Star Wars Jokes Will Outlive Us All
The pop culture comedians of today continue to mine Star Wars for every possible bit of parody and humor they can find. Apparently there’s going to be a new animated series based solely around Star Wars jokes. It’s made by the guys from Robot Chicken, who’ve already had great success mining Star Wars jokes. I guess they’ve found some more.
It’s going to be called Star Wars: Detours.
There’s no premiere date set or even a network on which it will air. But those boys sure are making it. Looks…alright. There were some funny jokes in that trailer. And you can watch some clips here. But there comes a time when you’ve got to push away from the table and admit when you’re full.
Here’s the show’s description:
Star Wars Detours™ is an animated comedy that explores what daily life is like in a galaxy far, far away. There are no Empires striking back or attacking clones here. Instead, Star Wars Detours focuses on the universe’s regular folks and their everyday problems… which, to be fair, do frequently involve famous bounty hunters, crazed Ewoks, and even a Dark Lord of the Sith.
And oddly enough, they’re very specific on the fact that it will be set between the two trilogies. So…more Star Wars!
Review: Teen Titans #12
A new issue of Teen Titans, a new villain appears out of nowhere. Writer Scott Lobdell just loves introducing random villains to this series. At least this guy – with the totally pointless name of ‘Diesel’ – seems to be a catalyst for learning more about the new Wonder Girl. Not that we learn much about her or him or her Silent Armor in this issue. In fact, we don’t actually accomplish very much in this issue at all. It’s just bland fighting, followed by a tiny bit of tempting exposition, and then the issue ends just as its getting started – leaving us with a fairly melodramatic cliffhanger that would fit better in comics 20 years ago.
Teen Titans #12
The character growth of the past few issues of Teen Titans is stopped. We’re back to the mindless, ‘x-treme’ superhero action.
Comic rating: 3/5: Alright.
I can’t bring myself to call this a bad issue…mostly because I can’t work up that much interest. Teen Titans #12 is just another in a long, disappointing line of issues. Teen Titans could have been a great comic coming out of the New 52. I know it was kind of flailing prior to the reboot, but back when Geoff Johns reintroduced the teens a few years ago, Teen Titans was amazing! It was my favorite comic at the time, by far. And Johns is now one of the top guys making the decisions at DC. Surely he could have had some influence over the Teen Titans. But no, they gave it to Scott Lobdell, and he’s brought the worst of the 90s comic book problems to the title.
There’s an emphasis on mindless action over meaningful character growth. The heroes are constantly stating the obvious and explaining the scenes they are in. The comic is far more concerned with making sure there’s something ‘x-treme’ happening on every page instead of taking a moment to breath.
Teen Titans is just not a very good comic. Entertaining? Perhaps a little. Good characters? Maybe, in the right situation. But overall, this comic is just all over the place. And the only place it’s not, is with it’s characters.
I Hate When Comic Book Advertising Goes Negative
Let me ask you a question, both comic book fans and non comic fans alike. The Amazing Spider-Man is about to reach the milestone issue #700 this fall. Would you be more or less inclined to buy the comic if the writer went around telling everyone that you’re going to hate it?
Writer Dan Slott seems to think that we’re going to hate what he does to the character in Amazing Spider-Man #700.
I already kind of hate the cover
This kind of comic book advertising – or hype – annoys me to no end. So why is Slott doing it? Why is Marvel Comics doing it? Why even write the story if you know that fans are going to be angered and upset with you? But then for that matter, what is the balance between keeping your fans happy and entertained vs. writing compelling and interesting stories?
The answer to all of these questions is easy. Anger is an emotion, and as long as they get some emotion out of comic book fans, that’s good writing. Right? Makes sense to me. But why not instead try for the happier emotions like love or delight? Why use Amazing Spider-Man #700 to write a story that you know the fans of the character are going to hate? But I digress.
I’m not trying to say that comic book writers should be afraid to write stories that anger the fans, that they should never push the boundaries and try for something new and different. My problem is with then going ahead and using the potential anger as a selling point.
Here is what Slott said in a recent interview about what he has planned for Amazing Spider-Man #700:
I’m really happy with our 1-2-3 punch of #698, #699 and #700. I think people are not going to forget this one. This story will raise some really strong emotions in Spider-Man fans. It will probably be one of the biggest things I ever do to a Marvel Comics character in my career. I don’t know if people will start making little dart boards of me or not for this one. I’ve said it before, but I’m going into hiding after issue #700 comes out. I’m not looking at message boards. I’m not poking my head up out of that hole, because what happens in issue #700 is big!
He’s joking about having to go into hiding because of how angry the fans will be at him. How is that funny? Why can’t he say something nice about the comic? Even with this big change coming, why not hype it up as something awesome and cool? Why be negative about it? This frustrates me. When I pick up Amazing Spider-Man #700 in a few months, I’m going to be worried and afraid to see what happens. I would prefer to be excited and elated to see what happens.
(And that’s assuming USA Today doesn’t spoil the change a week or a day in advance, like Marvel is wont to do these days.)
The story, for anyone curious, is that longtime Spider-Man arch-nemesis Doctor Octopus is on his death bed. He has only hours left to live, and he’s horrified at how little he’s accomplished with his life. But in those final hours, Doc Ock discovers Spider-Man’s secret identity. What he does with this knowledge is apparently going to anger all of us Spider-Man fans.
Are we sure he can do anything more than just wet himself?
Let me explain my position a bit more. Comic book fans hate change. It’s why all the most popular superheroes remain relatively the same today as they were when they first appeared decades ago. Comic book fans like reading about their favorite heroes doing awesome things. If you change the character or change the things they do, it’s not the same comic anymore. It’s not the same enjoyment.
On the flipside, comic book writers have a job to do. They want to tell new and exciting stories about character that they love just as much as the fans. But if they can’t change or shake up the status quo, the stories are going to get really stale really fast. How many times can Batman fight the Joker before you’re just reading the same story over and over again? Why not let the Joker reap some real, life-altering carnage? Why not let the Joker do something so huge and evil that Batman is forever changed?
A good example of this fans vs. writers conundrum happened only a few years ago in Spider-Man comics, a story called One More Day.
You’re not reaching hard enough!
In 2007, Marvel decided that they needed to make Spider-Man more appealing to younger readers, because that’s just good business. The comic book industry can’t survive on its old, aging fans forever. Kids need to read comic books too. But at the time, Spider-Man was happily married to Mary Jane Watson, and had just revealed to the world that he was secretly Peter Parker. So his identity wasn’t a secret anymore. Marvel’s line of thought was that kids don’t want to read about an old married guy with the weight of the world on his shoulders. They want a young, single, happy-go-lucky Spidey! But they couldn’t kill Mary Jane or have them get divorced, because nobody wants to read about Spider-Man the widower or Spider-Man the divorcee.
So Marvel decided to tell a story in which Spider-Man uses black magic to reshape his life.
With Spider-Man’s identity known to the world, his arch enemies send an assassin to kill Peter Parker. But the sniper’s bullet instead shoots Peter’s beloved Aunt May, and her life hangs in the balance. After exhausting all other possibilities to save her, Spider-Man then makes a deal with the Devil in order to save Aunt May’s life. The Devil’s fee is Peter and Mary Jane’s marriage. He wants the soul or essence of marriage between them. They eventually agree to pay this price, and the Devil uses his magic to save Aunt May. He then makes everybody forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. And he changes history so that Peter Parker was late to his wedding day and he and Mary Jane never actually got hitched. In order to maintain two decades worth of stories where they were married, Marvel said that Peter and Mary Jane were only ever in a long term committed relationship.
Spider-Man fans the world over HATED this story. And for good reason.
Because he made a DEAL with the DEVIL!
First of all, people actually liked Peter and Mary Jane’s marriage. It wasn’t like the fans wanted the two of them to break up, the fans were happy with the union. So sacrificing the marriage in the name of sales is just revolting. Second, Peter Parker MADE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL in order to make this happen. And it wasn’t part of some larger story where this choice came back to haunt him in the end and he regretted the whole thing or learned a lesson. This was a one time thing. Marvel wanted Peter to be single again, so they just thought up the first mystical being who might have the kind of power and magic to make it happen. It didn’t seem to matter to Marvel that Peter Parker as a good and heroic character would be forever tainted by MAKING A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL!
I know comic book fans who stopped reading Spider-Man after One More Day, fans who still hold a grudge against Marvel and refuse to go back to Spider-Man comics because of it. I don’t blame them.
And the point I’m trying to make with this example is that comic book fans will hold a grudge and will stop buying your comic if you write a bad story and piss them off.
Still, I want to emphasize that I’m not saying that writers should never anger their fans. It’s an old rule when writing fiction that you hurt the ones you love, especially when it comes to character. If you never change the status quo of the character or hurt them in some way, you’ll never have interesting conflict in your stories. So by all means, Slott can do whatever he wants to Spider-Man in issue #700. Let the fans get mad. Maybe it’ll turn me off reading Amazing Spider-Man for awhile, but I know I always come back eventually.
I’m just saying that if you’re writing a comic book that you know will harm the character and anger the fans, maybe you shouldn’t brag about it.
((P.S. My guess is that Slott is going to kill Mary Jane!))
How Dark Knight Rises Should Have Ended
This greatness of ‘How It Should Have Ended…’ is back, baby!
Love the animation, love…most of the jokes. These people continue to produce some of the best stuff on the Internet. But if I’m being completely honest, I think they’ve lost touch with their original mantra. These videos usually now just make fun of various parts of the movie rather than focusing on creating an ‘alternate’ ending to show how a movie really should have ended.
And they are obsessed with their Superman and Batman sitting in a cafe gag! It’s like they spend more time coming up with jokes for those scenes than on actually riffing the movie. If you watch that video, when they finally get to the end of Dark Knight Rises and show what should have happened when Alfred was looking on Bruce and Selina…they just fall back on their Superman character rather than telling us how the movie really should have ended
Oh well, that’s just my pathetic two cents. Still a great web series.
Droids Aren’t Admissible in Court
Have you been injured in a speeder bike accident? Call Lando Calrissian, the Heavyhitter!
Brought to us by the fine people at Zeke Mahogany Comedy.
