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Post by DiscipleofBob on May 2, 2015 19:36:02 GMT -5
Two chapters up, the third and final chapter of this run will be up tonight as well, followed by Justice League as well as a brief personal descent into madness.
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Post by DiscipleofBob on May 2, 2015 23:47:27 GMT -5
Progress report on my part:
I was really hoping to get the last issue up tonight, but I'm fading and running on four hours of sleep from the night before, and this chapter has some very difficult scenes. I'd rather be a little late and give a better quality story than try to rush stuff when I can barely keep my eyes open. I'm at 2500 words so a little over halfway done. Pretty much all the action for this arc is in the last chapter too.
The really annoying thing is Justice League is sitting on my hard drive, ready to go except for a few easy basic tweaks in two scenes, but the end of Superman will tie directly into Justice League, so I can't post JL without first completing Superman.
So sorry, hopefully I'll have the energy to complete Superman and get everything for you guys tonight... or rather later today.
Now I better get some sleep before my words start giraffe bubbling purple trumpet dsglknlzzzzzz....
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Post by Drake on May 3, 2015 16:34:54 GMT -5
When you put the last issue up, I plan on powering through the arc. I'll admit it probably won't be till next weekend when I get to it though, so.... *shrug*
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Post by Stardrifter on May 17, 2015 13:20:27 GMT -5
#6
Not bad. I don't buy Lex's reason for not killing Superman. They could have easily covered it up and to the public Superman would have just disappeared. Heck they could even say he left Earth, abandoning them. As much as you showed them hating Superman, there's no way they would have stood down.
Not sure how I feel about Doomsday being a clone. Meh. Heck the whole army of clones thing is too easy. If they could do it, what's to stop other governments or organizations from doing it. By making it so simple it's a can of worms that can't be closed in my mind.
#7
I liked it. The coincidence of Lex's family moving to Smallville was a bit much, but I liked Clark and Karen being roped into dinner.
The scene with PG and the girls was nice. Lex and Clark talking was a little too on the nose. It felt a little too written rather than natural dialogue.
The twist was pretty good. Lucy working with Karen was a coincidence too many, but the Zod reveal was cool.
#8
Interesting. I enjoy this take on Zod so far. I think the "blow them up from orbit" line from his officer last issue tainted it a bit. I know it wasn't Zod himself, but I think showing any hostility up front was a mistake.
Only other thing is I wished you'd shown some reactions to the news beyond our characters and country. How do the Kent's feel? How do the other nations feel? This was a momentous event and felt kinda small. I know you might be doing more in the next issue, but that's next issue. This one is over and it felt small.
#9
Not bad, but I'm again disappointed the focus has been so narrow. Heck we are two issues in and have nothing from Lex, let alone the world.
General Lane felt very one note. A stereotypical character just meant for a plot device. I didn't like his scenes.
I still enjoy this Zod so far. Im interested in where you're going as a whole, but just feel overall I'd like your focus to broaden. The events are too big for what is coming across as a small, personal story. Keep em coming.
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Post by DiscipleofBob on May 29, 2015 0:37:02 GMT -5
- A cover up would be problematic for multiple reasons. Superman leaving Earth isn't something that's ever really happened. Even during the whole Brainiac event he was only gone for a short time and resurfaced afterward. Plus Lex doesn't just want to erase Superman, he wants to erase the whole idea of Superman.
- I went off the DCAU version of Doomsday, who was created by Cadmus. It's not easy. Heck, making Doomsday was an accident, one that isn't likely to be repeated given how it can't really be controlled. Bizarro-type clones might be another story.
- Little behind-the-scenes type bit which might make the Lucy-Karen thing make sense. Karen got the job at STAR Labs because she was friends with Lois who had a sister that worked there. They started to butt heads later in her 'career.'
- In a perfect world where I could have written out Superman over several seasons and arcs, I would have gone more into the reaction to Zod. There would have been a full arc where Zod and other Kryptonians actually start to integrate with society the way Superman and Power Girl have. Also would have had ample opportunity for other stories to post reactions. But I'm personally trying to wrap up the story at this point, and that means some stuff gets the cutting room floor. There are a lot of characters I never got around to developing, but if I did, they would have ended up just being token appearances and bogged down the story.
Issue 10 and the final chapter of my run on Ultimate Superman is now up. This was a very difficult chapter to write for me. Probably the hardest. Several characters it was difficult for me to get in their mindset because some of their thinking is just so, pun not intended, alien to me. That and a bad windows update crashed my hard drive for a good chunk of the month. But it's up. It's done. And while Superman will be Ultimate Justice League, if anyone would like to pick up Superman it's now open. Thank you all for being patient.
A couple unused plots I had that never made it into the story: - Superboy was going to be introduced through Cadmus, possibly in the arc where they break into Cadmus. It would've just been introducing a character for the sake of introducing a character, so I cut that subplot. If a future writer wants that origin for Superboy, feel free. - For Supergirl I originally had the idea of her being Power Girl's younger sister, being sent in another pod after Kal-El, and being raised in Russia as a nod to Red Son. Her brief arc was if I needed a filler arc and would have involved Red Star as a handler of sorts. - As I mentioned above, while I would have liked to develop Zod and the other Kryptonians more, there just wasn't enough time to shove any more characters in other than "Hi, I'm so-and-so, I'm important." I might try to use some major Kryptonians in JL, but it depends.
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Post by ericthepilot on May 29, 2015 14:10:44 GMT -5
Trying to cover issue 8 9 and 10 all in one shot, since it didn't seem right to just review 8 and 9, when they clearly depended on 10 to get the full story. But I enjoyed each one on it's own. So this is kind of stream of consciousness, as there's a lot to digest. The "too long, don't want to read" gist is that I thought they were awesome however, some of the finest work I've seen here.
Well, the Kryptonians certainly know how to make a bold entrance, but it will be interesting to see just how the rest of the world reacts to Zod not only starting his “people of Earth” speech with an announcement that he'll be going directly to the President of the US, rather than to the UN or some international body, but also settling the extant Kryptonians in the US – just seems like it's begging for even their conventional allies, much less those with more antagonistic relationships to America to get a bit tetchy. You can only imagine what they're thinking, first they have Superman, then Power Girl... now enough of them to fill an army? Certainly opens up some rather interesting ideas for some less US focused series to see their reactions and the implications.
It also opens up some interesting questions about just how the average person relates to the great Metropolis attack of a few years prior. I haven't seen a whole lot that has really nailed down the specifics of what happened culturally in the aftermath of it, but the people, especially in Metropolis, seem fairly blasé about the appearance of a massive spaceship hovering over the planet. Perhaps in my own head I've overestimated the original attack's importance in the grand scheme of things?
Superman and Power Girl's conversation on the approach to the ship was also fairly telling, and remains consistent with their characterization all along – Power Girl plowing ahead, not really worrying about the immediate fallout, but cynical and calculating enough to do what's best in the short term, and Superman, thinking about the potential fall out of these actions, but naive enough to believe everyone would react responsibly to advanced warning. Power Girl invoking Luthor in particular was a nice touch there, and cutting off the sound just after revealing Zod is PG's Dad? Very nice.
Lane is rather interesting, as is his absolute lack of diplomacy. It does make me wonder why President O'Neill would even allow him to be present in such a high level meeting given his inability to display tact, much less to be allowed to show up his Commander in Chief by speaking so freely. Can't imagine he'll be a Presidential Adviser for much longer., especially since he can't deflect a simple plausible deniability scenario with an “I can neither confirm, nor deny” non statement. If he can't handle a direct question, I fear what he would give up under duress by an enemy. And then he stomps out of the room like a petulant child? Probably best to put him out to pasture and let him be a 24 hour news channel talking head than someone actually in charge of anything.
Their conversation does expose another rather interesting question regarding Power Girl functioning as the advance guard of the Kryptonians – when we first met her, she was a captive aboard a space ship that also happened to capture Superman. It's enough to wonder if it was just pure coincidence that the pair happened to meet on that ship, or if that was all part of Zod's ploy. It certainly brings into question just how much of that entire scenario was authentic. Certainly fun to ponder.
The “We're Here for the World (But Mostly America)” tour continues with the decision to allow the exclusive tour of the Kryptonian ship to Lois Lane, another interesting tactical choice by Zod. Granted his justifications DO make sense in this case, as with all the others, but it definitely displays a pattern that will be hard for the rest of the world to ignore. Maybe this is why the Kryptonians have had such difficulty finding a new place to settle? Probably not the best way to ingratiate yourself to a world by hyper focusing on one power amongst many.
But I definitely like the idea of the Kryptonian Repository. It's a nice spin the DCAU take on Brainiac, and it does say a lot about the people of Krypton that there are those who would give up their own lives to see that the ideas of Krypton survive, even if the people themselves could not. Like to think if we ever had to peace out of Earth, there might be someone trying to at least smuggle the Mona Lisa or Michaelangelo's David onto the last ship off world.
And Lois does work as a more effective version of her father. She clearly has the same distrust, but it doesn't come off as premeditated xenophobia, and more based on seasoned experience. She's seen the Zod type before and knows what they CAN be capable of, so she asks probing questions to try and see just what this guy is about, keeping an open mind, but remaining guarded. It's a much smarter approach, and contrasted with his embarrassingly childish behavior the previous issue, it works really nicely and makes Lois look especially capable.
Zod does make a good point to the nature of capitol punishment in a society facing extinction, and thus the value each citizen within the remaining society having value and being unable to be cast away, even if they are criminals. It was also an interesting choice of crime that you presented – and it gives us an interesting view of how the Kryptonian's view justice and what crimes they consider to be amongst the most grievous.
I do admit, it was particularly disappointing to see Amanda Waller cowed by that jagoff Lane. She seems a mite weak compared to her usual depiction, but clearly it's done to display just how dangerous the option Lane seeks to unleash is – how seriously dangerous a solution to the problem it really is. Hopefully she gets her comeuppance at some point.
Power Girl and Zod's discussion at the beginning of 10 certainly opens up a number of interesting possibilities. I'll have to make a point to go back and see if I missed any suggestion of feelings between them, or if Zod's just blowing smoke the way he seems to do with everyone. But the idea does make sense, and we're starting to see a different side of both Zod and Power Girl here – the arrogance from Zod that shows that Krypton itself wasn't quite as united as we've been lead to believe given the importance attached to the various houses (or at least some of them, namingly his own and the House of El), and the unwillingness of those houses to be “sullied” by human DNA.
Doomsday was certainly a surprising choice, but one that honestly in retrospect should have been obvious to me, so I give you credit for pulling that off. The battle sequence itself was staged very nicely – you never lost the audience in the action, it was graphic and brutal, but not over the top as DC itself has loved to go in the last 15 years or so. Especially with the ending, the choreography was exciting and intense.
This was not the ending I was expecting either – in most of their incarnations, the Kryptonians are sort of depicted as the biggest assholes in the galaxy, but you can absolutely understand where Zod is coming from here and not only sympathize with him, but empathize as well. This Zod is a tragic figure, and probably not entirely wrong in his assessment of humanity. The issue comes to a very satisfying end, and I very much look forward to seeing where the story is headed.
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Post by Stardrifter on May 30, 2015 0:17:38 GMT -5
- A cover up would be problematic for multiple reasons. Superman leaving Earth isn't something that's ever really happened. Even during the whole Brainiac event he was only gone for a short time and resurfaced afterward. Plus Lex doesn't just want to erase Superman, he wants to erase the whole idea of Superman.
Just because he's never left Earth before doesn't mean people wouldn't buy it. There is a first time for everything after all. And again, that was just one idea for a coverup. If they did a cover up at all. They could have just as easily killed him and feigned ignorance. No proof, no problems.
Lex was awfully excited about the idea of killing him before the sudden turn. I suppose an argument could be made that he wants the world to see him victorious over Superman, so killing him in secret does nothing for him, but your written word didn't make that argument.
I went off the DCAU version of Doomsday, who was created by Cadmus. It's not easy. Heck, making Doomsday was an accident, one that isn't likely to be repeated given how it can't really be controlled. Bizarro-type clones might be another story.
Yeah I was more referring to basic clones than Doomsday. It's not hard to believe other governments or super villains couldn't get his DNA from a crime scene and clone him if it's this easy. Even deteriorating Bizarro type clones could serve some purpose.
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Post by Stardrifter on May 31, 2015 8:20:27 GMT -5
I liked it. The beginning with Zod and Kara was interesting. I know Kara was mad at him, but it seemed to be a bit much that she kept questioning his motives at every turn and assuming the worst. Reasonable Zod was reasonable and she was acting like a teenage brat.
Fight was good. I prefer the mindless brute version of Doomsday, but for the talky version you did fine.
If I had one complaint it would be that the end of your Superman run isn't an end at all. It's just a lead in to JL. I can't blame you, as we are emulating comics and they do that in comics all the time, but if I wanted to go back and read DoB's Superman run, I can't get a satisfactory beginning, middle, and end with it. I'd have to go to JL as well.
Minor gripe, not a big deal. I look forward to JL after Dr. Fate cut his wrestling promo, complete with third person.
"If Zod thinks he can take the Earth Championship Title, he has another thing coming! He's about to have a twist of Fate and face the most magical man in Superhero Entertainment! Fate will put him in the Nabu Noose and make him humble! If you sense what the Fate is conjuring!"
Keep em coming.
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