When ever people start bitching about Tom King's Batman, I always hear at least on people mention his Mister Miracle run, saying that it is his best work. So I went to my comic store and bought the hardcover and read it, and I gotta ask, is this really the best King has to offer? Like, it doesn't make me mad like his Batman run, but why do people think this is the best thing ever? The plot meanders forever on pseudo-philosophical nonsense that is loosely connected to the plot, the plot constantly shifts from an entire planet being on the line to mundane housework, and for some reason King is slavishly devoted to a 3x3 grid layout. Like, for real, why is every single page a 3x3 grid. It gets tedious to read after a while. Why is this considered good?
Why is this considered great?
meh
you have to admit the cover is great though
>the plot constantly shifts from an entire planet being on the line to mundane housework
Are you really listing this as a complaint when it's the entire premise of the book?
no complaints on the art, for sure. Just the layout of the panels. It seriously drove me up the wall
Also doesn't everyone agree his best work is Vision?
I love Mr Miracle but his best work is Vision
It's flawed but not for the dumbass reasons you're whining about
Its shit. People praise anything if enough people start to say its good.
I think people read the first few issues and then dropped and just judged the series off a strong opening. That's what I did until I went back and read the whole thing and realized it read a like edgy freshman philosophy student's Kirby fan fiction.
I can agree with that. The opening was pretty interesting. Then it just kinda doesn't really come up again till the end, which was pretty disappointing.
Then what reasons is it bad to you?
You have to understand that practically anything that touches on mental health is going to get inflated, and retarded, praise. It gives the work a false sense of depth, because most writers/readers have such a surface level understanding of what mental illness actually is and it in turn makes them feel smart/special. Tom King for example is a fucking hack and a attention whore claims having a desk job for the CIA gives you PTSD. This isn't to say all fiction touching on these subjects are garbage, it's just that they get lost in crap like this. I want to read Mister Miracle and Big Barda trying to escape the life of Apokolips for something simpler while on crazy adventures, not this pseudo-intellectual bullshit where Scott slits his wrists in a damn bathtub.
The people who like King's Mr Miracle are the same people who prefer the Starlin New God stories and characterizations over the Kirby version of the characters.
Kirby fags HATE HATE HATE HATE Starlin's take on the New Gods because Starlin thinks Orion's a monster who ruined Scott's life and that Highfather is a hypocritical piece of shit.
King is extremely pretentious and it makes all of his comics unbearable to read.
>Like, for real, why is every single page a 3x3 grid.
This is the one instance where it works extremely well in my opinion. Scott is an escape artist who feels boxed in, his world which is the comics page shows this. Did you find Watchmen tedious to read as well?
> Unpredictable plot
> Great twists
> Mindfuck. Don't know what's going on. Adds to the interest factor.
> Adds onto The New Gods story line
> Not boring relationship between Barda and Scott
> Tasteful references to other DC heroes
> Scott + Barda fighting a war + being a family while taking a toll
I think it's entertaining. I hate to give King credit for how much I like it. But to each their own.
Actually no. I remember reading the Watchmen and enjoying it quite a bit. Granted it was a few years ago but still, I remember it to be alright. Thing about the Watchmen is that even though they do follow a similar pattern, it's not shackled to the 3x3. Like, there are some panels just flipping through it right now that combine panels within the grid, which is nice. It breaks up what feels like complete monotony. King is obsessed with the 3x3 and I can't think of a single page that isn't in that format. It isn't the grid itself that's the issue, it's the repetition without any variations ever.
>The plot meanders forever on pseudo-philosophical nonsense
What philosophy was exactly in this?
King is BEST for small caracteres with family problema ,King is BAD for Big know caracteres such as batman
Government psy-op.
>It isn't the grid itself that's the issue, it's the repetition without any variations ever.
I actually mostly agree with this, it's just that this style works with Mr. Miracle's themes and plots in a way it doesn't with most of King's other works.
I really don't know. He torpedoes the entire character of Scott Free by having him willingly stay in a prison because it's a really nice prison.
I'll agree to the extent that Scott and Barda's relationship is actually pretty natural feeling. Their banter with each other is what made me keep reading though the middle part of the book despite the plot itself starting to lose me. I actually would have enjoyed it more if it was MORE of a mindfuck to be honest. The first couple issues had me really hooked on the whole "What is real, what is fake" angle. Fucking, Scott talking to people who aren't there with the ominous "Darksied is." sprinkled throughout had me going. Then it just kinda putters out until the final confrontation. Like, I don't even hate the book, I just find it massively mediocre and it left me pretty disappointed.
The problem is that with his other comics now available to read, it's pretty clear King wasn't doing anything thematic or intentional with the layout.
But even with that knowledge it still works. A broken clock, so to speak.
Sorry for the tangent since this is about King's Mr Miracle, but what does Yea Forums feel about DeMatteis' run? It's really ever mentioned and I've wanted to read it in full. Seems more in line with Kirby's take too.
It's mostly his thoughts and his theming centered around God that loses me. At it's best, it just kinda shows up and the ideas are very loosely connected to the plot. The existential bits are fine if the book was more focused on them, like the first couple of issues, but as the series goes on, it just comes off like a high schooler who just googled a bunch of philosophers and think what they said was cool, so he goes around quoting what they said, regardless of the present situation. Like show me a scene that makes me question reality THEN drop these philosophical ideas about existence on me right. Don't bring this up 4 issues later when none of the weird mindfuckery is going on.
Muh deconstruction
Muh angst
But to be fair, New Gods has been garbage ever since Kirby left them in the not so gentle hands of DC, with the exception of Simonson’s Orion run and Morrison’s stuff if you enjoy the idea the New Gods have been incomprehensible cosmic horrors that just look like shiny spandex people all along.
>and for some reason King is slavishly devoted to a 3x3 grid layout. Like, for real, why is every single page a 3x3 grid.
For a lot of reasons. It's a stylistic choice. It's for pacing. It's to divide the page in a harmonious way. It's to do subtle things with repetition. All of which are entirely valid creative decisions, but you wouldn't understand that given how much of a pleb you are in understanding sequential storytelling going by your entire post, OP.
That'd be the case if he didn't use it in literally every comic.
>He torpedoes the entire character of Scott Free by having him willingly stay in a prison because it's a really nice prison.
Because he's escaping from his problems into a beautiful dream. It still works for his character, you just disagree with where he escapes to.
It's his signature style. It might not work every time he uses it but that doesn't mean it's inherently bad.
It's not inherently bad as a style, but his style is bad because it's the only one he is capable of, it almost never fits, and he can't actually use it to its real potential when it does.
>because it's the only one he is capable of
His Batman doesn't use 3x3 the way Mr. Miracle does.
It's a creative style. Sure. But you can't have a stylistic choice like this without a reason. What does the even grid format do to serve the actual story? Can't be pacing, because the grid format makes everything read like I'm taking a slow shit. Since he chooses to shackle himself to the grid format, it means he needs to finish the scene on the page or extend it to another page because cutting to another scene while your on the grid would be confusing. It also doesn't let the art breathe at all, since everything needs to be contained within this static format. This means that action scenes become really boring because the art isn't allowed to expand, to show off those big hits. It's all a static shot. Everything starts becoming stale. You could argue that "Staleness in Scott's life is a theme" but there are other ways of conveying that theme without making the act of reading the work stale as well.
And here's the thing, the 3x3 grid works well in certain parts of the book. The montage of Scott leading his armies against the hoards of Apokolips is great because the grid format lends itself to the passage of time very well. The whole joke setup for having a character get up, having the static shot of nothing before a character comes back and does something works alright with the format well too (though after like the 4th time it gets a little old). The grid format has its place, but the ENTIRE BOOK shouldn't be in that format because it restricts it way to much.
How much will you guys whale for Berserker Scrooge?
>What does the even grid format do to serve the actual story?
Well for one thing it enforces the idea that everything is artificial when the art shows glitches, and it emphasizes Scott's depression with the repeated use of DARKSEID IS panels. Just to mention a couple of things it specifically does in the comic for a key reason.
>Well for one thing it enforces the idea that everything is artificial when the art shows glitches
The glitches in the art does enforce that by itself, ya. You can show art glitching outside of a 3x3 format too. The art glitches are fine, but has nothing to do with the 3x3.
>it emphasizes Scott's depression with the repeated use of DARKSEID IS panels
Within the first few issues, sure. I'll admit, the whole "Darksied is" stuff at first was pretty ascetically pleasing. After like issue 4 or 5, Darksied is panels are few and far between untill near the ending. If you are gonna dedicate an entire book to this format, there needs to be constant reinforcement of the theme to justify it, not start it up, leave it, then pick it back up for the finale.
>You can show art glitching outside of a 3x3 format too.
But it wouldn't be as vivid as it is with a 3x3 panels, where the repetition of panels and showing a glitch is more apparent and emphasized.
>If you are gonna dedicate an entire book to this format, there needs to be constant reinforcement of the theme to justify it, not start it up, leave it, then pick it back up for the finale.
The middle part is where Scott's briefly recovering and "getting better" so his depression isn't enforced as much.
>Muh Kirby
Kirby's new gods is an example of why artists should stick to art.
Actually it's the opposite. He learns to not escape from his problems.
>it wouldn't be as vivid as it is with a 3x3 panels
Sure it would. You just need set up the panel or even the scene right. the entire panel doesnt need to bug out, maybe like some dude in the background or someone he is talking to.
>The middle part is where Scott's briefly recovering and "getting better"
I think my point still stands. The theme still needs to be enforced. The 3x3 format does nothing to help Scott's "recovery" period, if that's what you wanna call it.
Really, if King wanted to do the whole grid thing, he really should have done what Watchmen did and do the grid, but have moments to flex when it the moment comes to it. That way he gets the best of both worlds, he keeps the thematic relevance of the grid when the time calls for it while being able to show off more when those themes aren't present or are being enforced.
So if I do actually write a comic about an ex who slit her wrists I'm gurenteed to get an Eisner nom?
The comic industry is amazing.
You'd probably get bonus points if you made it a black woman too.
Why are people on here so dumb...
It is not about plot, but about character... Do any or you read a thing else besides comics or are you all illiterate.
It's a fucking shit take on the character, specially because it's just Tom King again self-inserting himself into a character.
Yes I do. Character is important, but plot outweighs that importance. This has been the case since the ancient Greeks, who established the bedrock in which all our literature is based on since the English Renaissance. Here is a quick lesson for ya.