Chapter 228

Page 228

Then, I suddenly realized that the Superman I first saw as a child was actually just a character in a huge world of comics.

Then, I learned about Batman.

After watching Tim Burton's Batman.

It completely opened the door to superhero comics for me.

I watched almost every superhero movie I could find at the time, including those Warner Bros. baffling films that crashed at the box office and ruined Batman and Superman.

However, all of this still couldn't satisfy my interests at the time.

I started using the little free time I had between tutoring classes during winter and summer vacations to search for any news about Marvel and DC that I could find online, thanks to the rudimentary internet available at the time.

Then, I saw two animations.

One was EH, which was being serialized at the time, and the other was DC's Justice League.

These two animations completely opened that door for me.

I am no longer satisfied with just watching these things.

So, I started reading comics.

So I started watching the Civil War, and I started watching Black and White.

If you don't recognize a character, just look it up online. Back then, American comics weren't nearly as popular in China as they are now, and there was simply no information available about many second-tier characters.

But even so, I still enjoyed watching it.

When Marvel Comics first started, almost none of my classmates watched American comics, and many of them weren't even interested in Comics movies.

There are hardly any people I can talk to about my love for American comics.

I remember that a few of us who discussed Warcraft storylines and American comics were often considered to have strange hobbies by others.

But those were truly happy times.

After saying all this, I just want to tell everyone that I didn't write this book to satisfy my desire to vent, like many other so-called "fan fiction" works do, by simply using American comics as a backdrop for arbitrary humiliation and abuse.

I hope that both I and my readers can respect those characters.

This respect does not mean that characters in American comics are necessarily good or right.

Instead, we should respect the symbol that the character represents.

In my opinion, the most important difference between American and Japanese comics is that the characters in American comics don't actually represent the characters themselves; rather, they represent social symbols. They are a collection of works created by countless creators based on their own understanding, within a framework of a basic character setting.

If you watch Batman and all you see is envy for his wealth, or take the joke about Wu Wukai seriously, or only focus on why he doesn't kill, I think that's too one-sided.

American comic book superheroes do not represent an absolute line between right and wrong.

You can certainly think Batman is wrong for not killing people, because if he killed off his fan club, he could indeed get away with it, since all readers know that Batman won't turn bad.

Many people use the excuse that editors won't kill off supervillains as a reason for not killing them, but they don't agree that their belief that Batman wouldn't turn bad even if he killed his fan club is another conclusion drawn from a God's-eye view.

Of course, Batman's no-kill principle is actually something that arose from the social environment. However, this principle of not killing has become his unique charm.

What's even more disgusting than merely arguing about the surface is that many people have started to deliberately distort character portrayals for their own malicious purposes.

Just like I've mentioned countless times, about Spider-Man.

Spider-Man's character is actually very simple and straightforward.

Whether it's Peter Parker or Miles Morales, they are both just simple teenagers who want to do good deeds.

With great power comes great responsibility. Yes, that's a very simple and naive statement.

But simplicity and naivety are precisely what make Spider-Man so charming.

Simplicity and naivety are never qualities that should be despised.

You could say that such wonderful people don't exist in reality.

But since you can say that this is a virtual work, why bother with logic? I just want to have fun, so why smear something that clearly represents pure hope?

In contrast to Spider-Man is the Punisher.

I wrote all this to explain why this is an anti-hero.

However, many people are still unwilling to face the true performance of their "idols".

This is the current state of American comics.

I'm not the kind of person who would say, "Ah, these are all the downsides of having a big circle."

Only when the circle is large can there be vitality and normal development.

This should have been a good thing.

There are always people who pretend to know everything about anything, and that's not surprising at all.

However, if even the creators of American comics are misled by these people who are all talk and no action, and think that they should cater to this group, then that's a different story.

More and more people are criticizing CU now, and many "comic book fans" are standing up to criticize Spider-Man.

However, I've never really felt that there was anything wrong with CU's Spider-Man, or rather, anything wrong with the CU setting.

In fact, looking back now and thinking about it carefully, CU's Spider-Man was indeed a bit off; CU really exaggerated the relationship between Peter and Tony.

The way the younger generation idolizes their seniors in the comics and deliberately portrays it as a father-son relationship is indeed inappropriate. But is this really where CU is wrong?

In fact, the Marvel movies I hate the most are Avengers: Age of Ultron and Civil War.

I still can't accept Marvel's rewriting of Ultron.

In fact, precisely because of this, I also can't bring myself to like the "what if" animation.

Having lost his relationship with Pym, Ultron has completely degenerated into a standard villain who simply "want to destroy the world," losing his philosophical reflections on humanity.

However, all of this can be explained in one simple sentence: movies are made to make money.

And from the current comics, it can be seen that even comics are gradually moving closer to the direction of cu style.

Stronger enemies, bigger settings.

Earth fights, then the universe fights, then the universe fights, and finally an even stronger boss fights.

But looking back...

Those are their representative works.

How powerful are the enemies in this major civil war event?

That's just a story that happened on Earth, among humans.

My favorite Marvel solo series, Asgard 007, has a vast setting, yet it's confined to a small and exquisite world.

Even if it's the darkest and brightest place next door, this is still a cosmic-level event.

However, what is most memorable is the punishment the other members gave him after he broke the Rogues' rule of not killing children and women, and other similar details.

Superhero comics have never been Star Wars.

His true charm has never been in cosmic battles, but when the superhero returns to Earth on his feet.

Therefore, many times, major events are just for fun; to truly appreciate American comics, you have to read individual comics.

So, when Marvel turned its attention back to individuals.

The Daredevil TV series became his best film and television work, bar none.

Of course, he didn't film it either. After all, good reviews are useless; Disney really understands this.

When comics themselves started to become like low-quality fanfiction, all about "power level battles" and "universe wars," I began to wonder what I was writing this book for.

While I was still carefully reading and reflecting on what his original masterpieces represented, and hoping to use my meager strength to let more people see that American comics are not, as many people say, "chaotic power levels, forced addition of settings for the sake of needs, and random parallel universes," he himself had already laid down his hands and started doing just that.

Fans' jokes were taken as truth by those who just wanted to join in, and because there were so many people joining in, even the official account believed it.

Thus, the meme became the truth, and only those who knew it was a meme realized that the clown was actually themselves.

This is not a joke.

The most classic example is the TV series Titans, whose garbage was so bad it made you want to vomit.

I went to great lengths to explain to readers what an anti-hero is, but he simply laid it all out: an anti-hero is exactly what you think!

What exactly am I holding onto?

So I became pessimistic and thought American comics were doomed.

But reality slapped me hard in the face.

Last year, American comics saw a significant increase in revenue.

You see, catering to the market is the right way. What should die is never American comics, but us out-of-touch stubborn folks.

Readers and viewers got the leisure they wanted, American comic book companies profited, and they all have a bright future.

Perhaps the American comic book I loved has left us forever, along with Stan Lee, who pulled it out of that quagmire.

American comics have entered a new era.

It swept the globe, attracting worldwide attention, and flew out of Earth to battle the universe.

But it's no longer the kind of story I liked that could calmly and earnestly depict people who are no different from others except for having superpowers, and who live on Earth while adhering to their own beliefs.

This concludes the book.

The planned Ultron, Asgardian mythology, magic, and other major events paying homage to Stan Lee will no longer be included.

After all, no matter how I write, it's just a futile struggle.

What I'm sticking to is no longer American comics.

By the way, I will never touch fanfiction again. Even if my original work is outperformed by this one, I will accept it willingly.

That's my story, my child, and I don't want to be disgusted like this again.

No matter how bad my grades are, I will finish that book.

It has to be said that these two companies are old rivals; they're so bad they'll fall into the same trap.