The Outhouse - The Greatest Comic Book Forum

by **ElijahSnowFan** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 11:22 am

holtom2000 wrote:Don't you find a big reason for this title doing so well, outside johns writing it, is that it has so few changes from what just happened?
Generally speaking of course.

Absolutely -- I wouldn't be reading it otherwise. Johns had done a significant amount of world-building in Aquaman's story in Brightest Day, and while I get the feeling that he doesn't feel entirely bound by that work, clearly much of the characterization remains intact.

To the greater part about change: I don't want to belittle anyone's enjoyment of the New 52, nor do I want to pretend that the old DC Universe didn't have its problems. It did. There were lots of problems, some of them horrific.

But for me, I think some of the changes with the New 52 have been overdone and overblown. You can reset a universe without changing everything that has gone before, without making the massive changes that have resulted in things like the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans run never happening -- and no matter how anyone wants to slice that, that run CLEARLY didn't happen, yet characters who were expressly created during that run are active.

Aquaman makes as much sense as it does because it didn't change everything that come before. I'm glad for that.

by **Greg** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 11:24 am

I'm mad late, I'm sure. But Elijah, your is sig with Prime being right. :lol:

by **nattygreene** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 12:31 pm

ElijahSnowFan wrote:I felt it took only the slightest bit of imagination to use the character well, and the biggest thing the character needed was for the writer to show no weakness with Arthur Curry. You can't make the character incompetent or indecisive or a navel-gazer, constantly whining about his lot in life.

I had always felt that if you just played Aquaman straight, just made the character really confident and competent, a writer could do the one thing that is missing from many comics today and from the last few years: You can actually make a reader look at the book, read the book, with a sense of wonder. A sense of scale, of how powerful the ocean could be. Of how competent a character has to be to operate in that environment.

So in other words, one should write/treat Aquaman like Namor the Submariner.

by **ElijahSnowFan** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 12:47 pm

nattygreene wrote:So in other words, one should write/treat Aquaman like Namor the Submariner.

Obviously, not exactly with regard to attitude and motive; Namor's been opposed to enough happenings in "the surface world" that some could fairly question whose side he's on, while Aquaman has always been a child of two worlds, been more heroic in his attempts to protect everyone, for lack of a more precise description.

There's nothing wrong with being written like a competent character -- it's a credit to Marvel that Namor has had many good stories told about him, and I am hopeful that Aquaman is entering a phase where people will feel the same about this era.

by **nattygreene** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 1:34 pm

As long as they don't stick a hook on his arm... The anti-hero doesn't work if you are royalty and people expect things from you.

I love Peter David on X-Factor, but his mid to late 90's run on Aqua was weaksauce.

by **Cat-Scratch** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 2:06 pm

Miracloman wrote:
I guess he is one of those "when he get it right,he get it right and when he get it wrong he get it wrong" guys.

This. But I'd say more often, he gets it right then not. But Captain Marvel... WTF!!?!?!?!?!??!!?!?!

by **holtom2000** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 2:11 pm

ElijahSnowFan wrote:
Absolutely -- I wouldn't be reading it otherwise. Johns had done a significant amount of world-building in Aquaman's story in Brightest Day, and while I get the feeling that he doesn't feel entirely bound by that work, clearly much of the characterization remains intact.

To the greater part about change: I don't want to belittle anyone's enjoyment of the New 52, nor do I want to pretend that the old DC Universe didn't have its problems. It did. There were lots of problems, some of them horrific.

But for me, I think some of the changes with the New 52 have been overdone and overblown. You can reset a universe without changing everything that has gone before, without making the massive changes that have resulted in things like the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans run never happening -- and no matter how anyone wants to slice that, that run CLEARLY didn't happen, yet characters who were expressly created during that run are active.

Aquaman makes as much sense as it does because it didn't change everything that come before. I'm glad for that.

Great post