FLIGHT

Anyone read it? its gottta be one of the greatest books ever written.

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To view the last of me, a living frame
For one more picture! in a sheet of flame
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."

I got it out of the library about a year ago now and loved it.
I was lucky enough to find a copy that looked brand new at a carboot sale for £1 along with four batman graphic novels for £2 each.
I love carboot sales!

Anyway, back on subject. I re-read it again just a week or so ago and I still think it's great.

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(O.o )
(> < ) Bunny says you need to read

Watchmen is definitely a classic, no doubt. Anyone who hasn't read it really should. Writing a believable comic book about superheroes in the post-Watchmen era, after Alan Moore has utterly deconstructed the entire superhero mythology, would seem to me to be very, very difficult. Sometimes I don't know how the Big Three have managed all these years.

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Jonathon Dalton

The ending ;; brilliant. 'damned if you do and damned if you don't'.

and Rorschach is one of my favourite comic book characters ever! faults and all.

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I concur; it was quite a good read overall!

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www.bnichol.com

I can't claim to be an expert on mainstream comics (though I imagine my geekery is enough that I know who the hell the Big Three even are), but I think that at least two of the Big Three are enduring for very compelling reasons.
Batman and Superman are great complements to each other. There are so many great dichotomies between the two: urban vs. rural, cynicism vs. idealism, reason vs. faith. Funny enough, I think the recent presidential elections revealed these dichotomies to be even more relevant than ever.

The idea of Superman is the idea of deliverance, the actualization of any deist belief system -- that there is a God out there who exists and cares. He gives people hope because he shows them something greater than themselves, in every way.

If Batman is anything like a god or supernatural force, it's because he made himself into one. He is powered by intelligence, physical training, money, and will; in effect, he is the ultimate Humanist superhero.

Obviously, I know these characters aren't real, but I think they're powerful symbols. As far as Wonder Woman goes... I have no clue. I don't read her comics, and she didn't have an eponymous cartoon series that was one of best cartoons America has ever created. I definitely don't have a problem with female characters, -- unrepentant Buffy fan here -- I just don't see anything compelling about her inherently, other than being one of the first female superheroes.

P.S. To be deleted if considered thread-jacking.

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This might explain why I was never a DC fan- the mythological stature of superheroes never much interested me. DC heroes are iconic, no doubt, and they are powerful icons (I really liked those big Alex Ross books), but I like my comic book characters like I like my vampire-slaying teenagers- flawed and well in over their heads. The Marvel heroes were never icons given form by an elaborate costume. They were human archetypes who dressed up to enter an iconic world. Spiderman is not the idea of unrewarded civic duty. He is a perpetual social outcast who feels forced to put on a mask and do his civic duty (unrewarded) only because his personal relationships all seem to be with super-villains or the relatives of super-villains. The X-Men are not the idea of racial harmony. They are troubled teenagers who are forced to confront issues of racial harmony in an iconic way whenever they leave the X-mansion.

I think what Alan Moore did is he took Stan Lee's human characters back into a DC setting with a vengeance. The characters in Watchmen are thoroughly human- but they are actively staking claim to iconic status. They say to the world, "when I put this mask on I am an equal to Superman or Batman. I am also a supernatural force." But being so very flawed, this grab for power of course goes horribly wrong.

PS- See how I cleverly redirect the thread back to the subject at hand?

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Jonathon Dalton