Reviews, comments and observations on stories that feature DC Comics' best detective (cough, afterbatman, cough) and the sensational Sue, his spoiled wife. I'll be pointing the best ones, the key ones and the lousy ones.
Like most of the characters in serial fiction, the Elongated Man's personality has suffered changes throughout time. As faithful as some can be, every writer has a different vision of the character. Even his fans have different perceptions of the ductile detective.
In his first six adventures, John Broome portrayed him as a superhero with an odd behavior. There wasn't much to his personality, only that he was a little more easy going that Flash (who was an easy going superhero himself). Neither of them gave the overly dramatic/heroic speeches that Batman or Superman use to give. Additionally, Ralph was eclectic and creative in his decisions. He didn't have a base operations, used his super powers to make a fortune, got married (which wasn't common for superheroes at the time) and gave up his secret identity.
Even though his dialogue is plain in these early appearances, his actions speak plenty for him. His temperament is established as primordially sanguine and secondarily phlegmatic. He's laid back and a great entertainer; he's rarely angered and always open minded and optimistic. His actions are bold and he is a success magnet: first, he arrives to Central City and, as a rookie, he overshadows the fastest man alive in his own game; he still becomes Flash's best friend; then, he becomes a showman and makes a fortune in a sec, retires, marries Sue Dearbon, a beautiful heiress, and starts to travel the World with her on a perpetual honeymoon. This extreme path of success follows them the rest of their adventures, throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s, they become intimate friends of the most powerful people in the DCU, he is awarded membership of it's most powerful superteam team (12th member and one of the longest staying) and he did all of that almost effortlessly and while having fun. Not to mention that she becomes a talented hacker, Bureau Chief of the Justice League Europe and a best selling mystery writer. It's a canon fact that Ralph Dibny takes the best in life and is very serious about enjoying every bit of it. However, he's very methodical and diligent.
During this period a mild enthusiasm for mysteries start.
Ralph begins to be portrayed as a detective in Flash #138, his 7th appearance.
After his 7th appearance, writer Gardner Fox took over and made him more eclectic, his enthusiasm for mysteries became love for them. He also became a bit of a laid back joker (nothing extraordinary), a media hound and a spoiling husband. He had a relaxed, "everything will work out" attitude since his first appearance, and it was only reinforced when his solo adventures started. He and his wife were modeled after Nick and Nora Charles, from The Thin Man film series. They would tease each other about their habits, but they respected and indulged each other's mild hedonism and had a drama-free marriage. This portrayal was kept during the 70s, in his Detective Comics and Justice League of America appearances.
Nora and Nick Charles, the main influence on the Dibnys.
The begining or Ralph's clowning.
During the 80s there was some exploration. When Batman retired from the JLA, writer Gerry Conway made Ralph the idea guy of the team; casually stating his deductions and suggesting plans of action. Meanwhile, Mike W. Barr proposed that his sense of humor was a defense mechanism to avoid thinking about the tragedy of the cases he often took. He also defined Ralph as a detective fiction expert, to the point that he was a World authority on Sherlock Holmes literature.
The Elongated Man meets his idol, the Great Detective.
In the late 80s, Gerard Jones, Mark Waid, J. M. DeMatteis and Keith Giffen accentuated him as a guy who loves attention, even if it takes slapstick humor and self deprecating jokes to get it. This is the way he remained during the 90s. In the early Justice League Europe stories, Giffen and DeMatteis had him as a witty guy who joked with his wife but also encouraged and appreciated her talent, they also explored his relationship with Wally West, the current Flash and the former sidekick of his best friend; when DeMatteis was replaced with Jones, the character development stopped and when Giffen left, he became an inept clown, by far, the worst and most destruct destructive portrayal of the character. My theory is that it ruined the character for other writers during the rest of the 90s.
Ralph portrayed as a really goofy character.
In 2003, Giffen and DeMatteis took away the slapstick and went back to witty humor with his wife, echoing their Thin Man influences.
His appearances in Justice League Unlimited was very similar to it.
Brad Meltzer made a serious and thoughtful sketch of Ralph as a person and husband in Identity Crisis and then, in 52, after the death of Sue, Mark Waid and Grant Morrison turned him into a more serious and detective. Both stories portrayed him as a really sharp detective, very similar to Sherlock Holmes in his method.
Ralph's portrayal in Identity Crisis #1.
Now, from what I perceive, fans of the Elongated Man share a common vision of the way he should be portrayed. We all seem to agree that, as Barr, Meltzer and Waid portrayed him, he's primordially a detective. I think that he should keep what I consider his two biggest influences Nick Charles and Sherlock Holmes. Since his first Detective Comics story, he became the type of sleuth that can make great deductions from observing details in scenes or people. Identity Crisis indicated that he's able to memorize all those details even under great stress. New stories should focus on this. Check it out, it can be really cool:
Despite his sanguine temperament, he's very methodical and diligent. He does stuff like memorizing details about people and scenes and he's rarely late or stressed by work, all trademarks of phlegmatic people. It wouldn't be a bad idea for the next writer to expand on his habits. I bet he dedicates part of every day to activities like practicing his memory skills, training his body, spending time with Sue, reading the news and, as Barr established, some detective fiction classics. Regarding his physical skills, the brightest observation I have ever heard from another fan is that he is likely to spend time every day on them. Training his body to get the most out of his super stretching: controlling mass, balance, shape, strength. Even his senses must be affected by this. Around the satellite era, he started to shapeshift to change his face, by the JLI era, he was able to create a bulldog head out of his hand.
There is also the matter of the extent of his super power. I has never been said, but the way he often made his hands huge and lifted men with each imply that he has super strength. Bigger hands don't have more mass, just the same mass in a bigger volume, which means less strength. An ability that has been mentioned but is not that famous is the speed of his stretching; some stories mention that he can reach dozens of feet within a fraction of a second, other show him using his knuckles or his chin as projectiles that knock out villains, which indicate an enormous speed and strength. Something that rare writers explore are the possibilities implied by stretching, like tuning his senses so that he could see, hear and smell beyond normal human capabilities. If he can stretch his chest and head cavities, he can basically produce any sound. He's also able to resist and absorb great impacts (he once stopped a truck). He has used his body as a rubber band (even serving as a bow for Green Arrow) and he can become thin as a sheet; in theory, this means that he can project himself into the air and then control his shape to navigate the wind (That's when he's not using his arms to move across the buildings like Spider-man).
When it comes to his sense of humor, consensus seems to indicate that it is a trademark that is should be kept. However, there are certain aspects from it that don't work. Here, Plastic Man is often used as a point of reference. He also became a big joker in the late 80s, only he was even bigger on slapstick; so it's commonly said that Ralph is like Jerry Seinfeld while Plas is more like Jerry Lewis (or Jim Carrey). Personally, given his profession, I think Ralph should have the observational humor of Seinfeld but with the quick wit of David Spade and maybe with the cultural references of Dennis Miller (EM strikes me as the kind of guy that pays a lot of attention to the news). Maybe a bit of Conan O'Brian's playfulnes wouldn't be so far from the Nick Charles mold. He's not the type that would make mean jokes about other people, but I can definitely can see him making "that's a shame" kind of comments about the goofiness of some of his friends.
I believe that a thoughtful portrayal that works expanding the trademarks that Gardner Fox, Mike Barr, Gerry Conway, Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, Brad Meltzer and Mark Waid left would make him a more solid DC character. Writers just need to use Ralph and Sue's rich profiles in classic detective fiction formulas (with the superhero twist, of course). They just need to do with him what TV has already done with characters like Nick Charles, Columbo, Jessica Fletcher, Poirot, Monk, Murdoch, Shawn Spencer or Patrick Jane. Cold open, crime scene investigation, a series of interviews revealing clues to the readers, intercalated comic relief shenanigans, reconstruction of events, climactic chase and epilogue or denuement (usually the regular characters solve their mild conflict of the day).
As I mentioned before, the Dibnys had a brief period of hype from 2003 to 2004; however, since 2007 they have been making less and less appearances. I'm talking comics, animation and action figures. For a while, I have been suspecting that the respectable DC powers that be were avoiding him, and now I just learned something that seems to back that. Brian "Pendragon" Isaacs posted this at his blog:
"I got a chance to talk to Scott [Neitlich, AKA Toy Guru, from Mattel] at New York Comic Con about when, we the fans will be seeing Ralph in action figure form. If DC Comics has anything to say about it, it’ll be never.
"For those who don’t know, or can’t tell, Scott himself is a comic fan, and a big fan of the JLA Satellite Era. He went to bat for us collectors and got shot down. Mattel’s hands are tied, as this is a license they have to pay for.
"DC Comic’s reasoning…They don’t feel Ralph is a significant character, not deserving of an action figure, and don’t want to invest any more money into him."
Why indeed. Their importance is being recognized both by Flash and Geoff Johns, but what's the point to this scene? Why leaving the Dibnys out of this scene if there were not going to be part of another story?
I once managed to get a direct confirmation from Dan DiDio that there are no plans for the Dibnys; however, according to Brian, this has nothing to do with him or Jim Lee, this one comes from upstairs.
Brian's proposal is to have a respectful letter writing campaign, asking to make the Dibnys part of the DCnU and Mattel's DC Universe Classics collection (I'll add DC Universe Online and Young Justice). So please spend $.44 on a stamp and send your letters to:
Diane Nelson
President
DC Comics
1700 Broadway # 7
New York, NY 10019-5905
It's also important to spread the word and figure out other strategies to get Ralph back. Remember that we should avoid pointing fingers; disrespect won't get us anywhere.
Here are some reasons to restore Ralph and Sue:
He was a member of the 3 first incarnations of the Justice League and was one of the longest staying member (about 20 years). At one point around the mid 90s, he was the member with the longest mileage. Not even Lois belongs to the JL, Sue became bureau chief (this means control outside the field, like Max).
They are a silver age legacy. Their most important stories were handled directly by Julius Schwartz, John Broome, Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino. Len Wein put Ralph in the League, Keith Giffen in JLI, Mike W. Barr created the modern version and Mark Waid and Grant Morrison gave him his ultimate mystery.
They are both basic to the Flash (Barry) mythos, which is not that rich without the Gallery. During the first decade of Barry, only Iris and Wally were more recurring than Ralph (Mirror Master matched him when he got his 'tec feature). Barry's supporting cast are basically Iris, Wally, the Allens, Dexter Myles, Hal, Fiona and the Dibnys. They were on his last thoughts before he "died" and on his first thoughts after Brightest Day.
The Elongated Man is a Detective Comics classic. He had the most recurring feature after Slam and the Martian Manhunter.
The Dibnys belong to DC's top social circle. They knew the secret identity of anybody who's somebody (Bruce, Clark, Diana) and double dated with the Allens, the Halls, the Palmers, the Stranges, Ollie and Dinah.
Ralph offers diversity to the DC pantheon. He's the only hero that truly represents the classic detective genre (which TV still capitalizes in series like House, Monk, the Mentalist, the Murdock Mysteries, etc.). He's one o the few heroes that never lost the lighthearted spirit of the Silver Age. Just read the first 5 issues of his 'tec run, no DC couple has ever been as charming as the Dibnys. They are like Mad About You, The Dick Van Dyke Show and Columbo rolled into one.
They are not obscure yet, much less with their notoriety from Identity Crisis, Formerly Known as the Justice League and 52.
If Morrison pulled a series lead by Animal Man, a detective superhero modeled after Nick Charles and Sherlock Holmes writes itself. Just get DeMatteis, Barr, Dixon, Giffen, Morrison or Waid on it, I know as a fact that all of them love those characters.
If the Japanese managed to make a franchise out of a stretchable pirate who gets his powers from a fruit (Luffy D. Monkey from One Piece), I think a ductile detective superhero set in the DC Universe has great chances.
Ralph makes crowd scenes look pretty cool.
And that's right, Timm and McDuffie thought he's awesome enough to go against DC's toughest villain!
Update - 10 / 24 / 11
Scott Neitlich released the following statement on his Facebook page:
"Okay. 100% not true. I must have made a statement (as has always been the case) reconfirming that, yes, it is still true that DC and Warner Bros has final say on our character selection, but in no way have they ever bared us from doing a character like Elongated Man! "In fact just the opposite; DC and Warner Bros. have been amazing partners, always helping us to push the limit on character selection like Lobo in JLU and Swamp Thing in DCUC!
"Ralph is in no way off limits. In fact we have already done him several times. We even did an Elongated Man figure in JLU in an outfit he didn’t even wear on the show. That is how cool he is. There always seems to be one figure “we haven’t gotten to yet” that fans have thoughts was off limits or wasn’t going to happen. Be it Martian Manhunter, Flash 1 or now Elongated Man. The answer is always; just because your favorite figure is not out yet does not mean he or she won’t be in the line one day, keep your suggestions coming!
If any websites reported a quote from me stating the opposite, I did not give any sit down interviews at NYCC, so this “quote” may have been strung together from different things orally overheard in the booth to different people. No statement of this type was officially announced or provided by Mattel or given to any site as a quote or interview. It sounds like it is a misinterpretation of a few things overheard in passing and then attributed (falsely) to me as a direct quote.
"Hope this clears this one up! Ralph is not banned in the least and we are really excited to get to him one day!"
The whole thing was the top trending topic on Sunday at Bleeding Cool, its own Mark Seifert said:
"The Elongated Man too obscure to have a new action figure? I don’t think so. First, there’s an excellent case to be made that there are no insignificant characters in post-internet comic book fandom — I mean, Geoff Johns could turn him into one of the stars of the New 52 by ground hog day, if he wanted to. And second, he’s not an obscure character at all. A classic of the Silver Age and beyond.
I hope that's true. Ralph and Sue's absence in the DCnU, DC Universe Online, Young Justice's Justice League and even in the DC Universe Classics still makes me glad I wrote that letter and I hope other Elogated Man fans do the same. Ralph is still absent without a reason.
Which makes it very possible that Rich Johnston, author of that post, was tipped by this very blog before reading the original and now deleted post from Pendragon. So, if I'm right, Rich, you're welcomed, ha, ha.
Update - 10 / 26 / 11
It turns out that the outcries for Ralph and Sue's return started a bit earlier, and that the clamor is not only for action figures. Roughly at the same time, while Brian "Pendragon" Isaacs was encouraging people to demand the Elongated Man action figure, Robert Eddleman, from Panels on Pages, wrote a column asking DC to use the Reboot possibilities in favor or the Dibnys, restoring them among the living. In his words Retcon This! The Deaths of Ralph & Sue Dibny, a thought that I couldn't support more.
According to John Babos, DC Comics Co-Publisher, Dan DiDio conirmed on Facebook that there are no plans for Ralph Dibny, Ted Kord and Garth (Aqualad).
A while ago I managed to get the same confirmation from him.
This is doesn't mean that they are gone forever, but at leat that, for the time being, DC's Co-Publisher claims (he could be misleading people) that there are no plans for them. He didn't say that they are gone forever.
What gets a 30 years old dude obsessed about comic books? At least enough to make him to blog about his favorite character. Well, that's complicated. My bet is that nerd psychology is a very complex topic; one that I'm sure I'm not professionally qualified to discuss. I could research it and post some references and quotes -- but I don't wanna. Instead, I'm going to give you my top reasons for sticking with comics.
It is not really ranked according to a measurable rationale. A lot of simplistic reasons might be ahead of great art just because they came at the right time in my life. I hope you enjoy reading about them:
20. The Venture Bros.
Pure fun for nostalgic adults, showing sad versions of characters from DC, Marvel, Hanna-Barbera, VH1 Classic, pulp fiction and sci-fi films gone hilariously and pathetically wrong. The Venture Bros. made me realize that super beings are not black and white they are probably just losers trying to feel relevant. The characters, normally failures and shadows of what they used to be, go trough their existential crisis surrounded by a surreal remix of everything I watched on TV while growing up. They also save the day now and then, but that's mostly incidental.
Created by Jason Publick, a Tick alumnus, The Venture Bros. is like The Simpsons for geeks; every line is not only loaded with sarcasm and jokes but also a condensed of vintage pop cult references from the 70s and 80s (yes, even more than Famiy Guy). With so many Venture cosplay already happening in comic conventions, I can't wait to see how are mainsteam comics going to react to to it. 19. Identity Crisis, Hush, Batman/Superman and 52
After Batman: No Man's Land I was bored with DC Comics for a while. Understanding Comics reinfused me with love for comics, but not for DC. Our Worlds at War was so cloying, I gave up. What was Batman going to do next, anyway? Gotham was running out of disasters. But then, out of nowhere, everybody started to talk about the murder of Sue Dibny, and how great the mystery was, so I had to see what the fuss was all about. So I read it, and I loved it. It was a pull back, making the satellite era cool and relevant again. The characters that were most commonly associated with DC were at the front center again. To me, it looked like the actual DC Comics Super Friends facing their own secrets, fears and flaws.
Identity Crisis lead me to follow up with what seemed like a great DC bonanza of awesome stories in the same spirit: Batman/Superman, Hush, For Tomorrow and Formerly Known as the Justice League from before, and then with I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League, Green Lantern: Rebirth, Countdown, The Dark Knight Strikes Back, All-Star Superman, All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, Infinite Crisis, 52, Dark Detective, Brad Meltzer and Dwayne McDuffie's Justuce League of America run, Paul Dini's 'tec run, Grant Morrison's Batman runand Final Crisis. (Note that at the same time they were airing Justice League Unlimited). DC was shuffling it's greatest properties with the greatest talent available: Meltzer, Lee, Morales, Miller, Morrison, Dini, McDuffie, Waid, Hughes, Giffen, DeMatteis, Cooke, Johns. Yes, a lot of bad things were happening to some of the best characters: Sue, the Elongated Man, Rocket Red, the Question, Blue Beetle II, Aquaman, the Martian Manhunter and the original Ventriloquist died; Wonder Woman and Batman did some questionable things and Captain Atom and Maxwell Lord became villains. However, at the time it seemed to me that they were just making things darker before dawn. The return of Supergirl and other silver age elements seemed to indicate that with Infinite Crisis or Final Crisis
they would reboot DC to make it a brighter place with a reset. That never happened (to his credit, VP Dan DiDio did try, but he was blocked by higher powers); it was done out of time, too little, too late, too half way with Flashpoint and "the new 52" and I ended angry and disappointed, but I had a nice run and that's hard to deny.
18. Supreme
I used to think that, unlike Batman, Superman never really got his quintessential story in comics (maybe they should just adapt the Mario Puzo script and be done with it); that he doesn't have a Year One or The Dark Knight Returns. However, in the mid 00s I had the pleasure of discovering that I was wrong. Well, kinda. We can always squint and pretend that the Supreme stories by Alan Moore are it.
It seems like, at least by the 90s, Moore was a bit sick of torturing heroes with realistic tragedies that challenge their vision of what's right and wrong, so instead of a grim Superman, he made a pastiche of all the previous portrayals of Superman there had been so far.
Supreme is basically like Byrne or Jurgens' Superman facing everything he did under the most notorious writers that came before, mainly Otto Binder. In the story, we get a new Supreme entering reality after a revision; he goes through all the aspects of his past as he fixes loose ends and fights returning villains (part of the fun is trying to identify the DC characters that the supporting characters are supposed to represent). This way, the entire run, along with Judgement Day and other isolated issues, are the ultimate tribute to the process of comic superhero revision.
17. The Tick
SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONN!!!
I wish I could say that I know the character through its comics, but I was actually among the wave of fans that met the character through the animated series, which was part of a hype of superheroes in other media. After the success of Batman: The Animated Series, X-men and comics events like the The Death of Superman, Knightfall, Maximum Carnage, there was an era in which superheroes took over Saturday morning cartoons, now with a more serious tone than the series of the syndicated era (Thundercats, He-man, etc.). And The Tick did the exact opposite, showing a metropolis overcrowded with guys in tights so tight that their butt cracks were actually visible, only they were all neurotic, delusional and utterly incompetent and impractical nutjobs. And among them, generic within their own diversity, the Tick, whose name and costume didn't even make sense, was king. He was a nice, overwhelming, bigger than life, blue block with a Quixote attitude and a really small brain concealed by a really small head.
This cartoon was the first to show me that even humor has a place within superhero comics. Ever since The Tick, I've always been a fan of comedy with superhumans, which is probably why I just fell in love with JLI.
16. Freakazoid!
I can't believe nobody turned this property into an actual comic book! What are you waiting, DC?!
I still remember watching that first episode in shock: It was half Batman: The Animated Series, half Animaniacs, a bit Spider-man, and all surreal. Three of my favorite FoxKids shows in one!
It was fairly obvious from day one, but, eventually, I learned that it was originally about Bruce Timm, the creator of Batman: The Animated Series, pitching a series about a superhero version of the Joker, which then became more like Spider-man (which is why they have an unused Archie-like cast in the early episodes), ended as another Tiny Toons or Animaniacs type of show after he bailed and was then turned into a Monty Python type of thing. The best of the humor was done by Paul Rugg (who voiced Freakazoid) and good friend of the blog, John P. McCann.
It had it all: comedy, action, parodies, a terribly great rogues gallery, excellent art and even Henry Kissinger. What else could a kid want in a show? Laugh with me. Laugh with me!
15. Tim Burton's Batman
The 1989 Batman film directed by Tim Burton caused an epidemic wave of batmania among my generation. I got it and I got it pretty bad. I still remember the first time I saw it. I was siting a hammock with my brother and my cousin. My aunt, a good hearted spoiler by nature, was afraid that it might be too shocking for the three buggers, which is the reason we had to wait for the Betamax (it's a real thing, look it up) to come out. Along with Superman, Batman Returns, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Wayne's World any Star Wars and Back to the Future, it has to be one of the movies I watched the most.
Dark = cool. Although I still watched the wave of reruns of the 60s Batman show and Super Friends that came with the '89 batmania, anyway, but the lesson was pretty clear: the darker, the better. In the eyes of moviegoers, Burton's film lend credibility to superheroes. After it, both Batman and Superman had serious and acclaimed portrayals outside their original medium. Animation followed the example with Batman: The Animated Series and X-men, both of which inspires a lot of similar series. There were also the Batman film sequels and the similarly dark and serious (for the 90s) TV series of The Flash and Lois and Clark.
14. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
As a kid, it was the awesome cartoon about charming turtles that fight other animal mutants lead by a ninja and an alien; as an adult it became an awesome pastiche of vigilante, ninja and sci-fi genres with an over the top B-movie type of title. Reading the original comics, wonderfully redone in the 2003 cartoon, feels like a roller coaster of never ending weird adventures; an aspect that the 80s cartoon never quite capture. Batman, Spider-man and most superheroes tend to fight the same villains in the same settings all the time, the the turtles went from ninjas on rooftops, to robots in the sewers, anthropomorphic triceratops in outer space and demons in medieval times. It doesn't get more surreal than that, which is why I love that the TMNT keep returning since I first watch them as an 8 years old kid.
13. Daredevil and Batman: Year One
I don't now if they are more "realistic", but the serious tone that Frank Miller added to classic vigilantes certainly increased their coolness and the sense of danger that we get from their adventures. Pulp fiction goes greatly with vigilantes. The Batman that I got when I started reading comics in the early 90s was mostly an echo of Year One. I didn't read the real deal (Year One, The Dark Knight Returns) until the late 90s and I just read Daredevil throughout the last decade, which is why I don't rank this higher.
I'm not sure how to describe them, although Miller went over the top with DKR, these works made superheroes feel solid, grounded and badass; something that is really hard to get from other writers. Besides, without Miller, we wouldn't have so many great stuff: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Burton and Nolan Batman movies, the post-Crisis Batman, Batman: The Animated Series, and, I dare to say, the British invasion and Vertigo.
12. Angry comics of the early 90s.
After the first time they ran Batman: The Animated Series and X-men, somebody from my classroom showed up with the Knightfall and Death of Superman translated trades (none of us understood English back then). They were Batman and Superman, the guys from Super Friends but they were "serious stuff", the "official versions", not for kids anymore (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha); which was really cool and mind blowing for the pack of pre-teenagers taking turns to read it in the class room. Knightfall caught my eye a bit more, with the run against all the villain characters I knew from BTAS and the 60s show. Then there was Maximum Carnage, The Reign of the Supermen, Fatal Attractions, Emerald Twilight and a number of trading card series, describing cool, tragic and really violent events in the lives of DC and Marvel characters, most of them incredibly pumped with skin tight costumes with lots of utility belts and coats. Yes, most of those stories are better forgotten, but all in all, they are what introduced me to comics.
11. Batman
I have to be fair with Adam West, Burt Ward, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin, Vincent Price and the rest of those guys. That show was my first impression of DC Comics and the only concept I had of Batman until I first watched the Burton film (when I was 8).
I know it seems really silly now, but to a 5 years old, it looked about as interesting as it gets. And we shouldn't be too harsh on it, if something was proven by Batman: the Brave and the Bold, is that every interpretation of Batman is equally valid. Batman wasn't that different from the comics or even other TV shows of the era and it was even done by some of the finest Hollywood talent of the late 60s!
I sustain that it was a great gateway to DC comics. Bizarre villains with flashy costumes, over the top fight scenes, mortal traps and lots of riddles, what else could a kid want from a live action TV show. I liked Hulk and Wonder Woman as well but, without the colorful antagonists, I used to fall asleep after the first 10 minutes. I for some reason really liked the later when I was 14, though...
10. X-men
The power of "As seen on TV".
18 years ago, this animated series introduced me to the world of comics. As I mentioned before, it came along with a wave of trading cards and comic events that got me hooked on DC and Marvel. Batman: The Animated Series reintroduced me to superheroes, but it was too alienated within its own gorgeous and timeless universe. X-men, on the other hand, benefited from adapting the vast and wonderful body of X-men stories from the books; consequently, it was more of a middle ground between TV animated series and comics. Its art, continuity, stories and even its season format was a lot like the X-men comics of the time, which is something that was never done before and, now that I think about it, was rarely done afterwards in another series. About every character I saw in that series had an almost identical story in the comics, so, once I fell in love with them, it made a great transition to comics, where I could get even more of that candy.
9. The Dark Knight
I must have seen this one like 5 times in theaters. Batman (1989) was great, but it missed something. I love Michael Keaton's "I'm Batman" Batman, but it wasn't quite the Batman from comics (for starters, he killed). Batman Begins captured the best aspects of the contemporary Batman mythos, but didn't cause much of an impact. Now, TheDark Knight, hat it all. It captured the best aspects from the comics, it had the perfect Batman (well, save for the voice thing), caused a huge deal of an impact and on top of that, gave superhero movies a lot of recognition. Unlike Batman Begins, to me, this sequel not only lived up to Batman: Year One, it as actually better!
8. Bwahaha
I discovered it too late around 1995, but it was so awesome to see DC Comics characters acting almost as if they belonged to a sitcom or The Tick universe (both franchises were created about the same time), that I starting collecting whatever Justice League International (JLI) issue I could throughout the rest of the 90s. Formerly Known as the Justice League (2003) and I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League (2005)became my favorite and I completed Justice League Europe eventuallyafter that.
Just like the DC-Vertigo characters make the DC Universe more exiting by having a really serious, surreal and eerie corner; the stories of Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis do the same by adding a silly side. While guys like Moore or Miller deconstructed the superhero genre by grounding its world to realism, the JLI team kinda deconstructed it with the funny aspects of reality: our daily life comic situations, incompetency, gossip, vanity, bureaucracy, etc.
Also noteworthy is that when the average hero of the late 80s was pessimistic, violent and snarky, the Justice League, despite their flaws, were kind and, deep down, idealistic. They might joke about it, but in the end, even their sleazeball manipulative boss had a heart of gold. Ralph, Sue, Max, Ted, Michael, Tora, Bea, Guy, J'onn, Karen and Dmitri are some of the best characters DC has ever seen and Giffen and DeMatteis are geniuses for this take. It doesn't matter qhe other writers did with them, I'll always go back to those stories. (By the way, their recent Booster Gold run and Justice League Retroactive:the 90s, rocked just as much).
7. The DC-Vertigo characters.
Pushed by the success of X-men and, mainly, Daredevil, DC Comics responded by hiring some serious writing talent from wherever they came. First Len Wein discovered Alan Moore, then they brought Frank Miller from Marvel (not a Brit, though), and later, after they lost both, they headhunted Jaime Delano, Neil Gaiman, Peter Milligan and Grant Morrison. The body of work these people created, constitutes a dark and very sophisticated corner of the DC Universe.
When I was 20, it seemed to me that comics had nothing to offer. It was just Batman, Superman or Spider-man going over their rogues galleries over and over in adventures that every time seemed more dull to me. But then, I got a series of great tips that lead me to the works of Moore and the guys that followed in: Swamp Thing, Sandman, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, The Books of Magic, DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore, Hellblazer, Shade, etc. Along with the wave of new stories that followed Identity Crisis, these collections allowed me to keep enjoying DC Comics for many years.
6. The New Frontier
Good doesn't mean postmodern and dark. If the guys that can make great contemporary stories with superheroes are few, the ones that can make them also heroic and bright are even fewer. I'd say that Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, Mark Waid, Kurt Busiek, Alex Ross, Paul Dini, Dwayne McDuffie (R.I.P.), Alan Burnett, Bruce Timm, Alan Moore (after the 80s) and Darwyn Cooke are among the few storytellers that insist on the perpetuation of the modern (modern as in "before postmodern") and heroic portrayal that the DC superheroes originally had. Few of them work with the canon of DC Universe. There's Waid's The Silver Ageand Ross' Justice, but to me, Cooke's DC: The New Frontier is the flagship story. It was relevant, multi-layered and captured the true spirit of the DC superheroes.
I actually hoped that after Final Crisis the DC Universe would be rebooted to be more like The New Frontier or the Diniverse.
5. Scott McCloud
I'm telling you, this guy is the messiah of comics! Reading Understanding Comics opened my eyes to the full possibilities of the medium and made me a proud reader. Comics went from just being my guilty pleasure, to a form of art that I follow enthusiastically, "sequencial art". After years of being fed whatever DC and Marvel put on the shelves, I was finally able to appreciate the greatness of a number of writers and artists: Gaiman, Moore, Spiegelman, Miller, Moebius. And I still have a long way to go; DC has occupied way too much of my time.
Now, the day the mainstream industry realises that they need to do exactly what this guy described in Reinventing Comics, (oh, boy!) the medium will start reaching its potential. We need diversity!
4. Maus
Right after reading Understanding Comics, around 2001, I decided to get on the right path and read a monthly dose of decent comics, and this was on top of my first stack. McCloud couldn't be righter, Maus is pretty much the piece of storytelling that proves that comics can be great. In somebody else's words it is "at one and the same time a novel, a documentary, a memoir, and a comic book." It's the Godfather of comics; few or no movies are as tuching or compelling as this humble story of a Jewish survior of the holocaust, written and narrated by his own son during the last days of his life. Once I started, I wasn't able to drop the book and I think I made averybody in my family read it, ha, ha.
At the same time, it's a homage to the possibilities of comics and its redemption. Its style is quite cartoony (they are all cute animals), which makes a high contrast with the harshnes and realism of the narration. Incidentally, this way it becomes the utter proof that comics and cartoons can be an effective vehicle for trascendency.
My weird obsession with this couple doesn't go that far back. Formerly Known as the Justice League and Identity Crisis made me notice the non Plastic Man guy that was always hanging with the league in the big events of the early 90s. I was like "yeah, I remember that guy". I didn't even knew his real name before that - Spanish translations he was known as el Hombre Elástico (Elastic Man). The DeMatteis / Giffen / Maguire made me like the Dibnys and [ïronically] Brad Meltzer made me care about them. Once I realized that the Elongated Man got his powers from a fictional fruit that grows in my native Yucatan, I got really interested and, after reading Showcase Presents: the Elongated Man, it was decided: the Dibnys became my favorite characters. Handled directly by Julius Schwartz, John Broome, Carmine Infantino, Gardner Fox and then Len Wein, they were rooted at the heart of the silver age. As eclectic, eccentric and hedonistic as they are, they are the best examples of emotinal intelligence DC has to offer, which is something I deeply admire. They are honest, goodhearted, creative, generous and, unlike most of the average DC characters, they are not just reactive to to the drama, they are proactive, love what they do and live a plenty life.
See what I mean?
1. Batman: The Animated Series and the DC Animated Universe
(a.k.a. BTAS and the DCAU)
Can you believe that Bruce Timm was once rejected from DC comics? Yet, somehow, he managed to revolutionize aimation in a series that marries the Batman tradition with a sophisticated retro but fresh style. As far as I'm concerned, Bruce Timm, along with Paul Dini, Eric Radomski, Alan Burnett, Stan Berkowitz, Glen Murakami, Andrea Romano, Darwyn Cooke, Dwayne McDuffie and many others, created an universe that is actually better and more elegant than the regular DC Universe. Superhero cartoons were never taken seriously until this series came. The content of BTAS is not just for kids, but for all ages.
As I said before, Batman: The Animated Series, made me rediscover the DC characters and was my main reason to start collecting the comics; however, I never loved them as much. After the third episode I saw I was officially obessed. For over ten years I only drew imitating the style of Bruce Timm. I made tons of turnarounds trying to adapt classic DC characters to his style. A lot of people still do the same, and even DC decided to change characters like Metallo, Supergirl or the Parasite to look like Timm's designs. I only read comics because they were the best next thing after reruns.
One of the greatest things about the BTAS universe, is that it kept coming back with different angles. First it was Batman: The Animated Series, then, with more Robin it became The Adventures of Batman and Robin, the next series; Superman: The Animated Series, repeated the original formula with a new main character, The New Batman Adventures had Batman leading a team of Gotham Knights (Robin II, Nightwing and Batgirl); Batman Beyond deal with their distant future and Batman's legacy, The Zeta Project expanded that futuristic universe; Static Shock, a series about a teenage hero dealing with juvenile gangs,became linked to this DC animated Universe (DCAU), and finally, they did Justice League, which became Justice League Unlimited and tied all the events and characters of the previous series.
There were also four movies: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Batman & Mr. Freeze: Sub-zero, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker; and Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman.
Justice League Unlimited was like going out with a bang. It featured a really large cast that included almost all the DC characters I wanted to see, a lot that I'd have never expected and a bunch that I didn't even know. It was like a child fantasy come true. Like Super Friends, but with better art, better writing and a hundred times more characters.
One of the coolest aspects of the DCAU is that it actually had epilogues, unlike the reguar DC universe, it told the full story of a lot of its protagonists: Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Lex Luthor, Darkseid, the Joker, Harley Quinn, Superman, Grodd, John Stewart and Amanda Waller.
All this work was produced in 14 years, and all that time I kept returning and being further introduced to the characters of DC. BTAS could have been a fad, like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or The Ghostbusters before it, but it kepts returning with series lived up to the established quality, so, the DCAU kept me hooked, loving the wonderful world of DC.
I don't even remember how I ran into it, but I found an unexpected and unexpectedly good Elongated Man fanfic story, written by Michael Hutchison and ilustrated by Christian Moore and the Brothers Grinn for Fanzing in 1999. Here's the link: http://www.fanzing.com/mag/fanzing20/feature2.shtml
The story is told as an pretend interview between a Fanzing writer from our reality and Ralph Dibny (how meta!). In it, Ralph origins are explained in detail, making a lot of sense in parts that even Mark Waid was able to make it seem natural. Surprisingly, it doesn't rely on retcons (well save the Zee part). It features a brand new story within it and lots of small misadventures.
Ralph's enthusiasm about Inda Rubber Men is finally explained in way that makes sense. Incidentally, a way that I've thought myself before reading this story: Ralph's research on entertainers with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome was a thesis project.
The origin of Ralph's fortune and the nature of his fame are also greatly enlightened. It's clear that Hutchison is an expert on the details that I've been exploring in this blog about Ralph's life in the early Flash issues, like the point in which he revealed his secret identity.
There are some details that didn't satisfy me much, though. Ralph spends way too much space talking about a made up media obsession about his sexual endowments and intimate life with Sue, which I'm sure would be a somewhat recurring joke for late night shows, but not as bad as it's proposed in the story. And I don't believe that Ralph would be the type of guy who would throw more wood to that kind of fire. Instead, I believe it would have been nicer to see some JLA gossip.
Ralph portrayal was spot on. He's funny and clever (I liked that he mentions that he belongs to Mensa), yet a very normal guy. His dialog was missing about nine Seinfeldesque observations for my taste, but it's still excellent.
"A Long Talk With A Long Guy" is an ingenius and clever piece of fanfic and it's must for any Elongated Man fan. Michael Huchinson is a very talented writer and DC should buy and adapt this story using a similar format (I'd like it as a Lois Lane / Ralph Dibny interview presented as a Daily Planet online article).
