My concern is that King will be making significant use of 2 heroes who are basically the antithesis of real world concerns like PTSD. From what I've heard him say on wordballoon, the main reason he uses these characters is because he asks editorial what characters he can use and they told him Harley and Booster. The same reason he wrote a story with Mister Miracle.
Given his professional background if anyone can fit such profoundly silly/"fun"characters into a story about a topic so decidedly troubling and un-fun, it would be him, but hearing that Harley and Booster are going to be featured in a story about PTSD is a little like hearing Deadpool and She-hulk are going to be in a story about the effects of domestic violence.
@Vertighost I hear what you are saying. And I think, as you suggest, it is exactly because we don't usually associate those characters with stories that have depth or weight to them. They are not the types that tend to show up in something that we expect to be that kind of drama. But that might let he and Mann tell a different or surprising story with them that plays against those expectations. Just like, as you mentioned, what he and Gerads are doing with Mister Miracle, as well as what he and Walta did with Vision at Marvel.
@David_D, agreed. If he pulls it off I will be even more impressed with him. If it's any indication, Bendis said he read the first issue ( I think it was in script stage) and he raved about it.
All I ask is that King doesn't screw up Booster. Booster is one of the few DC characters that I really dig. Based on the spotlight ad above, I should be pissed about this series. However, King hasn't let me down yet, so I'm just gonna go with the flow, and keep my fingers crossed Booster is still awesome at the end.
I also tapped out of Mister Miracle and from what I've heard about it from others (like they really don't understand what's going on but are expecting it all to make sense in the end), I'm glad I did.
I grew up with Hal Jordan and mostly dropped out of collecting the Big 2 during the 90's, so Kyle Rayner was never my guy, but I assume a lot of people who started collecting in the 90's would hate to see him go, so I would hope he keeps him around. I didn't get the impression that King would be the type of writer who would off a character like that, but I might be wrong.
If it's true, I assume DC feels there's plenty of Lanterns from earth already?
DC already let Tom play with Kyle in Omega Men and mess him up. He's a logical choice, I guess. And not only are there plenty of Earth-born Lanterns, there are plenty of white, male Earth-born Lanterns.
Everyone online seems to think that Kyle Rayner is on the chopping block for this series. What does everyone here think? Good idea? Bad idea?
I can’t really say until I read it. So, we’ll see. I will say that killing off a lesser used/ perhaps underused character is an old trick. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done well. For me it is all in how it is told, and whether it moves the story.
Of course, if it turns out to be a bad idea, they’re pretty good at undoing those sorts of things ;)
How did King mess him up in Omega Men? (I never read it.)
With the newer Green Lanterns - Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz - I thought there were now an equal amount of Lanterns of color but if we include Alan Scott, I guess not. Does Alan Scott even exist anymore? I did a Wikipedia check and I'm unclear. Is earth 2 even a thing? I miss earth 2 and all the other earths. Why Scott Snyder and DC felt the need to create a new "dark multiverse" in Dark Nights: Metal when there were already 52 other universes to choose from is beyond me. It's like a kid wanting new toys when he ignores 90% of the toys he already has. And is there anything particularly special about these new toys?)
In any case, of course, there's no way DC is going to get rid of a Lantern of color, but I would think King (and DC) would try to get rid of a less beloved character. I get the impression he's like Wally West (i.e. their first version of the hero) to some of the people who started reading in the 90's. I would think there are plenty of white male heroes with nowhere near the following of Rayner they could off. And again, I have no dog in this fight: Rayner isn't my Lantern, but I get the impression a lot of younger fans would not want him gone.
In an interesting bit of timing, it looks like DC has been doing some volumes of past Kyle Rayner material in trades, with volume 1 last year, 2 this past May, and a volume 3 scheduled for January 2019.
So, if it turns out this is happening in Heroes In Crisis, and it leads to an outpouring of nostalgia for those fans who grew up with Rayner... well, DC will have some books for them to buy and show their support for the character.
According to the cover of DC Nation #4 there are 5 other characters it also might be:
(if you're interested)
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
it might also be Red Robin, Arsenal, Booster Gold, Harley Quinn or Cyborg. It obviously won't be Cyborg (god, I miss the way Wolfman & Perez wrote & drew him) since he's a character of color and Harley Quinn's far too popular, so that leaves Robin, Arsenal, Booster or Kyle. I think it's down to Booster and Kyle since they would be the easiest to bring back to life. Especially Booster because of the time traveling, I would assume.
Anytime a story has people trying to figure out who's "expendable" or who can be brought back from the dead easiest, it's a sign of a story that's pushing against the limits of what works in a shared superhero universe where death has been used as a cheap marketing tool and creative crutch for decades.
Is death really the only stakes writers are able to think up these days?
Weddings are popular at the moment too. :)
Looking at the superhero comics I read last week the stakes were:
Sense of Identity (in seven different comics) Kidnapping (in two different comics) Democracy under threat Death Grief Creating a future they didn't want.
Some of those are overlapping in the same comic.
I guess due to the nature of the genre, superheroes having to struggle with their sense of identity is always going to be a go to move. And rarely something that's going to be a big move for an event.
Though 3 of those 7 comics have people's identities being physically split which is rarer and weird that Marvel has three comics with that in them in the same week.
Deaths, if they’re big enough characters, generate media interest and sales. We can call it a gimmick or cliché, but as long as it moves paper—the four-color kind and the green kind—they’ll keep going to that well.
As for the current rash of split personalities, I think that’s a natural go-to given that our country is going through a bit of an identity crisis.
@Brack Yeah, I overgeneralized. There are a lot of good comics with good stakes. It's these event books that feel death is the only thing worth writing about.
In the history of comics only a handful of deaths have really stuck. Captain Mar-Vell is the one that comes to mind for me. So knowing that, why can't the writers just take "death" off the table as something to write about. Just don't even pitch it. Pitch something else. Anything else.
In an interesting bit of timing, it looks like DC has been doing some volumes of past Kyle Rayner material in trades, with volume 1 last year, 2 this past May, and a volume 3 scheduled for January 2019.
So, if it turns out this is happening in Heroes In Crisis, and it leads to an outpouring of nostalgia for those fans who grew up with Rayner... well, DC will have some books for them to buy and show their support for the character.
Oh HECK yes. I recommend people buy these up anyways to show support. It's been AT LEAST ten years since any Kyle stuff was in print.
We actually had both Ron Mark & Darryl Banks on the LanternCast to hype the release of the first volume of this! (click on the album art for the link)
Thanks, @CageNarleigh. I forgot about Jay Garrick in the Button. However was it clear that he was from earth 2? Wasn't he living on earth 1 for a time? Sorry if I'm asking questions with obvious answers, but I'm ignorant on the whole earth 2 thing after the "rebirth" stuff. I'm enjoying certain parts of Doomsday Clock (the forums seem strangely quiet about it from what I've seen), but honestly I have no idea what earth that's occurring on. The earth Johns is writing in that seems very different from the earth 1 I'm seeing in other comics. The whole meta human government conspiracy thing was something entirely new, but then there's also the anti-Bat sentiment in the community. The anti-Bat stuff is radically different from the Gotham community King is writing about in Bats - where apparently they can't find a single Gothamite who's not Pro-Bats to serve on a jury.
Everyone online seems to think that Kyle Rayner is on the chopping block for this series. What does everyone here think? Good idea? Bad idea?
I'm severely out of the loop when it comes to DC... any particular reason folks feel Kyle has the axe hanging over his head in regards to this series? What's the rational to target Kyle?
Everyone online seems to think that Kyle Rayner is on the chopping block for this series. What does everyone here think? Good idea? Bad idea?
I'm severely out of the loop when it comes to DC... any particular reason folks feel Kyle has the axe hanging over his head in regards to this series? What's the rational to target Kyle?
Well, we know that people are going to die when the Sanctuary is attacked. That's what kicks off the series. Rumors are that Kyle Rayner and Ray Palmer are two of the victims. I don't know how much of that is true, and don't really care. But I think the reasoning is that DC doesn't seem to know what to do with Kyle now. Hal and John Stewart are the two GLs that show up in other media, and that’s not going to change. Kyle isn’t even carrying an ongoing series at the moment. They tried the White Lantern thing, but took that away in Tom King’s Omega Men miniseries, so Kyle’s even more superfluous now (and kind of by the hands of Tom King). Don’t know if it will actually happen, but it’s a logical choice.
@David_D, I just reread your review of the Bats/WW decades-long fighting-a-war story in Batman 39 in the Comics You Didn't Like This Week section and just wanted to say that I found your take on it tremendously insightful, especially in light of Heroes in Crisis being just around the corner. I've been thinking the entire premise of the story (heroes dealing with PTSD) just feels way too real for superhero comics (specifically superhero comics where the readers are very familiar with the heroes and know that they've all been through hell and back several times over), and I think you put your finger on exactly why I feel that way. (Given the way King tends to write Batman, how can Bats and WW spend decades fighting in an actual war and then just brush it off?)
Heroes in Crisis seems like the kind of story that could work in a Watchmen-style universe, but if we're really going to explore the psychological effects of violence than why don't all the heroes we know and love have the most profound cases of PTSD (with the according anxiety, depression, social isolation, self-medicating behaviors and flashbacks) ever? There's an argument to be made - and I expect King is going to make it - that Batman as Batman IS constantly experiencing some symptoms of PTSD, but that makes a lot less sense when you bring his daily alter ego Bruce Wayne into the picture.
I also really wonder what he's going to do with Harley Quinn. King can easily just attribute her behavior to being "nuts" to PTSD, but why is it such an unusual and fun and funny brand of PTSD? I honestly am eager to read this just to see if he can actually make this something that really makes sense, but I'm guessing I'm going to frequently be feeling more of the Batman 39 vibe you discussed.
@Vertighost I think those are valid concerns, and definitely it is an ambitious kind of story to try to tell about characters whose fictional lives are filled with an ever-expanding middle filled with potentially traumatic loss and near-loss. I can totally understand why a story like this might not work.
I think in the case of those Batman issues what hurt it, for me, was the enormous time window of experience. That not only did they have this separation from the people in their lives, and fatiguing state of constant war, but that it was also meant to have felt like decades of time, and that is just too over the top of a thing to brush off after those two issues and get back to business as usual.
It may be, and again, at this point we can only guess, that Heroes In Crisis will be about what has already happened, and exploring the humanity of what it might be to be in a state of so-constant struggle and danger. And maybe by focusing not on Batman or Superman, but on a character like Booster who doesn't have the same enormous volume of event and story to manage, may be a way to go.
But, we'll see. I think this is thoughtful speculation, but soon we will have the work itself to judge by. Where there is also every possibility it might actually succeed. As a premise a book like Mister Miracle should sound like it wouldn't work. But for me it has, and has been one of my favorite comics of the last year. So, here's hoping. Time will tell.
Unfortunately for me Mister Miracle did not work. And given the reasons people who do like it give for liking it (the inscrutability seems to be an essential part of the appeal), I'm glad I dropped it. I'll give it another chance when it's collected and comes out in my library, but stories that spend a great deal of time obscuring what is and isn't really happening from the reader always make me think of the Nietzsche quote: "poets muddy their waters to appear deep".
While I give King the benefit of the doubt and assume he's not doing that (although the ending to Batman 49 didn't make any sense to me either and I've yet to hear anyone's explanation of what it all meant), the story still felt that way to me on an emotional level. Whatever easter eggs there were also went over my head, so I couldn't enjoy musing over that either. I've also heard at least 2 different fans of MM say that they simply "have faith" that it will all make sense in the end. But different strokes...
I'm assuming I will be able to, at minimum, stick with Heroes in Crisis until the end since from everything I've read about it any profundity the story has is going to come from a deeper (or different) understanding of character rather than the chronic ambiguity that I associate with MM. I still get the feeling that even if I enjoy it though, I'm going to think it would work better with characters who don't have so much history tied to them (like Watchmen or Rick Veitch's Brat Pack).
Coincidentally, I've been reading an old Comics Journal interview with Frank Miller (issue 101) where he's discussing putting heroes into a too "real world" context. You may find part of it interesting. The interview was done WHILE Miller was still in the midst of creating Dark Knight Returns and, however one feels about Miller in his latter days, he sounds positively prescient back then. He discusses the idea of taking heroes "seriously" and notes that "If you take the idea of a host of heroes out there seriously, you're pretty soon going to end up with a story where the entire world is entirely transformed". (Warren Ellis and Mark Millar would run with this idea years later with the Authority I think.) He then says that the comics companies (which he was complaining about not experimenting more and not doing more to attract older readers) "can only continue publishing comics so long as they don't take the ideas that they've got the distance". Then he notes, "I think Alan Moore's working on something that does take the idea the distance" (this is almost certainly Watchmen given the time frame). He also says that he prefers to stay away from the "host of heroes" idea and that he is not striving for realism (for lack of a better word) with DKR. He says that "in order for the character [Batman in the DKR] to work, he has to be a force that in certain ways is beyond good and evil" and that "we can't think of him as a man".
I guess this is my long-winded way of saying that I get the impression that King is trying to have it both ways (which is what I got from your assessment of him and WW being trapped in a decades-long war and then brushing it off): IMO his run on Batman seems very much focused on having the reader think of Batman as a man, but then with that post decades-long war shrug, he's a comic book character once more.
In any case I will be reading Heroes in Crisis and expect some surprises. I was thinking that in order to do the unexpected (which he usually does quite well) he will suggest or imply that Harley Quinn isn't actually "crazy" at all. That it's more of a choice on her part.
BTW, speaking of PTSD in the comic book world, I actually thought Netflix's underrated Punisher series did a pretty good job of incorporating that into its story in a very organic way. I also thought it was one of the 2 best series on there along with the first season of Jessica Jones (hey! it also touches on PTSD!) (And I say all this as someone who never in a million years expected to enjoy a tv show with a character as one dimensional as the Punisher.)
I get that. And that is interesting, what Miller said back then, especially in light of what his and Moore/Gibbons' work ended up inspiring, as far as the many attempts to take heroes seriously that followed their work. (And, unfortunately, for many who sought to imitate, by "serious" they mostly just ran with increased levels of violence and cruelty, essentially what got those books their equivalent of an R rating, as opposed to latching on to what actually made them mature works).
For what it is worth, and this is not at all to try to get you to enjoy something you were not enjoying, but I actually don't find Mister Miracle inscrutable. I know that first issue was a little jarring, and I can see why it led to some speculation as to whether everything we were seeing in the issue may or may not be real/ did he or didn't he?/ etc. (as this is not a thread about that, I won't get into spoilers, but you know what I mean).
I know that there are those moments of static that happen, but overall I have found that story has been told in a pretty linear, and straightforward, fashion so far. It may not be the kind of story everyone wants, or enjoys, and I respect that. But I actually have not found the later issues to be muddy, for what it is worth. There is a lot of juxtaposition between giant cosmic war between planets things and very grounded, mundane, normal Earth life things. And sometimes characters will be in the one place talking about the other thing, and vice versa. And that style has not been everyones cuppa. But I think I have always been pretty clear on what is happening in both places and what the story is.
As for the style and tone that Heroes In Crisis will take, well, we'll see soon. I think it speaks well of what that story may be setting out to do, ambition-wise, that there is this much speculation and discussion about it before it even hits. I think that might be a good sign.
Agreed on Heroes in Crisis. I'm thinking it will be an interesting experiment even if I find it unsatisfying in certain ways.
I will definitely be trying the collected edition of MM when it comes to my library. I actually read about 4 issues before I tapped out. While I could follow what I'd read, what I didn't like was that the story IMO up to that point at least, was continually suggesting "Some-or-all-of-this may-only-be-occurring-in-Scott's-mind". I just hate stories like that even though they can be quite popular. I discovered my distaste for these kinds of stories when I saw the original Total Recall. It's the kind of concept Phillip K. Dick has done with some frequency I think. For me, the possibility that some or all of this may not actually be "occurring" (as a story) keeps me from fully investing in it. If I try to figure out why I react this way, I think it's because it makes me feel that the story may end to reveal nothing was ever really at stake, our protagonist was never really in danger. But I know those kinds of stories can be quite popular with sci-fi fans.
That it was inscrutable is what I'd heard from 2 others. In any case I will definitely try reading it again simply because it's MM (always loved the escape artist idea and the costume - esp those flying disks), King and I like the art.
Agreed on Heroes in Crisis. I'm thinking it will be an interesting experiment even if I find it unsatisfying in certain ways.
I will definitely be trying the collected edition of MM when it comes to my library. I actually read about 4 issues before I tapped out. While I could follow what I'd read, what I didn't like was that the story IMO up to that point at least, was continually suggesting "Some-or-all-of-this may-only-be-occurring-in-Scott's-mind". I just hate stories like that even though they can be quite popular. I discovered my distaste for these kinds of stories when I saw the original Total Recall. It's the kind of concept Phillip K. Dick has done with some frequency I think. For me, the possibility that some or all of this may not actually be "occurring" (as a story) keeps me from fully investing in it. If I try to figure out why I react this way, I think it's because it makes me feel that the story may end to reveal nothing was ever really at stake, our protagonist was never really in danger. But I know those kinds of stories can be quite popular with sci-fi fans.
That it was inscrutable is what I'd heard from 2 others. In any case I will definitely try reading it again simply because it's MM (always loved the escape artist idea and the costume - esp those flying disks), King and I like the art.
I think it is great you might give it a second chance as a trade. That is more chances than most people give a work that didn't grab them the first time!
luckymustard
Posts: 927
Comments
If Tom King is in, then so am I.
Given his professional background if anyone can fit such profoundly silly/"fun"characters into a story about a topic so decidedly troubling and un-fun, it would be him, but hearing that Harley and Booster are going to be featured in a story about PTSD is a little like hearing Deadpool and She-hulk are going to be in a story about the effects of domestic violence.
Booster is one of the few DC characters that I really dig. Based on the spotlight ad above, I should be pissed about this series. However, King hasn't let me down yet, so I'm just gonna go with the flow, and keep my fingers crossed Booster is still awesome at the end.
But the bigger part is that it's setting off my IDENTITY CRISIS SENSE.
If it's true, I assume DC feels there's plenty of Lanterns from earth already?
Of course, if it turns out to be a bad idea, they’re pretty good at undoing those sorts of things ;)
With the newer Green Lanterns - Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz - I thought there were now an equal amount of Lanterns of color but if we include Alan Scott, I guess not. Does Alan Scott even exist anymore? I did a Wikipedia check and I'm unclear. Is earth 2 even a thing? I miss earth 2 and all the other earths. Why Scott Snyder and DC felt the need to create a new "dark multiverse" in Dark Nights: Metal when there were already 52 other universes to choose from is beyond me. It's like a kid wanting new toys when he ignores 90% of the toys he already has. And is there anything particularly special about these new toys?)
In any case, of course, there's no way DC is going to get rid of a Lantern of color, but I would think King (and DC) would try to get rid of a less beloved character. I get the impression he's like Wally West (i.e. their first version of the hero) to some of the people who started reading in the 90's. I would think there are plenty of white male heroes with nowhere near the following of Rayner they could off. And again, I have no dog in this fight: Rayner isn't my Lantern, but I get the impression a lot of younger fans would not want him gone.
So, if it turns out this is happening in Heroes In Crisis, and it leads to an outpouring of nostalgia for those fans who grew up with Rayner... well, DC will have some books for them to buy and show their support for the character.
(if you're interested)
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
it might also be Red Robin, Arsenal, Booster Gold, Harley Quinn or Cyborg. It obviously won't be Cyborg (god, I miss the way Wolfman & Perez wrote & drew him) since he's a character of color and Harley Quinn's far too popular, so that leaves Robin, Arsenal, Booster or Kyle. I think it's down to Booster and Kyle since they would be the easiest to bring back to life. Especially Booster because of the time traveling, I would assume.
Anytime a story has people trying to figure out who's "expendable" or who can be brought back from the dead easiest, it's a sign of a story that's pushing against the limits of what works in a shared superhero universe where death has been used as a cheap marketing tool and creative crutch for decades.
Looking at the superhero comics I read last week the stakes were:
Sense of Identity (in seven different comics)
Kidnapping (in two different comics)
Democracy under threat
Death
Grief
Creating a future they didn't want.
Some of those are overlapping in the same comic.
I guess due to the nature of the genre, superheroes having to struggle with their sense of identity is always going to be a go to move. And rarely something that's going to be a big move for an event.
Though 3 of those 7 comics have people's identities being physically split which is rarer and weird that Marvel has three comics with that in them in the same week.
As for the current rash of split personalities, I think that’s a natural go-to given that our country is going through a bit of an identity crisis.
In the history of comics only a handful of deaths have really stuck. Captain Mar-Vell is the one that comes to mind for me. So knowing that, why can't the writers just take "death" off the table as something to write about. Just don't even pitch it. Pitch something else. Anything else.
We actually had both Ron Mark & Darryl Banks on the LanternCast to hype the release of the first volume of this! (click on the album art for the link)
Heroes in Crisis seems like the kind of story that could work in a Watchmen-style universe, but if we're really going to explore the psychological effects of violence than why don't all the heroes we know and love have the most profound cases of PTSD (with the according anxiety, depression, social isolation, self-medicating behaviors and flashbacks) ever? There's an argument to be made - and I expect King is going to make it - that Batman as Batman IS constantly experiencing some symptoms of PTSD, but that makes a lot less sense when you bring his daily alter ego Bruce Wayne into the picture.
I also really wonder what he's going to do with Harley Quinn. King can easily just attribute her behavior to being "nuts" to PTSD, but why is it such an unusual and fun and funny brand of PTSD? I honestly am eager to read this just to see if he can actually make this something that really makes sense, but I'm guessing I'm going to frequently be feeling more of the Batman 39 vibe you discussed.
I think in the case of those Batman issues what hurt it, for me, was the enormous time window of experience. That not only did they have this separation from the people in their lives, and fatiguing state of constant war, but that it was also meant to have felt like decades of time, and that is just too over the top of a thing to brush off after those two issues and get back to business as usual.
It may be, and again, at this point we can only guess, that Heroes In Crisis will be about what has already happened, and exploring the humanity of what it might be to be in a state of so-constant struggle and danger. And maybe by focusing not on Batman or Superman, but on a character like Booster who doesn't have the same enormous volume of event and story to manage, may be a way to go.
But, we'll see. I think this is thoughtful speculation, but soon we will have the work itself to judge by. Where there is also every possibility it might actually succeed. As a premise a book like Mister Miracle should sound like it wouldn't work. But for me it has, and has been one of my favorite comics of the last year. So, here's hoping. Time will tell.
While I give King the benefit of the doubt and assume he's not doing that (although the ending to Batman 49 didn't make any sense to me either and I've yet to hear anyone's explanation of what it all meant), the story still felt that way to me on an emotional level. Whatever easter eggs there were also went over my head, so I couldn't enjoy musing over that either. I've also heard at least 2 different fans of MM say that they simply "have faith" that it will all make sense in the end. But different strokes...
I'm assuming I will be able to, at minimum, stick with Heroes in Crisis until the end since from everything I've read about it any profundity the story has is going to come from a deeper (or different) understanding of character rather than the chronic ambiguity that I associate with MM. I still get the feeling that even if I enjoy it though, I'm going to think it would work better with characters who don't have so much history tied to them (like Watchmen or Rick Veitch's Brat Pack).
Coincidentally, I've been reading an old Comics Journal interview with Frank Miller (issue 101) where he's discussing putting heroes into a too "real world" context. You may find part of it interesting. The interview was done WHILE Miller was still in the midst of creating Dark Knight Returns and, however one feels about Miller in his latter days, he sounds positively prescient back then. He discusses the idea of taking heroes "seriously" and notes that "If you take the idea of a host of heroes out there seriously, you're pretty soon going to end up with a story where the entire world is entirely transformed". (Warren Ellis and Mark Millar would run with this idea years later with the Authority I think.) He then says that the comics companies (which he was complaining about not experimenting more and not doing more to attract older readers) "can only continue publishing comics so long as they don't take the ideas that they've got the distance". Then he notes, "I think Alan Moore's working on something that does take the idea the distance" (this is almost certainly Watchmen given the time frame). He also says that he prefers to stay away from the "host of heroes" idea and that he is not striving for realism (for lack of a better word) with DKR. He says that "in order for the character [Batman in the DKR] to work, he has to be a force that in certain ways is beyond good and evil" and that "we can't think of him as a man".
I guess this is my long-winded way of saying that I get the impression that King is trying to have it both ways (which is what I got from your assessment of him and WW being trapped in a decades-long war and then brushing it off): IMO his run on Batman seems very much focused on having the reader think of Batman as a man, but then with that post decades-long war shrug, he's a comic book character once more.
In any case I will be reading Heroes in Crisis and expect some surprises. I was thinking that in order to do the unexpected (which he usually does quite well) he will suggest or imply that Harley Quinn isn't actually "crazy" at all. That it's more of a choice on her part.
BTW, speaking of PTSD in the comic book world, I actually thought Netflix's underrated Punisher series did a pretty good job of incorporating that into its story in a very organic way. I also thought it was one of the 2 best series on there along with the first season of Jessica Jones (hey! it also touches on PTSD!) (And I say all this as someone who never in a million years expected to enjoy a tv show with a character as one dimensional as the Punisher.)
I get that. And that is interesting, what Miller said back then, especially in light of what his and Moore/Gibbons' work ended up inspiring, as far as the many attempts to take heroes seriously that followed their work. (And, unfortunately, for many who sought to imitate, by "serious" they mostly just ran with increased levels of violence and cruelty, essentially what got those books their equivalent of an R rating, as opposed to latching on to what actually made them mature works).
For what it is worth, and this is not at all to try to get you to enjoy something you were not enjoying, but I actually don't find Mister Miracle inscrutable. I know that first issue was a little jarring, and I can see why it led to some speculation as to whether everything we were seeing in the issue may or may not be real/ did he or didn't he?/ etc. (as this is not a thread about that, I won't get into spoilers, but you know what I mean).
I know that there are those moments of static that happen, but overall I have found that story has been told in a pretty linear, and straightforward, fashion so far. It may not be the kind of story everyone wants, or enjoys, and I respect that. But I actually have not found the later issues to be muddy, for what it is worth. There is a lot of juxtaposition between giant cosmic war between planets things and very grounded, mundane, normal Earth life things. And sometimes characters will be in the one place talking about the other thing, and vice versa. And that style has not been everyones cuppa. But I think I have always been pretty clear on what is happening in both places and what the story is.
As for the style and tone that Heroes In Crisis will take, well, we'll see soon. I think it speaks well of what that story may be setting out to do, ambition-wise, that there is this much speculation and discussion about it before it even hits. I think that might be a good sign.
Agreed on Heroes in Crisis. I'm thinking it will be an interesting experiment even if I find it unsatisfying in certain ways.
I will definitely be trying the collected edition of MM when it comes to my library. I actually read about 4 issues before I tapped out. While I could follow what I'd read, what I didn't like was that the story IMO up to that point at least, was continually suggesting "Some-or-all-of-this may-only-be-occurring-in-Scott's-mind". I just hate stories like that even though they can be quite popular. I discovered my distaste for these kinds of stories when I saw the original Total Recall. It's the kind of concept Phillip K. Dick has done with some frequency I think. For me, the possibility that some or all of this may not actually be "occurring" (as a story) keeps me from fully investing in it. If I try to figure out why I react this way, I think it's because it makes me feel that the story may end to reveal nothing was ever really at stake, our protagonist was never really in danger. But I know those kinds of stories can be quite popular with sci-fi fans.
That it was inscrutable is what I'd heard from 2 others. In any case I will definitely try reading it again simply because it's MM (always loved the escape artist idea and the costume - esp those flying disks), King and I like the art.