Except I find I'm not enthusiastic.
However, I must admit that maybe the problem isn't the quality or direction of the stories. Maybe it's me. I've been having a hard time finding the fun in much of anything recently, and that depression-tinted malaise may very well be coloring my perception of DC's comic books.
Grant posted on Oct. 4, 2024 at 4:40 PM
Not just you! Absolute Power was incredibly generic at best, if not completely uninspired. The central takeaway, that they should reform the Justice League, was incredibly dumb considering that the League never needed to disband to begin with. It also showed a lack of follow-through with DC's "push" for the Titans, who never ended up dealing with anything outside of their wheelhouse for the majority of their run. It feels like a disingenuous waste of time.
As for the "All-In" special, I genuinely don't know why this had to be a thing. So much time is spent on name cards. On top of that, Booster's writing is incredibly flat. Booster isn't an idiot and I don't see why people keep writing him like one. It reads as something out of a fan fic, like the writers were amateurs. I can't imagine we'll follow up with the Booster plot for about half a year to a year and a half.
Darkseid's material is also incredibly disappointing. In interviews, Snyder talks about how Darkseid is meant to represent Superhero Fatigue. He doesn't want to amass a great power and lead a fearsome army. He's above that. So Darkseid...amasses a great power and leads a fearsome army. It's dumb and I don't know why it's trying to be bigger than itself when it clearly isn't.
Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Oct. 4, 2024 at 6:02 PM
Grant, are you living inside my head? "It feels like a disingenuous waste of time" could have been *my* title for this post. (If you are living inside my head, I recommend that you get out. It's not healthy in there.)
BoosterCola posted on Oct. 4, 2024 at 7:22 PM
I feel your opinions 100% and wish we could go back to the V2 BG writing and storytelling. Even though I enjoyed Blue & Gold, the 'Booster is an idiot' treatment is played out. BG at the end of 52 to the N52 was peak. I dunno if we'll ever get that back anytime soon. In the meantime, I know it may be taboo to love Tom King(because he can't write BG well at all), but his Black Series stories are top notch, best in class! Thanks for the Booster championing as always!
Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Oct. 4, 2024 at 8:28 PM
Hrumph. Tom King belongs to that group of writers who doesn't care a whit about established characterizations, so Black Label books are exactly (and only) where his work belongs.
Jeff posted on Oct. 4, 2024 at 9:39 PM
I liked the all in special, thought it was good not great. Thought booster accepting the justice league card was a little due to him being a time master and having to keep him being a competent hero a secret.
Tiche posted on Oct. 5, 2024 at 2:26 AM
In all honesty, I was completely unsurprised by how Absolute Power/All In turned out. Scott Snyder is very good at talking his writing up, saying how deep it is, and then delivering the most comic book writing to ever grace a crossover event of the year.
The peak of this is his Dark Nights saga. It purports to delve into deep metaphysical concepts and the fundaments of the DC "omniverse". In execution, it's a schoolyard experiment in oneupmanship. My edgy Batman OC is now a threat to all the universe... wait, all the multiverse... wait... all the omniverses!
It's infantile, and that it tries to market itself as meaningful makes it patronizing, especially when held directly in comparison to the comics that raised my standards to a level Snyder consistently fails to meet but says he's going to surpass. His latest offering was exactly on par for that. It's not without merit or value, but... it was another big crossover event in an annual tradition of big crossover events.
Brandon posted on Oct. 5, 2024 at 4:08 AM
To be honest, that post you shared a few days ago about the All-In Special with the scene of Superman saying he "always" saw Booster "as someone with the best of intentions" kind of exemplifies why I also find it difficult to get invested in anything DC publishes today.
Its so off-the-mark and so out of character, we might as well not even be reading a story about Booster Gold and Superman. It might as well be any two random characters.
I loved the JLI era and was cautiously excited about Fire and Ice finally getting a miniseries. But they felt so much like different characters, I couldn't bring myself to care.
Honestly, I'd rather see a complete, hard reboot of everything than this "It's the same characters you love and everything 'happened', but we're going to completely ignore every aspect of their established characterization".
I feel like that's the new normal.
Tiche posted on Oct. 5, 2024 at 5:58 AM
"Tom King continues to write unfamiliar characters using familiar names. At this point, I just want this series to be over."
From this site's own review of Heroes in Crisis #8. It's a sentiment I've found myself echoing a great deal. There's always a degree of characterisation changing between writers and between runs, but at this point it really does feel as though the Batman of today has nothing in common with the Batman I spent years reading, and the same applies to so many other characters.
