One blog I make a point to read everyday is Joe Posnanski's. I happen to like his style of writing, because I think he's capable of critiquing something without being cruel about it. So two days ago he posts about how this year's Royals team is the worst one he's seen since he started covering them. In the course of explaining this*, he brings up something he's described on his blog before, his Movie Plus/Minus Scale.
He doesn't act as though he invented this, since he feels (and I agree) that most people do this. Namely, they grade a movie not based solely on how good or bad it was, but on how good or bad they expected it to be. So if they expected a solid movie (as Posnanski did with Toys that he figured for a +2.5), and are disappointed, then the movie seems even worse. He goes into all that because it's part of his explanation for calling this Royals' squad the worst he's covered.
This concept can obviously be applied to comics as well. For example, I didn't have high expectations for the current Deadpool series, and so the seires seems better to me than it probably is, though Way has pretty much resisted creating a supporting cast, and several of his plots have been light. But it makes me laugh, and I can follow the plots, so hey, it exceeded my expectations!
I've been trying to think of a comic that would work the opposite way for me. I'd say that when I was younger I probably thought Maximum Carnage was going to be great. I can't remember that for certain, but it seems like the sort of stupid thing I'd think when I was that age. There have been a few series in the last few years that everyone was raving about, and I'd be expecting something incredible, and find something I thought was merely good. I can't point at Civil War, because I don't know that I was ever high on it. I think Annihilation: Conquest would be a minus. Not a huge one, because I figured it wouldn't match Annihilation (which would be one that wildly exceeded expectations, because I had none for it when I bought Annihilation: Prologue), but it wasn't quite as cool as I thought it could be. The last three issues of Kevin Smith's Spider-Man/Black Cat mini-series would probably be a large minus. I had some positive expectations, because I'd enjoyed the first 3 issues, but by the time we learn the new origin Smith is sticking Felicia with, the reality was a big negative.
So I'll ask you, what was a series (or event) that wound being a lot better than you thought it would be, and what disappointed you terribly?
* And he has to explain it, because sadly the Royals have several lousy teams, and you can't simply proclaim one the worst without justifying it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I do this with movies all the time of course. For comics, I think Ultimates 3 would be a big minus to me.
The two previous Ultimates series had been surprisingly good, and going into it the art from the various advertisements had looked promising as well.
I missed that Jeph Loeb was writing it (and at that point probably would have been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt).
From the first issue it was a confusing, random mess with no good explanations. Even worse, when the "twists" were revealed later they just made it worse. Huge negative after the expectations raised by the Ultimate line in general, and Ultimates 1 and 2 specifically.
Of course when Ultimatum was released I expected a huge negative and got even worse than I expected so...it wasn't a good series, was it.
So...I assume the "Royals" are a sports team of some kind?
seangreyson: I think "not good" is the kindest description you could use for Ultimatum.
sallyp: Well, I believe they'd like to be recognized as such, but we're still conducting tests to see if they qualify. Frankly, they may be too incompetent.
Post a Comment