Comments on: Super-Speed Violence

By: West

West — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:05:34 +0000

Toughie. If you're going to keep this one Flash-centric I guess K-Squared is the way to go. But maybe your Speed Force line items (you do those here, too, right) can include links back to general comics posts from K-Squared that you think might interest us. .-= West’s latest blog post: SkyFire is a bad mutha... =-.

By: Lia

Lia — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:12:46 +0000

Of course, Goldface WAS redeemed, and I believe the Top’s severe mental illness leaves him not responsible for at least some of his crimes (as an aside, it’s kind of disturbing how many characters during Johns’ run acknowledge that he’s bugnuts crazy but don’t think to get him any HELP). So even the Rogues who were known killers aren’t necessarily so cut and dried. Piper tried to force a man to suicide back in the day, but he’s the most reformed of the bunch now.

But this is just kind of a tangent, it doesn’t take away from your argument (which I agree with).

By: papa zero

papa zero — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 08:09:22 +0000

I would like to think that it is the craft of storytelling that takes precedent. When looking at West Side Story in it’s totality – some of the variables may go in and out of fashion but I don’t think it’s necessarily dated because of it’s lack of content of violence. Even that is cyclical through the ages of storytelling. Come to think of it – there really wasn’t any shortage of bayonettes in German guts or Cowboy/Indian gun violence. I think an effective and tense story can be told about a character who ultimately determines his only option is to get a gun.

In the case of the Rogues – some of them did kill people… and most of them at some point or another sought to kill Flash himself. The difference was that killing was incidental to their self-serving agenda and sometimes avoided if possible. It is for this reason that the irreedemable characters like Goldface, Reverse Flash, or The Top became more precious as characters. They wanted to explicity cause suffering and murder. Violent and dangerous killers are useful characters but, so too are self-absorbed/self-loathing Rogues.

Your point isn’t lost on me, I just think that making every gang member hold a gun makes for less dynamic in the characters even if on the surface it appears theyre all “more dangerous.” Before, Barry Allen could have conceivably entered a no win situation with Reverse Flash where he would have to kill him. Now? There seems little to make a distinction where you would draw a line. It certainly seems like Barry won’t be telling jokes and making fun of the Rogues anymore while simultaneously kicking their butts.

By: Kelson

Kelson — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:02:23 +0000

Thanks. I’m making an effort to include more original commentary instead of getting totally caught up in repeating news. Although in this case, it started as a linkpost with a brief comment…that turned into a longer comment…that turned into a full post!

I guess the big question is for more general comics-stuff, whether to put it here, or at K-Squared Ramblings.

By: Kelson

Kelson — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:58:09 +0000

Well who knows. Stranger things’ve happened I suppose.

One can always hope.

By: Kelson

Kelson — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:57:00 +0000

I think to some extent the darkening of the Rogues is a matter of changing times. I remember when I was in college (mid-1990s), one of my acting teachers made a point about how West Side Story is horribly dated now, because the big threat at the end is that one of the gang members actually manages to get a gun! Whereas today, half of them would probably have been carrying guns to start with.

By: West

West — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:24:54 +0000

Nice one.

By: Demas

Demas — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 05:02:23 +0000

I don’t think CSI is code for the same kind of gruesome crime scenes set to music video editing and cheesy FX, but instead the secret knowledge detective mechanic- ala Sherlock, Adrian Monk, etc.- but Barry’s deus ex machina will be super-science, vibrations, and molecules instead of uncanny memorization of trivia, details, and deduction. Looking at the Preview, the technobabble is already flowing….

I definitely do not want the story to be like Powers, not just because of the adult content, but because of the painfully slow pace of procedural precinct stories. Sure, Powers and Gotham Central are great reads collected, but they are way too slow for a superhero monthly and take forever to resolve a single case. The cheesy 60s-Physics stories used scientific deus ex machinas to solve cases in one issue… but at the cost of credible science/stories.

I’m curious what kind of balance they’ll try to strike. The reason procedurals can be drawn out is because the mystery is rational, realistic, and therefore rewarding upon the reveal. Technobabble reveals are somewhat meaningless… basically “A Wizard Did It” level revelation.

By: papa zero

papa zero — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:04:58 +0000

Youre right on. Rogues didn’t murder people… Goldface, Reverse Flash, the Top and only a few others stood out in this regard. Having picked up a substantial portion of Johns’ run in TPB I also noticed that Rebirth wasn’t the beginning of his characterization of Flash as a “conservative and humorless” hero. I could see how it would be used in Wally’s story arc – but Geoff has to know that he is changing the nature of these characters if he has in fact really read the entire silver age run.

By: Lia

Lia — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:56:23 +0000

One blogger, writing about Johns killing off Rainbow Raider (sniff) called him Geoff “I need a hug” Johns. I think he can be rather brutal, and he also tends to write more violence into the Rogues’ backstories, for instance. In Rebirth #2, Sam Scudder was now a murderer before becoming Mirror Master. In Flash v2 #215, Barry claims in his letter that 11 cops died trying to bring in the Top. Heat Wave sorta-inadvertently killed tons of people with his pyromania. Etc.

Now if the original writers of the Silver and Bronze Age had intended them to be guilty of these crimes, I’m sure they would have said so. Remember when Goldface killed a cop to draw out the Flash, and it was a really big deal? Heat Wave was disgusted, and it even became a big plot point later on with Flash’s lawyer. It was a big deal that a villain killed a cop. But now Johns retcons lots of casual murder into their early histories and I don’t think that’s what previous writers intended at all.

(Of course, the Top is a bit of a unique case, because if he’d succeeded in some of his early schemes, he would have killed at least half the people on Earth…)