Steve Rogers, CAPTAIN AMERICA & Hydra agent all along

Watchmen has actually made it onto quite a few lists of best novels of the 20th century. Not just graphic novels. NOVELS. In general.

@Aondeug gave some hopeful!Supes recommendations in Tumblr.txt. I know it included All-Star Superman and Superman: Secret Identity.

 

Yeah, exactly. Watchmen's greatest strength is that it's really, really human. But instead people looked at it and went, "Wow, everyone thinks this superhero comic with sex and violence and heroes presented as government thugs or superweapons or terrifyingly violent criminals is awesome! They're talking about how mature it is! We should write lots of comics where the heroes are unheroic and there's a bunch of sex and violence, that clearly goes over well and will make us lots of money." (As mentioned, Alan Moore has apologized for accidentally causing that. :::PPP )

 

And people think that the characters designed to be 'this is a character who you should NOT EMPATHIZE WITH' are the cool badasses that need to be copypasted into everything.

 

WHAT. That's incredible.

@sans. how appropriate that you watch the human.

 

The other suggestion I had was Morrison's Action Comics run. Really lovely stuff. If you don't mind Thor then the God Butcher arc of Thor is really good stuff and it's of that sort of "too simple and hopeful" thing that certain people mock. It's silly, it's overblown, it's epic. Thor punches a fucking shark in space and gives hope to the universe. Really lovely thing and it's honestly one of my favorite comics ever.

 

Also if you want grimdark misery with a purpose and softness in it I sadly only have the animes to offer. With the exception of the Cassandra Cain Batgirl comics all I have is manga. Namely Berserk and Monster. A warning with Berserk being that it is incredibly explicit and incredibly dark. Its moments of touching hope are very touching and hopeful! But Berserk will first rip you apart ten ways to Sunday and back.

 

This reminded me of when my AP English teacher was horrified when people (heh, students) kept insisting Romeo & Juliet was a romance. And using them as a template for their romance writing.

 

the Watchmen movie isn't so bad if you watch the ultimate cut

 

I've only seen it in theaters. And I didn't think it was bad, just... well, it couldn't have lived up to the book. Does the ultimate cut shorten the long, uncomfortable sex scene? Because that would be a change I would prioritize.

 

i don't remember, i zone out during sex scenes tbh

 

V for Vendetta, Alan Moore's other Big Grimdark Comic, had the same problem when it was adapted into a movie. I'm quite fond of the movie but it's telling a fundamentally different story where V is absolutely unquestionably the hero.

 

My impression was that VfV had the plot and themes changed more, while Watchmen mostly got... flattened.

 

The idealist in me says, "Yes, of course, they can't afford to let this sort of thing go on when everyone is so goddamn pissed about it."

The cynic says, "Liefield was still working for over a decade after people were universally panning him, hope is a lie."

I think the series itself might get cancelled in short order if it doesn't sell. That makes sense. The hard part is going to be getting people to commit to not buying-- most people should stay on board, but there's always the possibility of douchebags buying it to 'stick it to the SJWs'.

 

I think Linkara's rant about retcons in the "15 Things Wrong With Identity Crisis" video is relevant to this. (starts at 4:32 in Part 2, for anyone who doesn't want to watch the whole thing)

 

(If you want fluffy fun Marvel stuff go with anything from the Marvel Adventures line. I think all of it should be in tradebacks by now since it ended around '10)

 

Um, this might be kind of an upsetting question...

Spoiler: HYDRA's political philosophy

...but I've seen people talk about how HYDRA's Nazi-ness was made explicit in the MCU, while I was under the impression that it was comics HYDRA (about which, granted, I know nothing except secondhand) that was unambiguously Nazis, while the MCU version was, while Nazi-affiliated at one time and possessed of a crapton of likenesses (and although people in-universe aren't generally inclined to draw the distinction), specifically not Nazis themselves, at least not since five minutes into Cap1. Like, until Steve personally offended him, Berlin was at the top of Schmidt's list of Places To Bomb The Fuck Out Of (can't have rivals in the world domination business, after all). There's no sign of any kind of nationalism among them, so they're not even generically fascist. They're just pure totalitarian. Hobbesian, in fact.

And this is probably a complete derail but it's a thing that was bothering me so.

 

They won't make Bucky and Steve canon (do they even have the same relationship in the comics -- because Bucky was like his little brother last I was reading) for the same reason they freaked out after Tony pretty much confessed his love to Steve's corpse (not to mention having there be an alternate universe where Tony was Toni and she and Steve got married and everything in the world was good and happy) and started throwing girls at Tony and having him hook up with Tony and loudly talking about how Sharon had totes been preggers with Steve's baby SEE THEY CAN'T BE GAY. /bitter

 

They have an older brother and younger brother dynamic in the comics. Steven was already an adult when he met the teenaged Bucky. He was made to be a plucky kid sidekick to appeal to younger readers if I recall.

 

http://cvptainbvcky.tumblr.com/post/145039129357/itsstuckyinmyhead-im-crying-we-are-all-so-salty

Nick Spencer
http://www.ew.com/article/2016/05/25/captain-america-villain-hydra-nick-spencer-tom-brevoort

 

i thought there was more but nope it's a fic with a word count of 55.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/6968407/chapters/15885397
^link for the lazy