I was listening to Glenn Beck the other day, and he had Brad Meltzer on talking about his new book called The Book of Lies . I was immediately interested in the basis of the book and started doing a bit of research on Brad Meltzer. I’ve found he has written a few New York Times best sellers, writes comic books, and has even co-created a canned TV series.
I just bought a book of his off ebay, The Book of Fate, and wanted to know your views about Brad Meltzer's works.
[ September 09, 2008, 01:15 PM: Message edited by: Presences ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I think Brad Meltzer needs to post here more often.
Posted by Presences (Member # 8492) on :
Didn't know he did.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I wish he didn't pay people to spam forums.
Posted by Presences (Member # 8492) on :
Does he? Do you have proof of that?
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Squick:
I don't think Presences is a spammer. Take a look at his history-- he's actually interacted with people here.
That sure doesn't fit the normal profile of a spam-for-hire outfit.
Posted by Presences (Member # 8492) on :
Actually, I didn't even catch on you were accusing me of getting paid to spam. MrSquicky, I won’t be offended. Honestly, am I missing something about Brad Meltzer?
O, and if I were a spammer, why would I mention buying his book on ebay of all places?
Posted by Presences (Member # 8492) on :
I just found that OSC even did a somewhat positive review on one of his audio books.
No one has read any of his novels?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Scott, Look more closely at his history, particularly the number of topics he starts that look to promote artists or products.
I'm inclined to believe that he's one of the people paid to semi-interact on site and also post spam, but I could be wrong.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
I've liked every novel of his that I've read. Dead Even, The Zero Game, The Millionaires and Book of Fate (in that order, I think). I haven't read The Tenth Justice or The First Counsel yet, because I haven't gotten around to it. And I'm extremely psyched about The Book of Lies, based on what I've heard about it.
Identity Crisis was creepy. I realize that Meltzer isn't the sole reason for the darkening of DC, but he's a major part of it, and I wish he'd just stop.
I was reading through an old Superman comic the other day, and there was a backup story with the Atom. And there was Jean Loring, harping at him, and Ray hanging up on her, and all I could think was, "Dude, don't do that. She's psycho!" And I didn't like thinking that.
I kind of liked Jack and Bobby, even though I despised Christine Lahti's character more than just about any other character I've suffered through in years. She'd come on, and I'd want to throw things at the TV.
As an aside, I love that Wikipedia is using succession boxes (created for kings and presidents) to trace the succession of writers on comic books. That's geekery at its finest.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Scott, Look more closely at his history, particularly the number of topics he starts that look to promote artists or products.
I'm inclined to believe that he's one of the people paid to semi-interact on site and also post spam, but I could be wrong.
Is Puffy Treat a spammer just because he's almost always the first person here with entertainment news? Sheesh...
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
I've read two or three of his novels and thought they were good but not great.
I also read the graphic novel he wrote, and I liked it.
Posted by Presences (Member # 8492) on :
Wow MrSquicky, are you trying to start a fight? I forgave you for the first misdiagnosis of me, but now I'm a bit offended. Are you threatened in some way by this post? Please, explain my other posts as to your conclusion of me. Did you bid for a job with Brad Meltzer and loose? I’d like to know. Excuse me for only being able to “semi-interact”. I happen to value “some” of hatrack river members’ opinions, ideas, tastes, etc., and whenever I want some feedback on something, I find this a very satisfying place to post. What products or artists have I promoted? Why don’t you give a little respect to the semi-interacting guy and step off!
Now, back to my original post. Thank you Lisa and El JT de Spang for your VALUED thoughts on this post.
[ September 09, 2008, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: Presences ]
Posted by Presences (Member # 8492) on :
MrSquicky, please perform a real search on my profile name and maybe, just maybe you'll see the real story of my non-spam posts. I wouldn't want to disrespect a 8622+ poster child, and maybe your behavior is somehow justified in your mind, or maybe you have a faulty theoretical model you follow for labeling a post spam. In any case, I will accept a respectful “sorry”.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Presences: Did you bid for a job with Mike and loose?
Who is Mike?
Posted by Presences (Member # 8492) on :
I meant Brad. Mike...Brad... 4 letter names, they always get me Rosa...I mean Lisa. Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Pres, You know, I really wasn't sure about my impression here, but this sounded so amazingly like plant spam. I shouldn't have said anything. I'm sorry.
Posted by Presences (Member # 8492) on :
MrSquicky,
I also apologize for going off. I’ve read many of your posts and often feel I’m “not worthy” here at hatrack as I’m not a frequent flyer, nor do I feel I’m as intellectually qualified as many of you. I probably read something from this forum only once a week, and I’m lucky if I can post once a month. I do admire the fact you were probably looking out for the scum that surfaces at times. Sorry...
Posted by Joldo (Member # 6991) on :
I read Identity Crisis. It sparked a rant that got me banned from my comic book store . . .
Of course, I don't know how much he plotted that and how much plotting belonged to DC editors.
Still, as is--no. No, no, no. If nothing else, it was a terrible anticlimax. If more, I'll just end up going on and on about the cavalier treatment of violence against women in comics.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
Identity Crisis was the "crying super-hero" equivalent of emotional pornography. I loathed it.
His Justice League of America run was directionless, infested with lesser-fan-fic-flavored ideas, and worst of all was boring as heck.
The local library has The Book of Fate. I haven't read it, but I may.
Posted by Presences (Member # 8492) on :
Wow, sounds like his comic efforts were not that great then.
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
Okay, I'll go ahead and post this here.
The only thing I've ever read of Meltzer is Identity Crisis, and I'm the only person in the world, as far as I can tell, that liked it.
Spoilers for Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis here.
What Identity Crisis did, for me, was sort of the opposite of what Dark Knight did. Dark Knight took the Batman caricature and further distorted it just a smidge further, accentuating the more extreme aspects of the DC universe. It said, in essence, how far an extreme can Batman go to and still be a hero? How loyal can Superman stay and still be a hero? To me, I'm not interested in those questions--I like the heroism of superheroes, not the more villainous aspects of them.
But what Identity Crisis did was nudge the characters just a smidge closer to reality. Bad guys aren't actually as fun as comics make it seem--bad guys actually do bad things. As in vile. As in, you wish you didn't know about them.
Meltzer did this, talked about how people sincerely interested in protecting people from such evil might react to it, and explained why the characters hadn't been acting like this all along.
To me, while Dark Knight made everybody less heroic, Identity Crisis made everybody more heroic, even in showing their biggest weakness--the sacrifices their loved ones were being forced to make while the heroes were out saving the world.
I had already read Identity Crisis, though, before I realized that it was actually meant as a commentary on Dark Knight. The moral of Identity Crisis was supposed to be that all the heroes had become too dark, and that they needed to get their hearts back. Going back and re-reading it, I can see that all of the elements of that are there--the strongest being when Batman picks up the gun--but it just didn't resonate that way when I read it the first time. And if somebody has to explain it to you for you to get it--well, that means it didn't work.
I've decided to blame the artwork, just because I like Geoff Johns. But truly, the art was abysmal. There are drawings of Power Girl in there that make her look 90. I think in the hands of a better team of artists, the story might have had some weight.
But I'm a DC guy from way back. I was reading about Guy Gardner, Fire, Elongated Man, and Max Lord when all my friends were reading X-men, X-factor, X-force, X-gang, X-club, X-friends, X-buddies, X-association, and X-incorporated, so that might have something to do with why the story felt more meaningful and less manipulative to me.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
While that's the message Geoff Johns spun out of IC, according to Brad HIS true purpose for the series was "reclaiming the Silver Age"...he really thought that revealing half of the Justice League were evil brain-washing monsters who defiled the minds of their own team-mates made them "morally gray" and that it made all those silly, innocent old League stories important and meaningful. Because, now we know that behind the scenes, they were all destroying each others brains! That'll show the jaded, 30-50-something fanboys that DC is more X-TREEEEEME than Marvel. Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
Oops. That should have read, "I had already read INFINITE CRISIS, though, before I realized . . ." and "The moral of "Infinite Crisis" was supposed to be that all the heroes . . ."
My point was supposed to be that I got a clearer message from Identity Crisis than Infinite Crisis.
I have no idea what Meltzer's intention was. What I got out of it was actually a little anti-Marvel, since Marvel went darker in more titles than DC did. That's interesting if Meltzer thought he was going in a Marvel direction. I liked the work for going more real in a way I felt neither line ever had, by pulling it back down to earth, not by going more extreme.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
The best thing about Identity Crisis was the remixes done by Tim O'Neil.
The first one was of Identity Crisis #3. Judge it for yourselves. Language advisory. You click on each image to go to the next, btw.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
quote:Originally posted by docmagik: The only thing I've ever read of Meltzer is Identity Crisis, and I'm the only person in the world, as far as I can tell, that liked it.
Should I use my invisibility for good, or for evil, I wonder?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
The beauty of invisibility is that you can do both.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
Yes, but I want to choose the proper alignment from the get-go.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
How realistic is it that Superman, a guy with super-hearing, super-sight, etc (and thus fully aware that this clandestine brain-washing of criminals and fellow Leaguers was going on) would never bring it up before because he just didn't want to admit it? That makes DC's top hero guy look like a spineless, hopelessly compromised hypocrite.
Because that was Brad's whole paradigm...this wasn't a recent thing, it had been going on behind the scenes for years.
It just taints too many stories and characters, and it's taken some extensive damage control by other writers to make certain characters workable again. I just feel strongly he chose the wrong way to inject realism. I don't mind super-heroes existing in a sometimes dark corrupt world...but I prefer the League holds itself to a higher standard. Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
See, Puffy, the funny thing is that even though I liked the comic, I agree with you.
I would not want to read issue after issue, story after story with that tone and that attitude.
It didn't actually fit any real DC timeline. He was referencing pre-crisis stories in a post crisis world. It was part of the bizarre continuity meld that brought back Jason Todd and Luthor's green suit.
And part of the believability of the story for me, unless I was misremembering, was that Superman was absolutely not a part of it. If there are any stories out there that reference he did know about it, I'd be very disappointed.
(As it is, I believe there are stories out there about Batman coming to terms with it, but I don't believe I've seen any of those.)
The whole reason that I read the league instead of X-men was that I did enjoy the lighter tone. I remember an issue of Justice League Europe, I think, where the only "villian" in the issue was a cat. It was fun.
But I do think that the league can be used for more serious stories, and that one handled it in a way that resonated for me.
It wasn't a comic about rape, as the parody Lisa linked to suggested. It was a comic about evil. It said that real evil is not as fun and fanciful as we sometimes make it out to be in the comics. The parody joked that the comic was saying rape was good escapist fantasy--the whole point of the comic was that rape is not good escapist fantasy, that real evil is not exciting, and that when confronted with genuine evil, your natural reaction is not going to be playful banter and teasing jibes. You are an absolutely moral person, but when you're confronted with real evil, just about anybody's heart cries out that it must be destroyed.
And if it were all directed at you, you're tough, you can take it, but when it starts affecting the people around you, the people who didn't sign up for it, and don't have the talent or the power to deal with it, then what do you do?
They couldn't have told that story with the X-men. Wolverine would have killed Dr. Light in a heartbeat. I shudder to think what Emma Frost would have done to him. It's precisely because the Justice League had moral boundaries that they could do this story.
That said, I'm not going to hand it to my kids.
Oh, and Tom, who are you talking to? Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
I think he was talking to JT, who was implying he was invisible because he also liked IC but no one notices it despite the fact he has mentioned it before.
Or maybe not. Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
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But truly, the art was abysmal. There are drawings of Power Girl in there that make her look 90. I think in the hands of a better team of artists, the story might have had some weight.![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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