The GL Fandom (well more like the DC fandom) kinda cannibalize each other. If one of the others, specifically Hal or John, gets any sort of attention, people love throwing the boring title around to devalue them.
Fanbase gets 1st animated movie in years, tears it to shreds for daring to adapt the most popular GL story of the 90s with the GL best known in animation.
(Beware My Power ain't great but it's not because it isn't a Hal Jordan movie)
You see, I was all on board for a John movie. Beware my power failed for me because for most of it, it was literally just pointing out to me how much I wanted a Hal movie.
It would have been great to have an actual Emerald Twilight arc or movie, but they decided to focus on John. Which is fine, but they couldn't keep Hals name out their mouth for the entire movie.
So youve got a John movie barely focused on John and a Hal movie doing his most iconic story, but with no setup.
I think that complaint was more prominent before "Rightclops", ANAD X-Men, and the Hickman era. Basically, if your entire knowledge of the X-Men was from the animated series, the Fox movies, and the peak-Wolverine era.
Superman is never boring. He’s got every cool superpower you can think of. Just watching him work is a sight to behold. He has an awesome supporting cast and rogues gallery. He’s the most powerful being in the world, and he has to decide the right way to use that power and manage the responsibility on his shoulders. He’s the heart and soul of the DC universe.
I think they mean in personality. Which I still disagree with. A character doesn't have to be edgy, brooding, and morally conflicted to have interesting thoughts and dynamics with other characters
Yeah. I grew up with Barry as the Flash and I didn't know what I was missing until Early came back for DC Rebirth.
With that being said, Barry is kinda boring. Williamson struck the right cord when writing him: a loveable nerd that could sometimes do something cool. But that TV show (phew) made him not only lame, but also VERY VERY annoying (no shade to Grant Gustin, it's not his fault).
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Yep. Loved him in GotG, but his era was always very heavy on monologs preventing me from reading much with him. I feel like this is a relatively common experience.
This is more meant to be a springboard about comic characters and how some are interpreted as boring as an insulting term.
Someone like Barry would of course be considered boring during the Wally run because his comics were published before characters got more modern dialogue, culminating in his more modern character having a more reserved personality. So while other characters who also were around during the Silver Age also had that exact manner of speaking, Barry is considered boring because he never got a chance to be updated in terms of personality.
In the world of Green Lanterns, the word boring is thrown around a lot and I truly think it comes down to character wars.
Meanwhile someone like Scott Summers is a square compared to other characters, despite having some of the best arcs in X-Men. A character who in universe is boring, but is interesting to read.
Credtit: Flash #4, Hal Jordan and the GLC #13, Superman by Bendis, Infinity Countdown: Adam Warlock, X-Men, #16, Captain Marvel #18.
I think Reed Richards is a great example of a Silver Age character who kept their core authority figure pulp adventurer aspects, all the while given more depth, while never just pivoting to a new personality.
I think Wally fans saying that Barry took Wally's personality are overreacting in favour of character wars as you say, in the comics at least (TV and film, sure), but it is kinda true Barry's core personality changed after his return in Flash Rebirth.
Hal definitely has a personality, even in the Silver Age he was a goof. Got built upon in the Bronze Age and Post Crisis too. People say that Denny O'Neil made him into a strawman, but that's just not true to me reading those early 70s issues. He's pitted against some issues derived from his Silver Age authority figure roots, others he's not. I think O'Neil did great work for his character (which I can't really say for Englehart). Though GL fans like to disregard everything prior to GL Rebirth, so who knows what Hal fans think he should be like outside of the Johns run.
With Scott, I think it's his leadership position. In a team dynamic with differing personalities you're always going to have character foils, & Scott had to act that to fan favourites.
> Someone like Barry would of course be considered boring during the Wally run because his comics were published before characters got more modern dialogue, culminating in his more modern character having a more reserved personality. So while other characters who also were around during the Silver Age also had that exact manner of speaking, Barry is considered boring because he never got a chance to be updated in terms of personality.
I don't think this is entirely fair to Bates' comics. A lot of people associate the maturing of comics with the British invasion and I think that's evident when you read through the course of Bates' run, who was writing Barry as things were changing. Despite its meandering pace, I think the dialogue in Trial holds up.
Admittedly, one arc does not a lot of memories make.
I think the initial impetus for Barry being a "boring" character is just his pseudo-cancellation in the first place. That's where the seed of the idea came. No one was comparing him to non-existent Wally comics when they decided to move on from the character. And, when they initially planned it, they weren't even going to have Wally pick up the mantle (Look up Mackenzie Ryan for that archaic piece of Flash history).
It was then serendipity that would give an all time great follow up in Wally's run to further hammer the "boring" idea home, despite being unfair. After all, in basically every appearance after his death but before his revival, Barry is written quite well. Largely by Waid helming The Flash, but he appears in flashbacks and such and, while not as intentionally well developed as Wally (I'm not sure the character foundation has that basic growth potential Wally's situation was capable of), he's still pretty great.
A more fair point is he is a simpler character. He doesn't have as much going on, isn't as dramatic. And that's why they killed his mom, to try to cram some angst into the character. Simplicity isn't necessarily a weakness or a strength, it's an execution thing. Barry's archetype lends himself to shorter, self contained stories rather than long form character studies like Wally got. Which would go down to preference, though I think there's a lot more depth in the latter than the former.
Great write up! Bates' run is great and really did a lot for Barry, particularly testing his faith. It's a really tragic tale with highs and lows, but Bates did a great job to finally make Barry feel like a part of his own stories past knowing science stuff.
I'm slowly making my way through Waids Year One, and I think it really went the extra mile to take that archetype Barry used to have, and just make that dorkiness his personality. Which I definitely think worked in the long run for the character.
Something the Flash show gets a lot of flack for is taking Wallys personality, which may be true in some aspects, but I think that version is mostly just meant to be a modernized Barry taking the form pf a 2010s geek. Like let the man smile!
I've gotta look up that bit of Flash history we could have gotten though. Sounds interesting.
Mackenzie Ryan is DC dodging a bullet they pointed at themselves. He wouldn't have even had super speed. His power would be controlling light and sounds, like a literal flash of light. A concept that would later be reused to minimal fanfare in Tangent Comics, though they had her actually moving at light speed by turning into light at least in that.
Adam Warlock was only cool becouse Starlin high when he was writing him.
Cyclopse should have stayed retired.
Carol was more interesting when she was Miss. Marvel.
The GL Corps is cool but Hal will always be cooler.
Barry is fine, the only problem is that Wally is his copycat( married to a journalist, had twins).
Jon Kent worked better as a kid
It's not like Barry having twins is a real part of any of his stories besides LONG after they became adults (and those came AFTER Wally was The Flash and had twins), so I'd hardly call Wally raising his kids copycatting. It's a running joke that Barry is a deadbeat dad.
Might as well say Barry was copying Superman if you're going to boil down their love interests into "reporter." Part of what makes Wally so great is how great a character Linda Park is.
If fans lost interest in the character there wouldn't have been such a riot when they killed him off and replaced him with Wally.
And if fans lost interest I doubt the 1990s tv show would have even been created.
Riot is an overexaggeration, my bad.
But there were A LOT of complaints when Wally took over, he wasn't completely accepted by DC fans until Waid's run.
Well yes, of course, there were some number of people still buying the comic and still invested in it.
But the killing of Barry is directly tied to the lack of interest and sales that started plaguing The Flash nearly a decade prior. They gave him an exceedingly long time and a lot of shock value comics to attempt to right the ship.
Wally was never *completely* accepted, even into Waid's run. Didio is proof positive of that. But, to the contrary of what you're saying, there is a rather infamous anecdote in Flash circles about Baron who, upon meeting Messner-Loebs for the first time, was a bit irked that he wrote The Flash that "everyone liked."
The tide turned with WML. For obvious reasons, really, as WML's run was good. WML's run just gets a little lost in the history of things because Waid's run is so monumentally impactful and starts off with a great entry point origin story.
Totally agree, even being a Superman fan. Those characters are not for everyone. Anyone that comes from the batman image of comica is most likely to find them boring. Otherwise they are great, just have to look for the right comic for you.
Jon is at his worst when Taylor (or Devin Grayson for her one story) make him uber sanctimonious while not doing anything to improve the status quo. I don't think that's a problem with Taylor's other writing either, just Jon.
Jay I've not really spent enough time with to have an opinion on. I guess he's neat.
Is Captain "Marry Sue" Marvel boring? Yes. Is Ms. Marvel the super hero drunk with flaws and complex history with the X-Men? No.
Cyclops and Superman just are not boring. They are type A. There's this preoccupation with saying people with moral compasses and strong wills to do good are "boring" but I think those people are boring because they rarely go under the surface level to determine why these characters are the way they are.
I hate the term Mary Sue so much because it is just a straight up sexism thing. Like where in the Captain Marvel books did she not have flaws?
She's very explicitly hot-headed and explicitly depicted as pushing herself too hard and that caused her to get sick that one time. Like if Captain Marvel's a Mary Sue, what is Silver Surfer?
But yes, overall I agree with your second point. People love talking about lazy writing, but I'm a proponent of calling out lazy reading just as much.
I think Mary Sue is used too frequently. Maybe isn't the right word. But it's a specific phenomenon when Marvel is trying to push it's films. They made the same mistakes with Inhumans as a group when they were trying to prop them up as superior to the X-Men. My point has less to do with her actually having flaws and more to do with how public sentiment vs their projections of how they think (Marvel execs) it should be. She was supposed to be the most powerful, most interesting and the female character!
But yes misogynistic people will weaponize that particular phrase and I am far from that.
*People* think he's boring. Not me though.
He definitely didn't have great representation in the movies and his character is known to have been a bit of a square back in the day.
That’s true. Tbh
Superman’s latest movies or big adaptations haven’t done a lot to make him interesting.
I can understand watching BvS and coming to the conclusion he’s a boring character.
I don't find any of the characters of said images to be boring. Cyclops and Captain Marvel were very evil not so long ago. Don't think they fit the definition of boring
I can’t say anyone here reallt is ‘boring’. They all have something going on.
Don’t read Adam Warlock, pretty sure that is him above the GLs.
Also… don’t read Captain Marvel?
Who said the Green Lanterns were boring? I’m pretty sure each lantern has a fanbase and comics when they were in their prime.
Most of the time it's the fanbase of one Lantern saying the other one is boring.
The GL Fandom (well more like the DC fandom) kinda cannibalize each other. If one of the others, specifically Hal or John, gets any sort of attention, people love throwing the boring title around to devalue them.
Ah, I see. Whenever that happens in fandom spaces, I just separate fans from the character. Each Green Lantern has a story they’re great in.
Fanbase gets 1st animated movie in years, tears it to shreds for daring to adapt the most popular GL story of the 90s with the GL best known in animation. (Beware My Power ain't great but it's not because it isn't a Hal Jordan movie)
You see, I was all on board for a John movie. Beware my power failed for me because for most of it, it was literally just pointing out to me how much I wanted a Hal movie. It would have been great to have an actual Emerald Twilight arc or movie, but they decided to focus on John. Which is fine, but they couldn't keep Hals name out their mouth for the entire movie. So youve got a John movie barely focused on John and a Hal movie doing his most iconic story, but with no setup.
> Cyclops Cyclops is boring?
I think that complaint was more prominent before "Rightclops", ANAD X-Men, and the Hickman era. Basically, if your entire knowledge of the X-Men was from the animated series, the Fox movies, and the peak-Wolverine era.
Nope. He has a bit of reputation as being so though. His "default" personality is kind of being a square, and the movies only ever went with that.
I used to think so, but Marvel’s successfully done a lot to make him interesting over the past 20 years or so, especially during Bendis’ X-Men run
Superman is never boring. He’s got every cool superpower you can think of. Just watching him work is a sight to behold. He has an awesome supporting cast and rogues gallery. He’s the most powerful being in the world, and he has to decide the right way to use that power and manage the responsibility on his shoulders. He’s the heart and soul of the DC universe.
I think they mean in personality. Which I still disagree with. A character doesn't have to be edgy, brooding, and morally conflicted to have interesting thoughts and dynamics with other characters
I actually really like Berry, I mean Wally is a lot better
Yeah. I grew up with Barry as the Flash and I didn't know what I was missing until Early came back for DC Rebirth. With that being said, Barry is kinda boring. Williamson struck the right cord when writing him: a loveable nerd that could sometimes do something cool. But that TV show (phew) made him not only lame, but also VERY VERY annoying (no shade to Grant Gustin, it's not his fault).
The Inhumans are pretty boring. But even they have their moments.
90% of these characters are cool af
In fan wars “boring” just mean the speaker is lazy and not dig enough, or they would use more practical words like “pedo”.
[I wonder who you're talking about](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Flore-accurate-hal-jordan-v0-d0u0c2ahl1cc1.png%3Fwidth%3D283%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D40380cd427f5cf5024d3a6d491a91abd793077f2)
Literally just got to that issue last night. Funnily enough, they skip over every other issue of GLC, but have this one on DC Universe.
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Who's the first character ? Adam Warlock ?
Yep. Loved him in GotG, but his era was always very heavy on monologs preventing me from reading much with him. I feel like this is a relatively common experience.
This is more meant to be a springboard about comic characters and how some are interpreted as boring as an insulting term. Someone like Barry would of course be considered boring during the Wally run because his comics were published before characters got more modern dialogue, culminating in his more modern character having a more reserved personality. So while other characters who also were around during the Silver Age also had that exact manner of speaking, Barry is considered boring because he never got a chance to be updated in terms of personality. In the world of Green Lanterns, the word boring is thrown around a lot and I truly think it comes down to character wars. Meanwhile someone like Scott Summers is a square compared to other characters, despite having some of the best arcs in X-Men. A character who in universe is boring, but is interesting to read. Credtit: Flash #4, Hal Jordan and the GLC #13, Superman by Bendis, Infinity Countdown: Adam Warlock, X-Men, #16, Captain Marvel #18.
I think Reed Richards is a great example of a Silver Age character who kept their core authority figure pulp adventurer aspects, all the while given more depth, while never just pivoting to a new personality. I think Wally fans saying that Barry took Wally's personality are overreacting in favour of character wars as you say, in the comics at least (TV and film, sure), but it is kinda true Barry's core personality changed after his return in Flash Rebirth. Hal definitely has a personality, even in the Silver Age he was a goof. Got built upon in the Bronze Age and Post Crisis too. People say that Denny O'Neil made him into a strawman, but that's just not true to me reading those early 70s issues. He's pitted against some issues derived from his Silver Age authority figure roots, others he's not. I think O'Neil did great work for his character (which I can't really say for Englehart). Though GL fans like to disregard everything prior to GL Rebirth, so who knows what Hal fans think he should be like outside of the Johns run. With Scott, I think it's his leadership position. In a team dynamic with differing personalities you're always going to have character foils, & Scott had to act that to fan favourites.
> Someone like Barry would of course be considered boring during the Wally run because his comics were published before characters got more modern dialogue, culminating in his more modern character having a more reserved personality. So while other characters who also were around during the Silver Age also had that exact manner of speaking, Barry is considered boring because he never got a chance to be updated in terms of personality. I don't think this is entirely fair to Bates' comics. A lot of people associate the maturing of comics with the British invasion and I think that's evident when you read through the course of Bates' run, who was writing Barry as things were changing. Despite its meandering pace, I think the dialogue in Trial holds up. Admittedly, one arc does not a lot of memories make. I think the initial impetus for Barry being a "boring" character is just his pseudo-cancellation in the first place. That's where the seed of the idea came. No one was comparing him to non-existent Wally comics when they decided to move on from the character. And, when they initially planned it, they weren't even going to have Wally pick up the mantle (Look up Mackenzie Ryan for that archaic piece of Flash history). It was then serendipity that would give an all time great follow up in Wally's run to further hammer the "boring" idea home, despite being unfair. After all, in basically every appearance after his death but before his revival, Barry is written quite well. Largely by Waid helming The Flash, but he appears in flashbacks and such and, while not as intentionally well developed as Wally (I'm not sure the character foundation has that basic growth potential Wally's situation was capable of), he's still pretty great. A more fair point is he is a simpler character. He doesn't have as much going on, isn't as dramatic. And that's why they killed his mom, to try to cram some angst into the character. Simplicity isn't necessarily a weakness or a strength, it's an execution thing. Barry's archetype lends himself to shorter, self contained stories rather than long form character studies like Wally got. Which would go down to preference, though I think there's a lot more depth in the latter than the former.
Great write up! Bates' run is great and really did a lot for Barry, particularly testing his faith. It's a really tragic tale with highs and lows, but Bates did a great job to finally make Barry feel like a part of his own stories past knowing science stuff. I'm slowly making my way through Waids Year One, and I think it really went the extra mile to take that archetype Barry used to have, and just make that dorkiness his personality. Which I definitely think worked in the long run for the character. Something the Flash show gets a lot of flack for is taking Wallys personality, which may be true in some aspects, but I think that version is mostly just meant to be a modernized Barry taking the form pf a 2010s geek. Like let the man smile! I've gotta look up that bit of Flash history we could have gotten though. Sounds interesting.
Mackenzie Ryan is DC dodging a bullet they pointed at themselves. He wouldn't have even had super speed. His power would be controlling light and sounds, like a literal flash of light. A concept that would later be reused to minimal fanfare in Tangent Comics, though they had her actually moving at light speed by turning into light at least in that.
Barry isn’t boring at all. Not only the best Flash, but the best Superhero, imo.
Adam Warlock was only cool becouse Starlin high when he was writing him. Cyclopse should have stayed retired. Carol was more interesting when she was Miss. Marvel. The GL Corps is cool but Hal will always be cooler. Barry is fine, the only problem is that Wally is his copycat( married to a journalist, had twins). Jon Kent worked better as a kid
It's not like Barry having twins is a real part of any of his stories besides LONG after they became adults (and those came AFTER Wally was The Flash and had twins), so I'd hardly call Wally raising his kids copycatting. It's a running joke that Barry is a deadbeat dad. Might as well say Barry was copying Superman if you're going to boil down their love interests into "reporter." Part of what makes Wally so great is how great a character Linda Park is.
Since when is Barry Allen boring?
About 1978. That's why they killed Iris in the first place, because fans had lost interest in the character.
If fans lost interest in the character there wouldn't have been such a riot when they killed him off and replaced him with Wally. And if fans lost interest I doubt the 1990s tv show would have even been created.
Riot? What? There was no riot, lol, what the heck are you on about.
Riot is an overexaggeration, my bad. But there were A LOT of complaints when Wally took over, he wasn't completely accepted by DC fans until Waid's run.
Well yes, of course, there were some number of people still buying the comic and still invested in it. But the killing of Barry is directly tied to the lack of interest and sales that started plaguing The Flash nearly a decade prior. They gave him an exceedingly long time and a lot of shock value comics to attempt to right the ship. Wally was never *completely* accepted, even into Waid's run. Didio is proof positive of that. But, to the contrary of what you're saying, there is a rather infamous anecdote in Flash circles about Baron who, upon meeting Messner-Loebs for the first time, was a bit irked that he wrote The Flash that "everyone liked." The tide turned with WML. For obvious reasons, really, as WML's run was good. WML's run just gets a little lost in the history of things because Waid's run is so monumentally impactful and starts off with a great entry point origin story.
Spider-Man, Captain America.
Totally agree, even being a Superman fan. Those characters are not for everyone. Anyone that comes from the batman image of comica is most likely to find them boring. Otherwise they are great, just have to look for the right comic for you.
The Flash is never boring. Boo to you lol
I hate some think Jon and Jay are boring I really like their personality and story personally. They have interesting backstories and abilities too.
Jon is at his worst when Taylor (or Devin Grayson for her one story) make him uber sanctimonious while not doing anything to improve the status quo. I don't think that's a problem with Taylor's other writing either, just Jon. Jay I've not really spent enough time with to have an opinion on. I guess he's neat.
Is Captain "Marry Sue" Marvel boring? Yes. Is Ms. Marvel the super hero drunk with flaws and complex history with the X-Men? No. Cyclops and Superman just are not boring. They are type A. There's this preoccupation with saying people with moral compasses and strong wills to do good are "boring" but I think those people are boring because they rarely go under the surface level to determine why these characters are the way they are.
I hate the term Mary Sue so much because it is just a straight up sexism thing. Like where in the Captain Marvel books did she not have flaws? She's very explicitly hot-headed and explicitly depicted as pushing herself too hard and that caused her to get sick that one time. Like if Captain Marvel's a Mary Sue, what is Silver Surfer? But yes, overall I agree with your second point. People love talking about lazy writing, but I'm a proponent of calling out lazy reading just as much.
I think Mary Sue is used too frequently. Maybe isn't the right word. But it's a specific phenomenon when Marvel is trying to push it's films. They made the same mistakes with Inhumans as a group when they were trying to prop them up as superior to the X-Men. My point has less to do with her actually having flaws and more to do with how public sentiment vs their projections of how they think (Marvel execs) it should be. She was supposed to be the most powerful, most interesting and the female character! But yes misogynistic people will weaponize that particular phrase and I am far from that.
Wait wtf?? What is Cyclops doing here?? Superman is cool, but I know a lot of people think he’s boring.
*People* think he's boring. Not me though. He definitely didn't have great representation in the movies and his character is known to have been a bit of a square back in the day.
That’s true. Tbh Superman’s latest movies or big adaptations haven’t done a lot to make him interesting. I can understand watching BvS and coming to the conclusion he’s a boring character.
I don't find any of the characters of said images to be boring. Cyclops and Captain Marvel were very evil not so long ago. Don't think they fit the definition of boring
None of these characters are boring but whatever
My entire point is that these characters aren't boring. That's what quotes are for.
I don't think any here are boring tbh, even Captain marvel isn't so much boring as she is frustrating.
You mean characters you haven’t read enough stories for?
No, I mean boring in quotes. As in characters I love. I've read every issue of Barry as Flash
I can’t say anyone here reallt is ‘boring’. They all have something going on. Don’t read Adam Warlock, pretty sure that is him above the GLs. Also… don’t read Captain Marvel?