There are some very heart-rending moments in these comics.
My favorite moment: Rose/Ravager shows up at Lian's funeral, quite unexpectedly.
(Folks who sat through the so-awful-it-was good late run of THE TITANS during the Jay Faerber/Barry Kitson era will remember that Rose was Lian's official superpowered babysitter/nanny, a move I liked).
Most surprising move: Roy's apparently going to be addicted to drugs again... if Cheshire doesn't kill him first, that is...
"God damn it, I hate having to play the Devil’s Advocate. First off, I did not buy this issue. I’m not buying anymore of this miniseries, nor am I buying anymore Green Arrow. Because I already get that the execs at DC are more worried about how much money the books make, and I will not support the direction they’ve decided to go in by giving them my money. However, I will read them, because I still want to know what’s going on and what they are doing to these characters.
I just, I… I understand the way Roy is acting. The grief, the pain. God knows how many times I continue to lash out because of my grandma’s death 11 years ago. Lashing out at Mia and Donna and nearly everybody. I got the reference Krul made to the Titans issue he wrote about Roy and Lian almost immediately. Getting condolences, honest to God condolences, from Rose of all people, it made sense. Her family life is more screwed up than most of the other Titans.
However, they can’t put Cheshire on the cover if she’s only going to be there for the last three pages. That woman has absolutely no right at all to try and kill Roy because of what happened to their daughter. She lost whatever right she had when she was willing to conceive another child as a replacement for her daughter if Mockingbird was serious about the bomb threat in Villains United. And then she uses THAT child as a human shield. A. Human. Shield. If anyone deserves to be maimed and killed, it’s that witch.
No matter what they do with this book, hero or villain, that doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t make it right what they did to them. To try and spin something emotional and meaningful out of not one, but two, attempts at shock value feels wrong. They took the easy way no matter how you look at it.
Yes, I have heard people say that this has made Ollie and Roy interesting again. Well, in my opinion, if they decided the only way to make Roy interesting was to maim him and kill Lian, he doesn’t deserve to be an interesting character. They should’ve just killed him as well."
Okay, now to sound less harsh. Taking a note from someone else, I'm still going to reserve final judgment for this book as a whole when I've read the last issue. Of course, I guess it sounds like I already have. But it's a cliche. The standard "take away everything a superhero holds dear" cliche. I'm just trying to be honest about how I felt about it, mind you. I have nothing against use of loss and tragedy, or the maiming or death of a character for the sake of a good story. Martian Manhunter, the Superman and Lois Lane of Earth-2, Pa Kent. But that's because they had roles in the story. Arsenal and Lian were in Cry for Justice for like, two pages. They had nothing to do with it.
I read the interview on Newsarama, and the statement about making loss mean something again in comics. Yet I'm reminded of the two other Titans who were treated in a similar manner. Risk and Red Star.
Risk: He had his arm ripped off by Superboy-Prime in Infinite Crisis. One Year Later, he basically devolved into white trash, living in a rundown shack and popping pills for the buzz. Deathstroke offered him a place on Titans East, he helped facilitate Bombshell's death, and then got to use Cyborg as a punching bag. Then he shows up in the Superman-Prime special for the Sinestro Corps story, where he gets his OTHER arm ripped off. We haven't seen him in nearly three years since. Is he dead? In prison? Getting rehabilitated?
Red Star: Lost his entire family at Prime's hands in Infinite Crisis. Pantha got her head punched off (and has since become a joke) and Baby Wildebeest had a hole blown through his chest. How much coverage was done on the loss Red Star suffered? One issue of Johns run on Titans, two pages in the Superman-Prime special, and one panel on the first page of Blackest Night: Titans.
So, at the... worry (I'm not saying risk) of sounding jaded, I fail to see the logic in having to ruin two characters for the sake of a story about loss when there were two others who were already suited for it. Of course, these four aren't the only Titans characters who've received treatment like this. There's about 30 of them, and while the Titans have suffered before, it all seems to have become a more consistent/frequent trend ever since Lilith Clay was killed by that Superman robot in Graduation Day. 30+ in the last six or seven years.
The art, well... I'm not exactly sure what to say. I understand the first few pages were a dream, but, I guess I'm gonna have to stay on the fence in regards to a good or bad opinion.
-------------------- I want to be hated by lies - Bring Back Lian Harper
I am in 100% agreement re: Cheshire having no rights, but I'm sure she doesn't see it that way.
I can't really defend DC's mistreatment of the Titans, and would NOT do so, but we both know Red Star and Risk have never been on Roy's level (level of recognization by the public and general importance to the Titans universe) so it does kind of make sense that they would focus on him and not them. I would especially like an update on Risk, whom I recall as always being portrayed rather white-trashy (nothing wrong with that, IMO).
posted
I just got the first Arsenal mini in the mail, the one by Devin Grayson and Rick Mays.
Mays' artwork on the Arsenal mini is part of what made it so enjoyable. Despite similarities to Adam Warren's manga/anime-esque style, Mays is one of it's own, partially because, unlike Warren, he doesn't draw his characters with such big honking lips. He's pretty much THE artist for Arsenal. As in, the one of "owns" Roy. There always seems to be one character a comic book artist gains a knack for drawing, even if other people draw them well, it seems more natural the way one artist does. Amanda Conner with Power Girl, Frazier Irving with Klarion, Joe Prado with Lightning Lad, Jeff Moy with Kinetix, J.H. Williams III with Batwoman, etc. I really wish he did more work in mainstream comics, as his style would add a more refreshing touch to today's industry where nearly everything looks the same. With some exceptions, mind you. God knows him working on Arsenal again would add a brighter touch to things.
-------------------- I want to be hated by lies - Bring Back Lian Harper
TITANS #26 Written by ERIC WALLACE Art and cover by FABRIZIO FIORENTINO 1:10 White Lantern Variant cover by RYAN SOOK, FERNANDO PASARIN & JOEL GOMEZ Straight out of the JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE RISE OF ARSENAL miniseries, Arsenal signs up with Deathstroke and Cheshire when the Titans target a child slavery ring for takedown. What they unearth will shock you to the core! Retailers please note: This issue will ship with two covers. Please see the Previews Order Form for more information. On sale AUGUST 11 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
-------------------- I want to be hated by lies - Bring Back Lian Harper
posted
Okay. Okay. Deep breath. Deep bre-MOTHER$%^&%&%^^&%&^%^&&&#@#$%^y*(&*(^%%$%^^&!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, got that out of my system.
So, I read Rise of Arsenal #3 today. Let's begin...
We continue into the fight scene between Roy and the mother (HA!) of his child, Cheshire. Throws in a few barbs at Jade for what an awful mother she is, like Roy has any idea how true that is, until he has her pinned to the wall. Tears begin about how they miss Lian, kiss, and of course have sex. Oh wait, they don't. Because *GASP* Roy can't bring it up!
So, what does he do? He's got a new costume, boys and girls, and in my opinion he should've stuck to the purple one. He gets it just magically, apparently, because where did he get anyway? Nobody knows. No bow and no arrows. He's got knives and samurai swords. He decides to let loose on the criminals currently preying on a disorganized and damaged Star City. Vultures, he calls them. Then, on a rooftop, another visit from his hallucinational friend Corey, who informs him that painkillers aren't going to do the job anymore. Roy spots a drug dealer in an alley below, and decides that with Lian gone, it doesn't matter anymore what he does. He scores a premium "A-Train" hit and strings out, or whatever euphemism you use when someone does heroin.
We enter into a new hallucination. He sees Lian and has a "happy reunion" with her before he gets into a fight with an army of Prometheuses, screaming how he won't let them hurt her again. Then he sees the Electrocutioner, and big surprise, we finally see that Roy has simply beaten the holy hell out of a gang of junkies, and the Electructioner is really Batman. And for some reason Roy's holding a dead cat, I'm not entirely sure, I glanced at this part. Still strung out, he gets into a fight with Dick, with Dick saying he'll get Roy help before knocking Roy out.
Roy awakens strapped to a bed in a padded room, with Black Canary. Canary informs Roy about what he did and that she knows he's using again. Roy tries to say it's the pain in his arm that made him do it, but she won't listen, and tells Roy that it's for his own good. We find out that Dick had brought him to Virgil House, apparently a place for supervillains with substance abuse problems. Dick and Dinah talk about Roy and whether or not he actually wants help.
We close on Roy having another "conversation" with Corey, saying that Dinah's right and he'll probably beat this as well, until he starts screaming at Corey to leave him alone. It closes with it being a hallucination of Lian, battered and bruised, asking why Roy didn't hear her crying.
"DEATH OF A HERO"
...
Good God what the hell are these people doing? Impotent? Honestly? Was that really necessary? To just keep throwing more salt on the wound?
Whatever "ending" this book has had already been ruined the minute DC released the solicit for Titans #26 in August, and it has cemented what this book is. Gratuitous. Pure and simple. This isn't emotional, nor is it meaningful. This is pain, this is weakness, this is suffering. All we've seen is a interesting character had indignity after indignity stacked on top of him and done by him. He's alienated himself and he's betrayed everything he stands for. This isn't about Lian anymore, this is about himself and what's been done to HIM. This isn't a grieving father, it's just plain selfishness.
And of course, what everyone feared has come true. Roy has turned into another anti-hero. He's started on the path as DC's Punisher. And we don't even have to read anymore of the issues to know how it'll turn out. Empty. Hollow and empty. How do I know? Animal Man.
In the last storyarc Grant Morrison did for Animal Man, he had Buddy Baker's family, his wife Ellen and his kids Maxine and Cliff, killed by an assassin hired by big business guys who didn't like Buddy screwing up their business. The end result was Buddy teaming up with Mirror Master to find the three guys responsible. Buddy cut his hair and donned a new costume made from leather, the skin of dead animals, and he killed each one of them. He made them suffer, them and the guy they hired to do it. And how did he feel after it? Empty. Nothing was the same. We know how it's going to end with Roy, and don't say anything else.
His friends have been standing around like a bunch of slack-jawed morons and doing nothing but making it worse. Did Mia HONESTLY think Roy would even want to look at her? And God knows Dinah hasn't been helpful. For three issues she's just looked like she's made of ice. She's the closest thing Roy has to mom, why isn't she acting like it. And don't say because of Ollie because those two break up and get back together on a daily basis, it's pathetic. She is pathetic. And Dick hasn't had any emotion on his face at all. Did any of them even know about the painkillers yet? Or the hallucinations? Did they know about them? No. They've done nothing. They aren't IN character at all.
I can't believe I'm honestly going to read the last issue.
-------------------- I want to be hated by lies - Bring Back Lian Harper
posted
sorry SK, but i find this h i l a r i o u s! haha
a dead cat? lol. where is PETA when you need them bwahaha
and those poor junkies, they've got enough problems without getting beat up randomly by an angry heroin crazed Arsenal!! haha
i didn't know heroin made someone angry and energetic!
ok, it's really not funny but, bwahahaha!
does Roy have a new fancy cyborg arm with which to kill cats with!
Roy's been clean for about 30 years real time, i would think that he kicked the habit!
sigh. i may have to buy this.
btw i flipped through the end of ryan choi issue of villains. was quite sad, they had to draw out the gore for the whole issue it was uncomfortable. i'm starting to think these writers are just sick. it's like a new horror genre.
and i really dont see why he didn't just shrink down (to subatomic size?) and hide or float away.
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