why-bless-your-heart:

I’m always confused when people complain that American superhero comic books are hard to follow because I don’t think you’re supposed to “follow” them?

I mean, Batman’s been around since 1939 with every reboot, rewrite, and readaptation that comes from that, being handed about from writer to writer over the decades and quite honestly, it’s only to be expected that there’s going to be an absolute mess. If it were just one story, yes, you’d expect cohesiveness, but it’s not. It’s the same character being used to tell story after story after story. It’s like Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill or Stormalong or Punch and Judy… you can’t make a single, cohesive narrative using these characters, start to finish, without ignoring or flat-out contradicting half of the stories that have come before. There are consistencies of character and type, and elements that are repeated time and time again, but it’s not like a TV show with one complete story arc: canon just doesn’t operate in the same sense. Within the constraints of character (not necessarily including personality, but Spiderman is Peter Parker and has spider powers from when he was bitten by a radioactive spider, Superman is Clark Kent and came from Krypton as a ababy and was raised in Kansas by adoptive parents, etc.), the storytellers incorporate and disregard previous material at will, and that’s how it should be.

So if you’re putting off getting into superhero comics because you ‘don’t know where to start,’ start anywhere. Find the artists and writers and stories and characters that you like and disregard the ones you don’t. The internet will be happy to explain anything you don’t understand, but most stories will give you a vague idea of everything you need to know. And there is no test at the end of the book. It took me forever to realize that Jason Todd and Tim Drake weren’t the same Robin, and that’s fine. You can still enjoy the stories without understanding the reference that the author just made to the 1980s short-lived run where the superhero was a private eye detective in a steampunk alternative reality and had a wife and three kids, and if you don’t enjoy the stories, you can ignore them.

There are people who are dedicated to following comics and who invest a lot into understanding the intricacies of the convoluted comic books multi-verse, and all the more power to them, but that is not a requirement for reading and enjoying comics and superheroes. Don’t let yourself be intimidated by other people’s passion. It’s fine to like things casually, and you shouldn’t let the fact that your interest is casual prevent you from pursuing those interests.

kaylabeemarie:

Batkids on their ~~playdates~~ team missions!

A few fun facts:

Roy often skips Boy Scout meetings to hang out with Kori and Jason (Don’t tell Ollie)

Kyle Rayner is usually hanging with the Troublemakers but had a cold on this particular day and Hal wouldn’t let him leave the house.

Cass is wearing Bruce’s old costume (here) that she found in the attic while playing hide and seek with her brothers. Alfred has since made a few alterations to it, of course.

That stuffed cat looking thing behind Damian was made by Dick. Alfred has been teaching him how to sew and he practices by making tons of plush for his siblings! (They’re finally starting to look like actual animals)

Don’t worry, Alfred fixed Mr. Moo.

batfamladies:

Stephanie Brown as Batgirl

theblackbat:

cassandra cain + dancing

lucyclairedelune:

Clark Kent probably made crop-circles in his own wheat field out of boredom when he was a kid –

– and let’s be real, he still makes crop-circles when he visits the farm because it never gets old

draconian62:

Batman #16

Green Lanterns #15 Review

franatastic:

“A Day in The Life”

Written by Sam Humphries
Drawn by

Miguel Mendonça, Scott Hanna and Tom Derenick

First of all I wanted to express my thanks to all of you who liked and shared the Jessica Cruz + Simon Baz Appreciation Post I wrote back in Octobor 22nd last year, and I certainly hope it was both as inspiring to some and maybe gave you an idea as to pick the series up. If not, well, I thank you anyway for your time for reading it. Today’s review can be as a “Part Deux” of it, so here we go.

The story is mostly a one-shot but it opens up with Jess on her bed in which I assume can be something daily for her:

Which hops into her thoughts as Simon and her are about to have pancakes in a small diner. Jess feels that she shouldn’t talk her struggles with Simon because it probably won’t help, that he doesn’t understand and would take it personally, making her feel guilty and it would only make everything feel worse. The Justice League later calls in for their assistance and they head out and after helping them out, they get other calls, like fixing a dam, helping civilians trapped by a landslide and a flash flood and the whole time, Jess is thinking to herself that helping civilians actually helps her as well. That focusing on other people and grounding herself in reality, her problems doesn’t seem so overwhelming.

And then a new villain shows up.

And it’s too much for Jess. The Gambler in all of his random doings, sayings, and outfit, Jess can’t seem to focus. She can’t focus. The Gambler sees an opportunity and knocks her down and Simon decks him. The two of them have a talk and Jess lays it all down.

When Jess gets home, she feels awful. She feels so angry, yet she feels embarrassed. So she gets back to her own routine, back to her own moment: Meditation, breathing and keeps herself grounded in the present. She later exercises, focusing her breathing and get a clear head. Her sister comes over and uses her time to rebuild her armor and sharpen herself, and ultimately…

But Jess is a Green Lantern, damnit. She can do this!

And it ends on a pretty positive note which we all can relate to, hopefully.

And that’s that. It ends on a message from Bats, giving them a new assignment in Gotham and a team-up. Hype!

Anyways. Once again, Sam Humphries has written another great issue and the daily life/struggles of Jessica Cruz. The only flaw (though a very small one) is that I would love to see what Simon goes through in his life, though we did see it a bit with his family and trying at least hide it from his family. But other than that, I really enjoyed this issue. The art is really good, especially the close-ups and the use of colors, especially the color green of the lanterns to good effect. I can only hope that Jess will overcome her greatest fears and become the greatest Green Lantern on Earth, but until then – we are all seeing that development as it progresses.

Final Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

As a closing words, I will leave with this quote from Stan Lee in 2012, “We tried to make our characters as human and empathetic as possible. Instead of merely emphasizing their super feats, we attempted to make their personal life and personal problems as realistic and as interesting as possible. We wanted to make them seem like real people whom the reader would like to spend time with and want to know better.”