(no subject)
Mar. 24th, 2012 03:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cblj_backupSomehow this morning the plan was to watch movies and eat terrible food, and then I ended up fixing my insurance issue that's been on me for a month, trying on new clothes (all my summer clothes are falling apart) and cleaning out my hard drive. Okay then!
I'm trying to read The Flash, but Jesus, this comic book series has a more complicated line of succession than the Roman Empire. It goes Jay, Barry who has no relation to Jay, Wally who was what, hanging out with Barry and caught it from him? Then Bart, who is Barry's (possibly Wally's?) grandson from the 30th century, and somehow some woman named Iris fits in there, but then Wally again, and now Wally (possibly Barry's?) kids, who I could not be less interested in if I tried.
AT LEAST THE ROMANS ADOPTED THEIR HEIRS. So if nothing else you could just say "adopted son" and that was that.
On the other hand they couldn't move super-fast and vibrate through walls (that we know of).
PS Jean explained to me the cape thing, now could someone please explain to me the fetish that comic book superhero designers have for putting wings on peoples' heads. There is nothing more ridiculous than a giant man saving the world with a tiny pair of wings on his head. All I can think about is Cap and Flash comparing wing size and Thor being like
EFF YOU ALL, GOTS SOME GIANT WINGS.
I'm trying to read The Flash, but Jesus, this comic book series has a more complicated line of succession than the Roman Empire. It goes Jay, Barry who has no relation to Jay, Wally who was what, hanging out with Barry and caught it from him? Then Bart, who is Barry's (possibly Wally's?) grandson from the 30th century, and somehow some woman named Iris fits in there, but then Wally again, and now Wally (possibly Barry's?) kids, who I could not be less interested in if I tried.
AT LEAST THE ROMANS ADOPTED THEIR HEIRS. So if nothing else you could just say "adopted son" and that was that.
On the other hand they couldn't move super-fast and vibrate through walls (that we know of).
PS Jean explained to me the cape thing, now could someone please explain to me the fetish that comic book superhero designers have for putting wings on peoples' heads. There is nothing more ridiculous than a giant man saving the world with a tiny pair of wings on his head. All I can think about is Cap and Flash comparing wing size and Thor being like
EFF YOU ALL, GOTS SOME GIANT WINGS.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-24 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-24 08:27 pm (UTC)(Unless he does wear a dishpan on his head. *g* I'm not terribly well-versed in Golden Age DC; Jay always looks to me like he's wearing blue jeans and a mock turtleneck with his Mercury helmet, so I'm not half sure he didn't canonically just mock up his costume from whatever was to hand, like Spider-Man's movie!hoodie.)
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Date: 2012-03-24 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-24 08:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 03:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 05:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 04:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-24 08:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-24 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-24 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-24 09:18 pm (UTC)Though my memories may always be tainted by how my dad watched ALL OF IT one Christmas while I was camped out in the living room with the flu. There is only so much spandex one can take while nauseated, feverish and napping.
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Date: 2012-03-26 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-27 05:14 pm (UTC)There's the intro, and you can find most of the series on youtube, but I wouldn't really rec it unless you're really into the Flash/DC comics history. It's way more canon in a blender than Smallville was: Flash is Barry Allen, played by John Wesley Shipp, but they give him Wally's girlfriend Tina McGee, and Jay is his cop older brother killed by evil bikers...confusing if you're just starting out.
But if you were a fan of the DCAU-the batman/superman/justice league cartoons, it's worth watching the Trickster episodes, since Mark Hamill basically created his version of the Joker character there, and Corinne Boher's Zoe Clarke/Prank was the inspiration for Harley Quinn.
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Date: 2012-03-27 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-27 10:19 pm (UTC)http://youtu.be/ic1yq2C2JE4
http://youtu.be/qwY2jz8ECIw
As a fan of the comics Trickster...it's pretty disappointing because Tricks is completely different, but as an exercise in watching an actor develop a character, pretty fascinating.
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Date: 2012-03-24 09:28 pm (UTC)Jay Garrick was the first Flash. He got his powers from heavy water (oh golden age!) and fashioned his costume in honor of Mercury, fixing wings on his Dad's WWI infantry helmet.
Barry Allen grew up reading Flash Comics, so when he got speedster powers from lightning knocking him into a rack of random chemicals, he named himself The Flash. Then later found out the comics he'd grown up reading all really happened on a parallel world that later got folded into one reality because...DC is actively trying to confuse us, is why. Also, Barry has a twin brother named Malcolm Thawne that only appears once.
Barry dates reporter Iris West, who is actually adopted by the Wests and from the 30th century, where her parents sent her back in time to escape an evil dictator, President Thawne. Iris's brother Randolph has a son named Wally, who spends most of his summers with Iris, and is a Flash fanboy. Barry is showing him how he got his powers when bam! the same damn thing happens, lightning strike, chemicals, sidekick Kid Flash.
Stuff I haven't actually read happens: Barry and Iris get married, move to the 30th Century, have twins Don and Dawn Allen. Don marries Meloni Thawne and they have Bartholomew Allen, or Bart. Barry comes back to the present and dies in the Crisis, his son Don dies, President Thawne did something to Bart so he's aging too fast and he has to be sent back to the past to be Impulse, Wally's sidekick, as Wally is now the Flash.
After spending a few years having a *serious* identity crisis about stepping into his Uncle's spandex, and having one of the most awesome canon gay sidekicks in Pied Piper, Wally marries reporter Linda Park and they have twins, Iris and Jai West (this would probably be easier to follow if they were more orginal about names) so at the last point before the DCnU reboot when I was still reading, Wally West was the Flash, Bart Allen was Kid Flash, and Irey Park-West was Impulse.
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Date: 2012-03-25 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 02:45 am (UTC)I'm just glad I wasn't trying to explain Power Girl or Donna Troy's orgin story.
Bart-Impulse was something awesome. But I still have a soft spot for Irey's brief run, just for the girl and korean-american-american points.
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Date: 2012-03-25 04:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 06:37 pm (UTC)In the current DCU, Barry is unmarried and not even dating Iris, so it's unclear how Wally (Iris' nephew) ended up hanging out with Barry to be Kid Flash or how Impluse is Barry's grandson from a woman who he hasn't had sex with yet.
And still, you're missing out on Johnny Quick, Max Mercury, and Johnny's daughter, who was a speedster for a while. Maybe they're all off on Earth-2.
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Date: 2012-03-26 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-24 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 01:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 01:59 am (UTC)But as The Incredibles taught us, capes are bad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNUbPRj9TGMcapes).
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Date: 2012-03-25 01:15 pm (UTC)...I think he probably got it caught on something and couldn't live with the embarrassment, honestly.
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Date: 2012-03-26 05:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 02:02 pm (UTC)DC mandated One Earth Only while she was still considered being from another Earth. In the JSA series it was discovered that a second Earth DID exist and she was supposedly from that one (here's where they threw a wrench into the works) but really wasn't as that world's Power Girl was still there. So you have three origins for her, Earth 2, Arion, Lost.
If they had just stuck with "lost from another reality" after Crisis they would have been fine. Donna Troy is more muddled than Power Girl is, but Hawkman trumps them both - I think there have been up to six distinct version of him (depending on how you count), all named Carter/Katar and with wives/girlfriends/partners named Shayera - the whole reincarnation thing didn't help matters any.
It's headache making trying to make sense of a character that first appeared in 1940's Flash Comics #1.
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Date: 2012-03-25 06:14 am (UTC)(and tbh headwingies are only one step down from the extended-eye-flappies seen on dudes like Hawkeye and Wolverine.)
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Date: 2012-03-26 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 08:23 am (UTC)My absolute favourite character is the Pied Piper, who reformed from the Rogues and became Wally West's gay, socialist, genius, ex-criminal sidekick/friend for a while. THERE IS NOTHING THAT IS NOT AWESOME ABOUT THAT DESCRIPTION!!!
His coming out scene (http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2011/08/08/almost-hidden-the-pied-piper-comes-out-of-the-closet/) was pretty damn hilarious, and pretty damn progressive for 1991 :-).
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Date: 2012-03-26 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 01:23 pm (UTC)That's why I stick to the B-squad characters who have considerably less confusing stories. Especially now that DC's killed a lot of them off *grumble grumble screw you DC*.
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Date: 2012-03-25 02:27 pm (UTC)