DC Comics being Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman.
Essentially the way to tell is that if it's Marvel the movie makes you laugh, if it's DC the movie makes you cry and hate life.
With the exception of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which, supposedly, didn't mean to make the audience leave the theater crying and hating life.
But that's Fox, which is whole other blog post on to itself.
Anyway, Firestorm. He sucks.
His whole "gimmick" is that he has total control of nuclear power, which means he can manipulate atoms, spontaneously combust things, and shoot out fire blasts from his hands.
Which sounds cool, in theory.
In reality, he sucks.
You see Firestorm, is an absolutely lame character that DC is trying to shoehorn into everything to make him more appealing, since giving a character, almost literally, the power of science, still hasn't made him cool enough to this generation.
Or the last one.
Or the one before that.
It's because Firestorm, for all of his powers, is a pretty shitty character.
Or should I say, "characters".
Unlike most other superheroes who are secretly another person, Firestorm is secretly two other people, who when needed, do the fusion dance from Dragon Ball Z and turn into Firestorm.
One person drives, and the other kinda just floats around as a hallucination for the driver to talk to.
The two people in question are currently, Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch.
Regardless of the fact that one's name is Ronnie (the worst name), and the that I have no idea how to pronounce "Rusch". (I tried and ended up sneezing in a Russian accent)
These two characters are literally the worst.
"Don't you mean, metaphorically, or hyperbolically the worst"
No they are literally the worst, to detriment of the English language.
Ronnie, is a High School senior jock who is captain of the football team, and Jason is a nerd.
If this sounds like a sit-com set-up in the early 90's to you, then you'd be correct, it would be.
You see the first problem is that the whole character dynamic is that Ronnie is the "brawn" and Jason is the "brains", but both of these characters are working off of archetypes that don't exist anymore.
Ronnie is all popular and smooth with the ladies, and Jason, is a nerd.
In reality, Ronnie would ether be as smart as Jason, OR would be a total douchenozzle that no one would want to hang out with. And Jason would be fairly social, or would be a total douchenozzle with severe Aspergers that no one would want to hang out with.
Because there isn't anything like the traditional 90's "jocks and nerds" archetypes in today's high schools. Football players are ether advanced students or they're still like the jocks of the olden days, but the difference being no one likes them. Because overt, unintelligent alpha male, isn't considered to be "cool" (or whatever the kids say these days) anymore.
On the other hand, everyone is a nerd now, science is sexy, everyone loves Iron Man the most, and alternative energy (which is kind of Firestorm's allegory, much like Superman is the American Dream, Wonder Woman is feminism, and Batman is the celebration of free market capitalism in regards to its role in the expanding wealth gap) is "hip" (or whatever the kids say these days).
So in short, we have two unrelatable characters, working in a dynamic that doesn't work anymore.
Other than the surface problems, the characters are even worse.
Jason, whines, a lot, like constantly.
You see Ronnie is the driver, so Jason just kinda floats around as a ghost head whining at Ronnie to do something.
Since the entire character runs off of the dynamic of "well isn't it wacky that a nerd needs to work with a jock to do stuff", the characters have to butt heads every issue.
And it's annoying.
You reading Jason trying to get Ronnie to turn the floor into platinum or some shit, followed by Ronnie Fire Punching all the bad guys instead, followed by a quip about "sometimes the easy way is the best way" or something stupid, once, you've read it a million times.
Because their characters can never learn to work together, or it defeats their entire purpose of their characters.
Which is stupid, not for the lack of mobility in character development, but for the fact that the catch-22 exists in the first place.
Ronnie, isn't any better, he's essentially Robin from Batman Forever, in the sense that he's permanently the scene of Robin stealing the Batmobile to pick up chicks in.
Which is the worst part of a movie that is 85% ice puns and 14% rubber Batman nipples.
Seriously, the only thing Ronnie does other than reminding Jason how much of a little dweb he is (and then stealing his lunch money since it's "their" lunch money now), is kidnapping Jason in the body of Firestorm to impress chicks.
Hence, douchnozzle.
This culminated in Jason finally leaving Ronnie behind after Ronnie kept him stuck in Firestorm for two months, effectively ruining Jason's life, since Jason's girlfriend left him, Jason failed his finals in college since he wasn't there, and Jason lost the trust of the scientist that he was interring for, since he disappeared for two months without notice during one the biggest experiments the scientist has ever conducted.
And Donnie, just goes to the bar to get drunk.
So we're stuck with one half of Firestorm, whining that someone ruined his life, and the other getting drunk in a bar (ran by Tim Drake who faked his death five-years prior, and is currently investigation a time traveling Terry McGinnis), because he ruined, the person who is the closest thing he has to friend's life, and couldn't get laid for two months because of his nuclear penis would have sent every women in a fifty-yard radius to the hospital with third degree burns.
Regarding the sentence found in the parenthesis in the previous paragraph, that's one of the biggest issues with Firestorm. Not the whole Tim Drake faking his death and Terry McGinnis trying to save the world Terminator style, but the fact that Firestorm is surrounded by much more interesting characters.
He's boring on his own, but as soon as you prop him up next to more interesting characters (see: all of the characters not named Firestorm) he looks even more boring.
He's essentially all of the angsty bits of the Sam Rami Spider-Man trilogy, but without the lovable Toby Macguire and James Franco.
Actually if there was a Firestorm movie and Macguire played Jason and Franco played Ronnie, and Vin Diesel voiced Firestorm, that might actually be entertaining.
Only because Toby Macquire is the master of looking sad, for his power is only matched by small dogs and Michael Cera.
If sadness was a martial art, Toby is the master, Keanu is the ancient founder
Anyway, my point is ultimately I really liked Firestorm in Justice League: 3000 because he's a total dick and completely accepts that he is one and acts out on it.
Since the writers of Justice League: 3000 just use that comic to shit on everyone else's characters, and it's the best thing ever.
The biggest asshole in the 'verse.
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