“Give me back my eye drops!”
The Phantom: The Ghost Who Walks Book 1
Marvel Comics (February, 1995)
“Called To Account”
WRITER/COLORIST: Dave DeVries
ARTIST: Glenn Lunsden
LETTERER: John Costanza
EDITOR: Tom Daning
EDITOR IN CHIEF: Carl Potts
“Heroes Reborn” did so many things wrong I’ll just suggest tracking down the reviews I did of Iron Man and the HR crossovers. Basically it was crap. It also led to the first renumbering of many of it’s flagship titles, and since modern comic company owners seem scared of high numbers we’ve been getting a lot of #1s these days.
In addition to promising to tone down the political rhetoric (believe it when I see it) and having heroes fighting something other than heroes again (not that Marvel heroes ever get along to begin with but at least they still fought villains), Marvel is opting to restore the “legacy numbering”, which will just mess up our collections even further but it’s not like they ever think of that. Comic store owner Michael Breakfield wrote a commentary for ICv2 about Marvel’s renumbering history.
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Let’s see if we can finish this in one shot, shall we? I stand by what I said yesterday about why I’m doing this but this has eaten up so much of my time that I’ve decided that next week I’m going to take some time off to go through other things I’ve been wanting to discuss. Additionally we’ll be doing this every two weeks instead of every week just because I’m getting burned out on this. Usually this series covers one chapter a week, but apparently fiction is easier to summarize.
Besides, there comes a point where you get tired of seeing someone who clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about act like they’re an expert. I admit there may be smarter people than me out there, but because Wertham has seen a lot of bad kids reading the wrong kinds of comics he’s decided comics are the problem. I wonder how much timing has to do with things. The US was recovering from two big hits, the Great Depression and World War II, and suddenly there were comics. But we’re starting off this chapter with more questionable views on women, but at the same time he actually raises some good critiques. Too bad it’s still surrounded by so many bad ones.
Read up if you haven’t already and let’s get on with it.
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“I AM thinking positively. I’m positive I’m lost!”
Transformers Spotlight #2: Nightbeat
IDW Publishing (October, 2006)
WRITER: Simon Furman
ARTIST: MD Bright
COLORIST: John Rauch
SELECTED COVER COLORIST: Josh Burcham
LETTERING: Sulaco Studios
EDITORS: Chris Ryall & Dan Taylor
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The character model for Two-Face as seen in the show bible for Batman: The Animated Series.
One would have thought that William Shatner playing a 1960s TV Bat-version of Two-Face would have been the most interesting part of Batman Vs. Two-Face, but then we lost Batman himself, Adam West. He did complete the recording for the vocals of this animated movie, a sequel to Return Of The Caped Crusadersand we now have a trailer and (potential) release date.
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“What do you mean I can’t use lead paint?”
Voltron: Defender Of The Universe #3
Image Comics/Devil’s Due (July, 2003)
“Revelations” part 3
WRITER: Dan Jolley
PENCILERS: Mike Norton & Clint Hilinski
INKER: Clayton Brown
COLORIST: Brett R. Smith
LETTERING: Dreamer Design
Chapter By Chapter Special: Seduction Of The Innocent ch. 9 part 3
There are some of you out there who are probably wondering why I’m going through this. Sure the website has gained followers since I started this review, but so did The First Phase Shifters And The Omega Capsule. This has also drawn in a lot more likes that I’ve ever gotten. And while I’m glad to see more people interested in my commentary it’s not like I’m being paid tons of money to do this. (Although if someone out there wants to pay me tons of money I could use it.) And to be honest I think I’m burning out on this (I have a solution, check back tomorrow) because all summer I’ve done almost nothing but analyze this book.
The thing is I know I’m talking to a brick wall, since this is a book published decades ago written by a man who doesn’t know as much about what he’s fighting against as he thinks and wouldn’t want to anyway due to his biases. But it is important to bring this stuff up. Like I said yesterday, you can’t declare an entire medium as being just for kids simply because it’s new. Comics had to shake that off. Cartoons are still fighting it. Video games seems to work around it but they and comics seem to be doing so by abandoning younger audiences for their work and that’s not a good solution either. Unless it’s porn kids shouldn’t be left out simply because you have to censor yourself. To do this we need to convince parents that you can’t write off an entire format just to shove the kids off on something and move on. You need to pay attention to what your kids are watching. Even seeing, for example, the Minions of Despicable Me and saying “that’s fine” doesn’t work when YouTube has creators who are cheap jerks with a weird fetish playing off of clickbait while enjoying being subversive. Because they’re a#$%#$^%s mainly. Pay attention to what’s influencing your kids.
However, Dr. Wertham seems to think that the comics are the root cause rather than simply a bad influence easily countered by good parenting, which is hard when parents are both working and that’s if one is able to find work or didn’t die during the war. Comics were cheap to get (even adjusted for inflation they would have been under a dollar…compared to around $4 on shelves today) and kids needed an escape from their problems that books didn’t always offer…because they were also expensive. I really want to understand the mindset of these adults who don’t understand media, children, and children’s media. And we’re up to more examples of comics evilness so lets just race through this part, shall we?
Make sure you follow along.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on August 9, 2017 in Comic Spotlight, Seduction Of The Innocent and tagged book review, Chapter By Chapter, commentary, Dr. Fredric Wertham, Seduction Of The Innocent.
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