Dr Dread
Staff
The Odious-1
Posts: 1,547
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Post by Dr Dread on Mar 18, 2006 10:19:21 GMT -5
Luthor injected Kell with a mind numbing agent that made him unable to make constructs. It's all there. I have to say that that was one of the most clever things I had read in a long while. Luthor injected a yellow impurity into Jar Kell to defeat him. It has a nice duality to it between the Green Lantern and the weakness of his ring. The story wasn't perfect, but there were moments of pure gold (hehe) inside.
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Post by HoM on Mar 18, 2006 10:26:45 GMT -5
Uh... Thanks? Eep! drdread pun'd me! he pun'd me!
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Post by brigante133 on Mar 18, 2006 11:47:15 GMT -5
thanks brand, i never knew what the hell a mary sue was either....
oh and just a quick side note charlie, just so you hear it from me. in regular dc yellow stands for fear not evil. So what Jar kell saw would have been like luthors fear of something or another. since he had that fear it kinda makes sense that jar couldn't do anything to him, but it also means luthor couldn't really do a thing with the ring (<rhyme skillz) but that is just dc continuity, i have no clue really if scott is doing the same here.
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Post by HoM on Mar 18, 2006 11:48:37 GMT -5
I made a slight error with that, I apoligise. Nevermind though, I don't think it takes anything any from the story, and you'll see what happens with Luthor and the power ring in the next two issues!
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Post by Brandon on Mar 18, 2006 15:18:03 GMT -5
thanks brand, i never knew what the hell a mary sue was either.... If you google "mary sue" you get all sorts of interesting info like litmus tests, links to Mary Sue stories, rants, examinations, etc. Apparently it's a particularly common problem among people who write Gargoyles fic. Who even knew there were that many people writing Gargoyles fic? ;D
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Susan Hillwig
Staff
I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Mar 19, 2006 14:36:42 GMT -5
I knew what "Mary Sue" was (thanks, Dragonbat!) but found the source of the name interesting. I didn't find Jar Kell to be one, really, just a necessary device to establish what the "Fist of the Guardians" was.
That said, the story was GL-heavy, and I agree with a lot of David's other points: the Kents, both real and illusion, were out of character (I also found it strange that they BOTH said identical things); Lois and Perry stuff felt shoehorned in; Supes was a twit too often; Luthor's character seemed to swing back and forth (though I liked the gold nitrate idea and the hand-slicing -- brutal but it worked); Jar Kell's attack did seem unprovoked; I got confused when the Bizarros showed up (we've already got Black Zero running about as Fake Supes, did we really need a thousand more?); the ending was anti-climactic and made very little sense (BZ vansished in a puff of logic? Is that what happened?).
This is what I've learned the past few months from reading Charlie's fics: he thinks a mile a minute, but has a hard time putting it all together in a way the rest of us can understand. I think that's why The Question turns out great and all the rest is hit-or-miss, that character is designed for his sort of logic patterns.
The story here could have used a lot of fat-cutting, tightened up and slicked down to just the basic thrust of Supes, Black Zero, Jar Kell, Luthor, and Steel with the cops for the human factor...which means that David, as editor, has to take a bit of flack here, too. That last call lies with him, and he said OK despite his reservations. I take it you guys did talk quite a bit about them before posting, so why did you let the story go up in a form you thought was wrong? Just curious.
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Post by Admin on Mar 19, 2006 20:43:54 GMT -5
Excellent point, Soose, and one I will absolutely own up to. Editorially speaking, the Superman titles have been given remarkably short shift (due, in part, to the transition of editorship from me to Lantern Lad and then back to myself), and this arc in particular kinda fell through the cracks. Part of the problem may be capacity management (we premiered Action Comics, specifically for this arc, before we really had the resources to sustain it), and another part comes from my policy of indulging the writer's vision--- DC2 is for the fans, by the fans so I don't edit for content so much as continuity and grammar, preferring to let the readers debate the integrity of the story (the warts-and-all approach that I have time for). That being said, the Action #3 that everyone read is actually a second draft based upon my feedback to Charlie, and the only revision he had time for. Now, I don't think Charlie's story was "wrong", per se, as I have to respect his interpretation, however much I disagree with it (and everyone gets a voice at the DC2), but I do wish I had had a bigger impact on the development of the story, structurally speaking, because you hit the nail right on the head with Our Kid's writing style--- it make's sense to him, because he knows what the reader doesn't, and sometimes he forgets to let us in on it! It could be he's just writing over our heads, and he's too progressive for us... Or, to quote Lois Lane's better-thought-of epiphany: "Nah!" I keed! I keed because I love!
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Post by HoM on Mar 20, 2006 6:22:39 GMT -5
Hmm.
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Susan Hillwig
Staff
I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Mar 23, 2006 20:48:43 GMT -5
C'mere, Charlie! (big virtual hug) Don't sound so discoraged. To be honest, it takes guts to put out anything here on the Big Bad Internet, especially knowing that you will get feedback, good and bad. Believe it or not, I sweat it out every time one of my things goes up, and I always will. I remember a comic strip years ago that showed a little girl going to school with her hair all done up in nice braids, and all the kids complimenting her. Then one jerk teases her about her hair, she goes home all embarrassed, and wails to her mom that ALL the kids made fun of her. The point: DON"T FOCUS ON THE NEGATIVE. You can learn from it, but don't let it stop you. I thought parts of the story came out very good, and a lot of people liked it all around. Be proud of that. Keep going, keep writing, and if it makes you feel better, keep sending copies of the stories to folk for preview. All my stuff gets read by at least one other person before being sent to David or posted on FF.net or whatever. Don't quit, Charlie, or I'll swim to England and slap you around!
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Post by Brandon on Mar 23, 2006 21:14:42 GMT -5
Yeah. Good or bad, you still evoke a response and get lots of chatter around your work. The only truly bad thing is hardly being noticed with little feedback or just not having readers. ~sniff~ Not that I would know. *kicks at the ground*
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Post by batarang on Apr 13, 2006 9:14:51 GMT -5
Big story, and I'm having trouble coming to terms with it. I read the other letters prior to writing this hoping I could find some way to express what I feel about this arc. Here goes: I agree with much of Idle's criticisms. My gut reaction was mostly negative, but then I realized it's because of my preconceived notions of the characters involved. Hell, I've grown with these characters for over thirty years, and I know how they're supposed to be written. How dare you twist my visions of Superman and Luthor and not present them the "way they should be". You don't know what you're doing, right? Well, no. As an author you should be able to present your own views of how a character reacts in a given situation. Just because "my" Luthor wouldn't behave like that doesn't mean you have to write him the way I would (and someday I do hope to have some stories posted). Our perceptions also may be shaped by the way we were exposed to these characters growing up. I was exposed to superheroes very young watching SuperFriends and the way comic books were written back then (mid-70s/ early 80's) is vastly different than the way they're written now. And I like modern comic books. What I'm trying to say is that you don't need to defend your story. You wrote it the way you saw it and you can't please everyone. Stand by your story and be proud that you took the time and effort to produce a huge epic like this. And though I personally didn't love it overall there were aspects of the story I did enjoy. And I was entertained, which is the bottom line. I will gladly read more of your work. Peace.
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