The difference between most Manga & Comics is "message"

https://youtu.be/FnqXIqzkVBE?feature=shared

With American Comics, it suffers a political zeitgeist sickness due to matriarchal sensibilties not being kept in check, and yet its not hard to find good reads, the issue & advantage is different writer visions. 

With Manga, its not a patriarchal mindset, its a PeterPan syndrome, writers refusing to grow up. You have one writer at the helm, one vision, GREAT ..until we realize that vision is ass. So stoll you have to hunt for a competent story because if that one author is good, then its good, but if majority of mangaka are bad writers but good artists then the story will be bad despite how it looks. 

Thats the price, you get a complete, crap story vs an amalgamation of different minds per few issues (good & bad) making one character great or mid, but rarely ever bad. 

Why? Because theres ALWAYS a writer(s) that did it right at some point in history vs all the chapters being shit because one author couldn't get it together. 

Example: a Superman Joe Kelly run vs that crappy Bendis run 

If it was manga rules, Bendis would've had Superman at his mercy for 4 decades. 

Thats why My Hero failed before the turn of Kamino arc, the entire story was at the mercy of a bad writer. 

For Manga, all people care about is optics, Mangaka are great artists moonlighting as authors. You're lucky to get competent these days let alone "good" or great or new standard. 

Zack is right, some of the best Manga are more closely Western in concept. (ex. Gundam, The Hard, Desert Punk, Vinland Saga, Berserk (first few arcs), GITS, Blue Gender, & some Kamen Rider) 

Manga & Anime is majorly a child mindset genre, suspension, few evolution of story. 

You get titles like this these days: "It's Fun Having a 300,000 Yen a Month Job Welcoming Home an Onee-san Who Doesn't Find Meaning in a Job That Pays Her 500,000 Yen a Month" 

What the actual hell, thats an every other average manga. 

Comics are the step up because they have both complete books (TPB editions), What-Ifs, Elsewords, and interconnected stories. Variety of storytelling. 

People saying comics aren't complete have never read Watchmen, a hard cover edition,  or a single Annual and they're full of horseshit & need to sit down. 

You wouldn't have gotten My Hero if it weren't for American /western comics. And the west takes some notes from Japan, but there's a reason why Japan keeps copying the wests homework and when they dont they make another fetish simulator, they're creatively bankrupt and frankly pathetic sometimes.

Japan made My Hero Academia copying the west & badly; America made JL: Kingdom Come. Its not a contest. 

The difference is one writer was immature & making shit up on the fly and the other was a mature mind that had something to say, but didnt preach to the audience to say it.

Manga is generally mediocre to bad because the vast majority of mangaka are inexperienced or sex manic children with no substantial life experience to pass on, & the struggles they do have that they're projecting they dont seem to realize its not a good thing; whose biggest resource is women, children, fetishes & self-inserts. Same with anime, and why its also trash.

American Comics have a double edged sword called "message", for Stan Lee's Spiderman its responsibility, for Watchmen its mainly (but not exclusively) the state of man, and the governing powers that puppet your lives; for a woke writer its men are bad, politics, girls rule, or trans visibility. 

Fact is, for better and worse, what makes Manga semi-preferable to woke narratives is also why Manga sucks: 

Mangaka have something to show, much to display but nothing to say- no experience to share, no message, no real story. Just safe mode formula, projecting fetishes 24/7 rehashing whats been done. No message, no theme, just escalation of plot with no story, rule of cool or depravity.

Ideal for pandering to children and Man-children. 

Its why your Vinland Sagas are flukes instead of the standard. And its also why "Makina Sans a love-bot?" garbage gets pumped out by the week, Japanese media industry is not totally lost, but its garbage, people on both sides are too lazy to look deeper to find the diamonds. 

Theres just more diamonds in the west,  there's a reason why Japanese copy the westerners even in filmmaking.

Some to few Manga is a good time, but its not vintage. No one's looking to Japan to make a All-Star Superman, Superman 755, 300, Kick-Ass, or a Spawn, Infinite Crisis, Inifinity Saga, Flashpoint, a Jaws, or a Robocop, Silence of the Lambs, Jurassic Park novel, Alien. 

West West West. 

The bar for Manga/Anime Japan is actually pretty low, its why they oveework their teams but they produce the same crap over & over again. They know foreigner NPCs will settle for anything that aint woke, even if its bad. 

See Japan knows how to polish old property like Shin Gojira (god tier practical effects & lore), they know how innovate animating drawings in autistic fashion, acting aint half bad, but they don't go hard like that in the story department. 

The criticism for the wests obsession with politics is warranted but Japans Manga/anime game is brutally overrated.

Ms. Marvel Volume 2 #9-10 (recommended reads) 2007-2011

Solid side-plot introducing the extensive trauma after what Rogue did to Carol, an alternate Carol that sunk into depression, failed her world, lost it and went on a warpath killing Rogues.

The 616 Carol does questionable things as well, a lot of conflict and baggage here. Good stuff. This encompassed the Civil War era.

Don't let this progressive/& unnecessary modern audience "Captain" rebranding of Danvers gaslight you into thinking she wasn't always that beast, she really was. Even if Marvel likes pretend she only became badass when she got called Captain Marvel, nah, she was always a unit, even when she was girly, especially when she was girly- especially back when she was written better.

Even back then Carol ain't no girl next door prop in a skirt, she will fuck yo ass up. She'll be nice, once, then she won't.

Ghost Rider - Final Vengeance #1-6 (TL;DR "A whole lotta nothing")

 

Shame about Parker, and it's really a waste how he didn't even make a dent in the Marvel landscape when he had the power. Someone on #1's comments mentioned him pulling up on Strange or the Avengers or he should do that, i was actually hoping for that but he didn't even do 1% of that.

His ambitions were so small, he didn't even realize the scope of Zarathos himself, what exactly he was capable of. Truly a loser, had all that might, no respect, even his ex-wife pulled away, tragic.

Story itself was a waste of time, especially 90% of Issue 1 wasted on stupid contrived side plots that didn't matter, and the one's the writer gave the most panels to were the LEAST interesting of the prospects, so time was wasted on mediocrity instead of giving the reader the best possibilities to stew on. An expected end, nothing was really was lost (Robbins didn't really do anything when you think about it) or much was gained beyond Z & Blaze are on the same page. Back in the same place.

Not recommended for a serious read but it's good to skim through.

Making It Plain To Konkret Comics Colorists About Isis' Skintone (Shawn's defense for bashing a book because the main heroine didn't date a black man))

I get it, Shawn's dissent of Luna is both aesthetic but more so substance, fine.

And Isis in practice is more pro-black, easily a better character from how he described; so the whole core of this counter-argument is she's pro black & there's lore behind her look despite her looking more latina than an actual traditional black woman of healthy darker complexion which would be better. *Yet technically still she's not a BW by our standards nor entirely human, so she's an outsider assimilating someone else's fight,* playing savior with good intentions essentially but she's not white so she gets to be an honorary black woman despite having no stake in the struggle, so she's an adoptee to the culture, an alien; Not a daughter of the community being a solution for the community. Which is an overtone in itself. W_hich i personally don't have an issue with, but the factor here is consistency to the agenda which Shawn harps on often with rhetoric like insinuating people self-hate or whatnot if their creative liberties are not how he likes them to be._

The only difference between her and luna really on a basic visual level is the hair. Because the only reason why these Konkret cats spoke on Isis is reactionary to what was said about their work to begin with. They didn't initiate this. *All this really says is that going-in on people's work not cause of merit but because of creative decisions/a character doesn't look black enough by hair (which is hypocritical because reddish hue isn't traditional either regardless of why) or dates who you want them to is just unnecessary no matter who's doing the BBQing. Case and Period.* Because naturally, I repeat- NATURALLY people are going to hold the other accountable by the same token of criticism they receive especially if it's inflammatory & over aesthetic instead of execution, and it's only fair, that goes for any topic. And no BW do not fear losing BM they push away or walk away from to begin with because of lack of humility & house training, which is not their fault, thats a parenting skill issue. Same goes for the brothas who do the same to the ladies. *They don't trust BM because the dysfunctional BM they have as options were raised by dysfunctional BW, plain and simple.*

The system has it's hand in sabotaging the community no doubt, regardless it doesn't make anyone commit to bad personal life decisions.

Blaming "supremacy" is just not holding BW accountable which is why women will always be the weaklink (of any race) if they're constantly told they're victims, and when you're forever a victim, the less agency you have, the less desire you feel to go out of your way to evolve or fix anything.

That's the curse of the black community. If you are victim 24/7, then the burden of evolution is on the oppressor not you, so you never change, but when things don't get better because YOU don't change, then you also blame that on the boogeyman. A Paradox of decline and failure.

like whether or not you give a dysfunctional man an heir anyway despite every reason not to, that's not on white supremacy, that's on her, that's on them. Gotta stop using that "white supremacy" term as a scapegoat when all people have to do is just be responsible and nut up & do better. And WANT their own community to succeed.

Because YES, light or dark the system sees a black person but more importantly better wake up and understand the system has it's biases but it doesn't about color that much, masses are the masses, if a nuke drops right now, it's not going to discriminate between whites and blacks, nuclear warheads don't care about your color bruv. I guarantee you that.

What If? - Planet Hulk (Recommended reads)

Put respect on Caiera's name.

One of my favorite heroines, period. Such a simple character, brief history, deadly, skilled, strong af, underrated.

 

Godzilla vs the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #4 (2022) #recommended

 It's only 5 issues, this shit is peak. Wow!

The artwork is consistently good, the plot is insane (Rita) been busy, and all kinds of retro/anime awesome goes down in here.

They got time to isekai the suicide squad but this hasn't been animated yet. What a crime.

Cassandra Cain is one of the more legitimate (not cheap- female knockoffs) in comic books and might've been the blueprint for X-23, another good spinoff character

 

Batman v1 567

Excellent debut for the character, you get everything you need to know about her and a good cliffhanger.
She (Like Superman-Prime) doesn't get the exposure she deserves, and that isn't entirely a bad thing, the worst thing that can happen to a character like those two is they get mainstream & enter the realm of overrated hype-culture for the wrong reasons.

At least in this respect, being obscure, under the radar: Less opportunities for a gem to be tainted or ruined by the larger sphere of normie-isms and political correctness.

The better examples of quality in a medium tend to be underrated one's anyway.

C.Cain is an underrated gem

Detective Comics v1 0734

And the best part about her being able to keep up with Batman, is it makes sense narratively, the entire point is she was drilled so hard, so intensively she wasn't even permitted a language to speak as a child- So for her to cut Batman's gauntlets with simple attacks, and it makes sense, for being so young? She is definitely unique as far as a Batman Family member goes, especially being one of his partners in the field. 

So she learns from him, mentored by Barbara & Batman ONTOP of everything she already knows. She has to be top 5 greatest fighters in DC, easily. Especially if /when she eventually rank above her own mother. Her origin story/ overall existence is really something special. 

Not sexualized, not second fiddle, no direct relation to Batman, her history is built upon that fact that she herself is interesting without riding coattails. Not a miracle blood relation or her being a glorified pin-up girl that's desperately been re-envisioned to be deep when she really is not. Cain suffers none of these issues, in the brunt of her first few volumes to say the least.

This is the execution Kara Bore-El is missing in every single respect & area in comparison. Thus it confuses the ever loving crap outta me how Supertoken gets so much push but Cain gets so little to work with- Overrated gimmick vs Underrated gem. Cassandra Cain is solid, her lore is intriguing and so is this 2 issue debut for her character (Batman 567 / Detective Comics 734)

The Issue with Anissa The Viltrumite, is not entirely what she did to Mark. It's how she's written after the fact.

The main issue with her character is not entirely what she did, the Viltrumites are bred to be intergalactic Vikings, Vikings raped people. It happened. And she’s a bad guy.

But the issue is, she didn’t stay bad: they tried the (she comes around) trope, that was problem #1 they tried humanizing her or contriving some redemption while she never directly or appropriately deals with what she did dehumanizing her baby’s daddy in any real believable way.

They tried to Omni-Man her WITHOUT doing what made Omni-Man’s turn work in the first place, narrowly so but it worked.

There’s no organic consequence to what she did. We’re not in Viking times, Invincible is supposed to be in a semi-modern era, if not beyond. So the handling of this was horrid.

She’s very oddly protected from backlash for what she did in-story.

And there’s no narrative point to her existence beyond being a means to birth Markus (which means little to nothing because he wasn’t instrumental in the war, just a DLC side plot post-event), which is hilarious that she’d name the boy after the man she raped (i wonder if that was before or after she miraculously had her little change of heart)

So she either named the boy after the dehumanized father (for some reason, cause it’s not she knew Mark, so why name him after someone she doesn’t know) or she became a good person and thought naming him after Mark was her being a good person or some shit. (stupid, lunatic)

• Either way, it’s stupid. She doesn’t work, because even by comic standards, it’s not realistic. At all. Even all these years later, it has not aged well AT ALL.

She just gets to rape someone, Mark protects her from consequence, she threatens him with more rape, she doesn’t suffer any long term consequences.

And no her death wasn’t a consequence of that directly, cause if she’s dead how tf is her character supposed to grow from a consequence by being dead.

The point is for HER to woman up & develop.

The point is she suffers consequence to become a better person organically, not change off-screen, and now suddenly she’s a good person. She tells Eve she’s “sorry” (ha, she’s sorry she brutally raped a person) but she doesn’t regret it.

Yeeeeah, sounds like a real sympathetic character with dimensions doesn’t it.

“Thomas” or KORR-El The 3,000 year old Daxamite raped Supergirl on the moon. When she confronted him about it later to fight, he threatened her he’d to do it again because her pressing him at the moment was turning him on....and she backs off.

Years later before he dies saving Kara’s partner in a battle he says to let Kara know he’s “sorry”, and because their Baby is a good kid, he doesn’t regret it.

Doesn’t sound so simple when it’s reversed huh? Guess what, it’s equally fucked either way. It’s beyond psychotic to think you can wipe something as inhuman as rape away because you’re sorry and the baby is a good kid.

And the fact that she gets a semi-honorable death, like she earned that shit?! HOLY MOLEY.

I think the story is confusing her with Nolan, or forgot that she raped the main character and actually enjoyed it. And told him to “Man up” afterwards !! lmfao.

No lack of Misandry here. Keeping the “men don’t matter” trope going strong, well done Kirkman.

Again, I’d love to see that shit reversed. Amazon would never ok The First season, it would never get greenlit if a man told a woman to “woman up/ man up/ grow up” after he rapes her in superhuman fashion to where he clothes are history.

• Now, they might change it, but since as of (March 2024) the cunt is already in Season 2, I don’t think they’ll course-correct at all.
• Cause this is their opportunity to fix her character, doesn’t mean don’t have her rape mark but she better feel the ramifications on-screen

But you see that right there is why she doesn’t work.

She doesn’t go through any due process or consequence that makes sense.

And now I’m here HOPING they fix her, because we live in a society where dehumanizing men is played as a joke, male suicide & rape is an afterthought like Men are second class citizens but telling a woman to stay in the kitchen is career suicide, in 30 years that might even put you in prison.

And no, i’m not joking. Women are that privileged.

But men getting raped is a non-issue.

Same exact energy here, she rapes a guy, and gets to have a good life, and only changes because she decided to: because of someone else, not that SHE grew as a person of her own accord. If I remember correctly, she didn’t even apologize to his face! Or no moment of closure for the two of them, it’s like the writers wanted the rape scene but didn’t know how to navigate the situation after they got their shock-factor.

Because notice how Nolan wasn’t out here notably raping Deb. Anissa did that shit, because Anissa wanted to rape someone after she was told no.

And we see the changes Nolan went through, Anissa? Nope.

Scumbag character because of shitty writing.

If you want to deal with a topic like rape? Treat with the same sensitivity if it were a woman, or don’t do it at all. Women are not special. Men are people. They build your goddamn cities.

This was another one of those Kirkman-isms where he just does edgy shit to be edgy and didn’t know what the fuck he was actually trying do or say with it or where he was going with it.

• We have characters like Vegeta who committed planetary genocide single-handedly, but he’s still somehow a beloved character nowadays with a following. (I’m personally not a fan, he’s too goddamn whiney but I was a fan a few years back so I get the appeal.)

IF THAT can happen for a genocidal lunatic, Anissa did not have to be handled the way she was, there was a way to do it properly.

And the most believable way? Is not revenge porn, not justice porn, but organic consequences.

The lack of that, is why she doesn’t work.

Rightfully hated character, but she didn’t needed to be hated this much, she could’ve been better.

All they had to do was handle her & the topic with more fucks to give beyond the actual fucking or just stay away from it if they didn’t have a plan for her to develop appropriately in the first place.

Iron Man: Extremis Director’s Cut #1-6 (recommended read)

 

This is story is what Ironman 3 took notes from, the book is better, it shows the Extremis in a much cooler/graphic way. Much more gruesome detail to the serum.

Tony is shown exactly how far he'll go to get the job done, no matter how drastic it is. It's a little dialogue heavy in the beginning, some typo here and there; The villain is weak in terms of ideals, or lore but he's strong enough to have been a problem for Captain America.

And it's not a long series, at all.