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Aug. 23rd, 2008 12:55 amI think the best word for how I'm feeling right now is maudlin - I'm not as generally pissed off as I was at the beginning of the week, I'm not really sad, I'm just sort of down and tired and prematurely homesick and postmaturely school-sick and missing all my friends and just blah. So to take my mind off it - Superbuddies post!
Last week I got my tpbs of Formerly Known As The Justice League and I Can't Believe It's Not The Justice League, the two books of the Giffen/DeMatteis run where Max Lord starts a new superhero team called the Superbuddies. And, um, wow. There is pretty much /nothing/ in this run I don't /love/ - in fact, these comics embody pretty much everything that makes me a comics fan at all.
To start with, I like the art, which a nice balance between realistic and cartoonish. I kind of hate the old Gold and Silver Age comics where everyone is odd looking and funny colored, I despise the nineties trend toward over-muscled behemoths, and I'm not really crazy about the new thing in comics - especially Marvel comics *cough*Iron Man*cough* - toward hyperrealism, either - having your comics look like you just scanned in and photoshopped pictures of real people weirds me out a bit. Can you tell I'm picky about what art I like? I want it to be reasonably skillful and obeying laws of anatomy, but still look like a /comic/, and this does that really well, with some pages that are just lovely and some that are goofy and cute. Also, their Booster is pretty.
THE GAY. OH MY GOD THE GAY. BOOSTER. AND TED. THEY ARE SO GAY FOR EACH OTHER. I mean, there's the part where Booster is so incredibly excited to have a chance to have hijinks with Ted, and then hurt when Ted is pretending to be too mature and heart-conditiony for hijinks anymore, and Booster still thinking right off of protecting him in a fight, and the scene where Booster says he FEELS LIKE A JILTED LOVER, and then they almost get the planet destroyed because of their bickering, and Booster has angst and tells Ted he doesn't even know who he is anymore, and Sue threatens to tell Booster's wife he and Ted are sleeping together, and Booster asking Ted why he never extolls his virtues, and Booster wishing them all to hell because Ted won't take him seriously, and Ted admitting how incredibly glad he is they're on a team together again, and the amnesia-flirting, and...yeah. I don't know how they packed that much gay into such a small space, but they did. God, they did. Also, the bit where Manga Khan invades because he's in love with his former-now-Max's robert servant L-Ron? The crack, it is so good. theirloveissorobotic!
GUY. I LOVE GUY GARDNER. BEST GREEN LANTERN EVER. I mean, I love Kyle and his cute gayboyinlovewithGreenArrowMarkII thing, but seriously, GUY. GUY IS LOVE. And I kind of hate myself, because Guy is such a violent hot-tempered inappropriate misogynistic sleezeball, but...he's a good guy at heart! It's just the massive brain-damage and the inability to keep his mouth shut! *huggles Guy and his massive, glaring issues* And this Guy was awesometastic - between the perving on Power Girl and the jumping right in like an idiot and the being totally right on about what needed to be done and the being heroic even while bitching constantly and the Tora love and the Bea love and the perving on and then apologizing to Mary Marvel and...I LOVE GUY. SHUT UP, OKAY?
What really made me love this to a degree that is probably unhealthy, though, is just the way that the storyline is written. The villains aren't really the point in these two books - not that they aren't there, because they are, but they unequivocally take second seat to the Team. There are fight scenes, and we're-in-horrible-danger!scenes, but really they aren't given nearly as much emphasis as the bickering, and the bantering, and the wise-cracking, and the new Booster and Ted relationship problems, and the friction between Bea and Mary, and Ralph and Sue's couple-ness, and Max's what-have-I-gotten-myself-into-with-these-idiots feelings, and the nuts and bolts of getting a new team going when no one wants them going, including the neighbors. And that's the kind of thing I love to see in a comic, and why I love team books especially so much - Avengers, Authority, Teen Titans, etc etc. I don't care that much about fights. I don't mind reading them, a good fight can be cool as anything. But what I'm really in comics for is the characters. I want to see how they deal with their personal issues, their demons, their past, how being a superhero affects them, how they try to juggle a civilian life and superhero life. I want to see how they interact with other heroes, how they make friends and weird little rivalries and alliances in the cape community, how they act on a team. I really, really love seeing a team book that shows them acting like a family, with all the familiarity and the bickering and the stupid quirks and the hating/punching each other and the emotional support and the total love. Basically, I like to see superheroes being people. I don't know if this is a more - girly, I guess? - approach to comics, or just specific to me, but I do love it. It's why I'm planning a novel about a superhero and what the life does to him as a person. And these books have it down so perfectly I can't help but adore them.
Once I get back to my dorm and my scanner, I may very well end up making a ton of Superbuddies icons. These books are immensely quotable. We shall see.
Last week I got my tpbs of Formerly Known As The Justice League and I Can't Believe It's Not The Justice League, the two books of the Giffen/DeMatteis run where Max Lord starts a new superhero team called the Superbuddies. And, um, wow. There is pretty much /nothing/ in this run I don't /love/ - in fact, these comics embody pretty much everything that makes me a comics fan at all.
To start with, I like the art, which a nice balance between realistic and cartoonish. I kind of hate the old Gold and Silver Age comics where everyone is odd looking and funny colored, I despise the nineties trend toward over-muscled behemoths, and I'm not really crazy about the new thing in comics - especially Marvel comics *cough*Iron Man*cough* - toward hyperrealism, either - having your comics look like you just scanned in and photoshopped pictures of real people weirds me out a bit. Can you tell I'm picky about what art I like? I want it to be reasonably skillful and obeying laws of anatomy, but still look like a /comic/, and this does that really well, with some pages that are just lovely and some that are goofy and cute. Also, their Booster is pretty.
THE GAY. OH MY GOD THE GAY. BOOSTER. AND TED. THEY ARE SO GAY FOR EACH OTHER. I mean, there's the part where Booster is so incredibly excited to have a chance to have hijinks with Ted, and then hurt when Ted is pretending to be too mature and heart-conditiony for hijinks anymore, and Booster still thinking right off of protecting him in a fight, and the scene where Booster says he FEELS LIKE A JILTED LOVER, and then they almost get the planet destroyed because of their bickering, and Booster has angst and tells Ted he doesn't even know who he is anymore, and Sue threatens to tell Booster's wife he and Ted are sleeping together, and Booster asking Ted why he never extolls his virtues, and Booster wishing them all to hell because Ted won't take him seriously, and Ted admitting how incredibly glad he is they're on a team together again, and the amnesia-flirting, and...yeah. I don't know how they packed that much gay into such a small space, but they did. God, they did. Also, the bit where Manga Khan invades because he's in love with his former-now-Max's robert servant L-Ron? The crack, it is so good. theirloveissorobotic!
GUY. I LOVE GUY GARDNER. BEST GREEN LANTERN EVER. I mean, I love Kyle and his cute gayboyinlovewithGreenArrowMarkII thing, but seriously, GUY. GUY IS LOVE. And I kind of hate myself, because Guy is such a violent hot-tempered inappropriate misogynistic sleezeball, but...he's a good guy at heart! It's just the massive brain-damage and the inability to keep his mouth shut! *huggles Guy and his massive, glaring issues* And this Guy was awesometastic - between the perving on Power Girl and the jumping right in like an idiot and the being totally right on about what needed to be done and the being heroic even while bitching constantly and the Tora love and the Bea love and the perving on and then apologizing to Mary Marvel and...I LOVE GUY. SHUT UP, OKAY?
What really made me love this to a degree that is probably unhealthy, though, is just the way that the storyline is written. The villains aren't really the point in these two books - not that they aren't there, because they are, but they unequivocally take second seat to the Team. There are fight scenes, and we're-in-horrible-danger!scenes, but really they aren't given nearly as much emphasis as the bickering, and the bantering, and the wise-cracking, and the new Booster and Ted relationship problems, and the friction between Bea and Mary, and Ralph and Sue's couple-ness, and Max's what-have-I-gotten-myself-into-with-these-idiots feelings, and the nuts and bolts of getting a new team going when no one wants them going, including the neighbors. And that's the kind of thing I love to see in a comic, and why I love team books especially so much - Avengers, Authority, Teen Titans, etc etc. I don't care that much about fights. I don't mind reading them, a good fight can be cool as anything. But what I'm really in comics for is the characters. I want to see how they deal with their personal issues, their demons, their past, how being a superhero affects them, how they try to juggle a civilian life and superhero life. I want to see how they interact with other heroes, how they make friends and weird little rivalries and alliances in the cape community, how they act on a team. I really, really love seeing a team book that shows them acting like a family, with all the familiarity and the bickering and the stupid quirks and the hating/punching each other and the emotional support and the total love. Basically, I like to see superheroes being people. I don't know if this is a more - girly, I guess? - approach to comics, or just specific to me, but I do love it. It's why I'm planning a novel about a superhero and what the life does to him as a person. And these books have it down so perfectly I can't help but adore them.
Once I get back to my dorm and my scanner, I may very well end up making a ton of Superbuddies icons. These books are immensely quotable. We shall see.