Finally read IC #3

[greenygal]

...I was actually kind of avoiding because I got spoiled for the last page, and, um, yeah, not necessarily happy about that. But not my point for the moment.


Okay, now, let's be clear: I love Deathstroke. I adore Deathstroke. And in a fight, he's all that and a bit more: he's smart, tough, fast, experienced, and ruthless, he's got a healing factor and hyper-reflexes, and to top it off he's a brilliant tactician and strategist. And yet, I still don't really believe what he pulls off here; there are just too many Leaguers, who should be working together far better than this. True, they haven't all worked together before and a lot of the ones that have haven't done it in a while, but still.

But hey--Deathstroke fangirl here. I could deal, really I could, just for the sheer malevolent fun of watching him take the JLA. (Although? The crack about doing it for free--uh-uh. Mercenary, folks. He does not get into fights this serious for the fun of it.) And he's only the winner for a couple of minutes until they all start pounding on him, so it's all good, right?

Well, it would be...except for the way Kyle was used. Which just left me...

Okay, so the speedster is Slade's first priority. Granted. If you can take the guy who moves too fast to see, yup, better do that first. But second priority? Is the guy with the most powerful weapon in the universe on his hand. Kyle could take Slade easily, without even moving, for heaven's sake. Which is why Slade should immediately have moved to disable him somehow. Focused sonics, bring down the ceiling on his head, whatever. Or, hey, kill two birds with one stone and injure Wally so seriously that Kyle has to abandon the fight to get him to a hospital. That would have been fine.

[ETA: It's occurred to me that in my ire, I'm being unfair to Slade's actual second priority, Zatanna. Certainly you want to take the ultrapowerful magician out in a hurry. But if Zatanna goes second, then Kyle is third. None of this "saved you for last" nonsense.]

Instead, Kyle just...stands there. While Slade takes out all his other teammates, including skewering Kyle's friend as his first move, Kyle just stands there, waiting for his turn. Well, that was certainly polite of him.

Whereupon Slade stops him from using his ring by breaking his hand (...well, maybe...) and...trying to use it himself?! *clutches head* Kyle's ring doesn't work like that, dammit! At all! And christ, even if it did I don't believe for a moment that Slade could disable Kyle that way; Kyle just has too much experience with the ring and Slade has none.

(Mind you? Slade with his own GL ring would be terrifying. But that's a different story entirely.)

No. This was a stupid, stupid handling of Kyle, to the point that I was going, "If you didn't want to write a GL in this fight scene, then don't put him there!" It's probably not the worst Kyle fight scene ever written--much competition--but it's gotta be a contender.

*grumble*

Oh, and also, while I'm getting my personal gripes out? If you're going to insist that revealing a character's secret identity will inevitably, immediately lead to the death of all their friends and family, then don't point to Flash as you say it! (And don't have Green Arrow make the point, either, because that's almost as dumb.) No, in fact, Wally's mother would not automatically get her throat slit if people knew who she was, and do you know how I know this? Because people did know who she was for two hundred issues, and she's still breathing! For heaven's sake, Meltzer, Wally has losses in this area that you can point to, very recent and immediate ones. And yet you're ignoring them totally so you can make this completely wrong point! Pay attention to your characters, will you? If they're just being randomly used to serve your meta-point, then why on earth should I care?



Um. That was a little rantier than I expected. Maybe I need sleep. Yes. Sleep would be good.

Comments

Amen?

[miss-porcupine.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I didn't get why Kyle was standing like a lump and I certainly didn't get what Slade was thinking would happen if he broke Kyle's fingers. Aaaand *geez*, it's not like Kyle hasn't had the ring get taken off his finger enough times that learning how to LoJack it wouldn't have been a priority. That's a Kyle Rayner original on his finger, Slade.

Couple this with the Awesome Stupid of Kyle in the GL: Rebirth preview pages and my sadly logical prediction for how Kyle's gonna get punted out of the hero business...

My boy deserves some respect, damn it.

[caia-comica.livejournal.com]

I'd actually managed to forget, what with all the old GL I'd been reading lately, that Kyle's ring is specifically atuned to him (the stunt would have been possible with old rings), so thanks for pointing it out! Probably Mezter, too, has been spending too much time in the Silver Age of late. I wasn't terribly pleased at the whole Deathstroke scene anyway, now I have a very specific and legitimate grievance to add :).

The public identity thing, wrt Wally and Ollie, is also a very good point; Wally may have changed his mind on the subject recently (...and does Ollie *know* Wally's ID was public? I'm not sure how much was revealed at the end of that storryline), and Straight Shooter probably reminded Ollie of the dangers of a (semi-)public identity, but still...

[illmantrim.livejournal.com]

I agree with most of your points even if I think the fight would have been over in three seconds. By the ways that Kyle and Wally have learned in the alst year both could and would have stopped Slade quickly even in emotional distrerss, because both have fought through siomilar situations and shown far more smarts then they did here.

Anwyays, you made some very good points.

[chiefseamonkey.livejournal.com]

Meltzezr did make the point of saying that using Kyle's ring was the one thing he wasn't sure of. After all, it could have worked on Hal. [Didn't Aquaman use it during JLA: Year One? Then again, that was also the Doom Patrol issue, so that's no longer in continuity...]

Re: Amen?

[greenygal.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I didn't get why Kyle was standing like a lump

Throughout the entire fight scene, there was this little voice in the back of my head demanding "Where's Kyle? Did somebody knock him out when I wasn't looking or something? Because he couldn't possibly just be standing there all this time..." But he was. *sigh*

The more I think about this whole scene, the guiltier I feel about enjoying it on any level; it just makes no sense.

and I certainly didn't get what Slade was thinking would happen if he broke Kyle's fingers.

I can see Slade thinking that broken bones will distract Kyle from the concentration he needs to use the ring, which is fair enough, but yes, there seems to be some presumption here that the hand is important just because it's where the ring happens to be--and frankly, if that's Slade's tactic he would have done far better just to shoot Kyle and be done with it.

Couple this with the Awesome Stupid of Kyle in the GL: Rebirth preview pages

Haven't read the preview. Not gonna. This is going to hurt enough without going through it twice.

My boy deserves some respect, damn it.

You said it. I'll say it. Wish to god someone at DC was saying it.

(In absolute fairness, all the heroes looked incompetent in this particular scene, but Kyle worse than the rest--and jeez, even the bad guy didn't seem to respect him. Which would be immensely stupid of Slade if only the narrative hadn't backed him up...)

[greenygal.livejournal.com]

I'd actually managed to forget, what with all the old GL I'd been reading lately, that Kyle's ring is specifically atuned to him (the stunt would have been possible with old rings), so thanks for pointing it out!

Right. There are occasional exceptions for other people being able to use Kyle's ring, but Slade isn't going to be one of them.

And, in fact, I don't even think being stuck in the Silver Age is an excuse for this scene--sure, it was possible to remotely manipulate the old rings, but it was incredibly hard. I just don't believe someone who's never even used a ring (though granted his willpower is formidable) should be able to completely block an experienced GL from using a ring that he's wearing. Even if the whole point wasn't moot, which it is. :)

and does Ollie *know* Wally's ID was public? I'm not sure how much was revealed at the end of that storryline

Hmmm. I can't be positive about this one; Ollie knows that he used to know who Wally was, but I suppose it's not clear whether he also remembers that Wally's identity used to be general knowledge. (Certainly the public at large seems to have forgotten that part.) Even if Ollie's forgotten that, though, this still flags up the point that he's wrong--which somehow I don't think is what Meltzer wants us to take away from this conversation. That Ollie has made questionable moral choices, sure, but not that he's just wrong on a factual point that undermines his entire argument.

And the thing is, it would be so easy to use the actual facts to make this argument do what it's supposed to. Wally's pregnant wife was assaulted and suffered a miscarriage because of his lack of secret identity--why isn't Ollie pointing that out? Why isn't his argument "you were lucky for a long time, but eventually the odds catch up to you"? If Ollie isn't meant to know that, why not have Wally bring it up himself, out loud or internally? Why just ignore such a compelling piece of evidence that must have been in Wally's thoughts at that moment?

Moreover: how in God's name are Wally and Ollie (look! They rhyme!) having a debate on the ethics of causing people to forget your secret identity without Ollie pointing out that Wally just did exactly the same thing?! Just, why? They could still have the damn debate, Light's magical lobotomy is still the big issue, but how could it not come up that Wally himself is guilty of the rest of it? Does anybody seriously think that Ollie just tactfully didn't mention that part?

[greenygal.livejournal.com]

Well, but if Slade can't use Kyle's ring at all (and he can't, and Kyle knows he can't) then what is he doing that stops Kyle from using it? Yeah, I suppose Slade might have tried this tactic, but it shouldn't have got any measurable results--and honestly, why would he try something so chancy? Why not go for the far more obvious and almostly certainly more effective tactic of physically disabling the ringbearer? This scene already requires us to believe that Slade can injure Kyle physically, so why isn't he going on with that instead of something he doesn't know will work?

[greenygal.livejournal.com]

I am, in general, willing to cut writers some slack on writing both Flashes and Green Lanterns, because they're just Too Damned Powerful, and it can be hard to do a fight scene with them that wouldn't realistically be over in three seconds--and, well, where would be the fun in that? :) But Meltzer still definitely stepped over my lines of believability with Kyle, and I suspect if I think about it at all the same's going to apply to Wally. *sigh*

[illmantrim.livejournal.com]

I know the two are very powerfyul but if peiople think they can be defeated easily... you just ahve to use actuall weaknesses. GL has admitted to feeling useless when blind and disoriented... even after it was done before. So flash bang and sonic attack him and he would go down.

With Flash the easiest way to get him is to put something on you that would explode outward. nmake all of your equipment explode if even touched. Then when Flash went top attack you, he could be stopped that way when he touched you. Maybe not hurt, but at least stopped.

Both of them can be stopped believably, wityhout resorting to things we have seen them beat in their own comics.

It is the same reason I dont read any characterizations of Booster Gold or Blue beetle that arent in their own comics. Anywhere else they are presented as silly and stupid and people who never learn, where in their own comics, they are smarter and better and braver than a lot of the rest of the denizens of the DCU.

Some characters are hard to write and some just are cursed by a rememberable stupid writer...either way, if you plot out the characters' weaknesses and strengths you can stop them, in a believeable way.