intelligence but I didn't. DC does get respect for being very upfront about the plans. They've stuck to "Bruce Wayne isn't dead" and "Bruce's story will continue" and even Dan Didio has said its all been planned out. I hope whatever is planned and happens to Bruce will be regarded by the general fanboy nation as being worth the wait like Blackest Night has been. DC seems to be all about the slow, patient build up lately where Marvel seems to be so far gone in ongoing crossovers there is no end in sight.
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Post by Fanboy Menace on Aug 1, 2009 4:17:27 GMT -5
Well of course you can say that "but Batman's alive" because in hindsight they included that last page telling you so in Final Crisis. But was that the plan all along? Without that one page, which was a late-date add in from what I can tell from what Morrison's said in interviews, you would be looking at the exact same event death Marvel just went through with Captain America. You had your lead-in arc... called Batman RIP no less, a fake-out death in that which seemed a little like they dropped the ball, an on-page death in their big crossover with class Crisis Death imagery of Superman crying... still making that the focal scene on the later hardcover, a following "what the heck do we do with this guy gone oh hey let's all fight for his mantle" story, the former sidekick picking up the role, etc. Why go through the paces and not follow through with it? Without the spoil you would have people genuinely guessing about the character's fate at this point. They followed the playbook closely enough that when the "death" came people were sorta scratching their heads and wondering where the media hype was. If you can get people lining up for Captain America this could have been huge.
Was it a matter of DC respecting you then or just a botched event? The death really seemed like it should have taken place in the Batman books, was moved to Final Crisis, then spoiled at the last second before the big "oh noes, Batman is gone" storyline. Did Marvel beat them to the punch with the media hype? Did they catch wind of the similarities in the two events and wanted to get the jump on Marvel with the conclusion so they didn't look like copycats or johnny-come-latelys? Did they fear some backlash similar to what Kris described where if they did their job too well people would be disappointed down the line when they did pull the rug out from under the new guy and wheel back out the classic version?
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