I don’t have much to say about the majority of your post, and so I want to look at the joke. In summary, I wish to say this… My trolls are lame. Where am I going to get the XP if I can’’t get a decent set of trolls to vanquish? GRC practically levels every second post, and I’ve been farming for months without a hint of something koboldian. Stupid orcs.

I think that your trolls are lame because you are a man. You do come from the position of power: elite job, good home, comic book reading male. The knee-jerk reactions of jerks toward feminists can’t hold up here. They can’t say “Well, it’s because that’s what guys like!” when you’re standing here going “I do not like!”, they can’t say “You’re just a frigid bitch!” because you’re not a woman. They can’t say that feminism is just a bunch of extremist dykes, because you’re a heterosexual male saying that this is where you belong.

In order to respond to you, to anything you write no matter how inflammatory it is, they first have to think enough to come up with new insults. They actually have to target you, D.S., rather than a segment of the population. The ones who just want to be reactionary won’t bother putting the time into it and will come out with lame things.

The ones who do think about what they’re saying enough to come up with trolling remarks that would suit are willing to think, which means that chances are there are trolls out there who come over to D.S. with every expectation of flaming up the place…and then click away without commenting because they spent enough time trying to peg you that your message got through.

~Madb

Well, you’re not gonna get it. Like I mentioned to someone else … She doesn’t have a memorial case since it would contradict Frank Miller’s DARK KNIGHT RETURNS.

Mini-series like DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, KINGDOM COME, or NEW FRONTIER are considered “outside of normal continuity,” or “Elseworlds” tales. But I’ve noticed that, when they become popular, writers and artists start pillaging these stories for ideas.

Look at Batman … notice how, after Dark Knight Returns, he took to calling all of his sidekicks “soldiers”? Notice how they dropped the yellow oval/halo from around the bat-insignia? I could site other examples, but you get the idea. Jim Starlin wrote the “Death of Jason Todd” to cash in on Miller’s idea of the memorial case. (”I gave my word … for Jason … never again.”) For that matter, Starlin wrote the mini-series THE CULT, so he could cash in on the “nasty riots” that Batman refers to in DK.

If the mini-series tanks, no big deal. But if it’s a hit, then it’s “safe” for writers and artists to begin incorporating their concepts and character designs. DK is probably considered an “Elseworlds” tale, but they don’t want to fly in the face of it.

So, having Jason Todd pointlessly murdered ties in (and cashes in) beautifully with DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. But having an extra memorial case, honoring Stephanie, doesn’t jive with DK continuity. And let’s face it, like Frank Miller or not, DARK KNIGHT RETURNS turned the whole Batman “franchise” around. It’s still the point-of-reference for many people even today.

ABSOLUTE DARK KNIGHT is now in Borders bookstores. It’s a massive hardcover/slipcased edition and it’s super-expensive. DC/Warner is banking on the longevity of Dark Knight Returns. They probably assume that the Stephanie/Black Mask story-arc will eventually lurk among the quarter-bins, consigned to obscurity.

Why contradict a wildly popular mini-series for a story arc that’s destined to be forgotten?

It may be a lame reason, but I suspect that’s their reasoning. THEIR reasoning. Not mine. Capiche?

Happy 2007.

You are too young/old to be this cynical.

You know way too much about how groups act.

You–all of you–keep fighting that good fight!

Tammy Pierce