DC Relaunching Everything? - Part 8

[Saint]

You make it sound much better than I see it as being,

I wasn't necessarily making a comment about quality, but yes, I do feel much more positively about modern comics than you do. That's not to say there aren't plenty of disasters, of course.

The message is clear: the corporation is more important than the artist. And from a business standpoint, it's a reasonable move. From an artistic standpoint, it is disgusting and disrespectful.

I expect a significant number of creators would disagree with your latter statement, and see refreshing and revamping characters as artistically necessary to continue telling viable stories about them (personally I think it's less necessary than the publishers feel, but more necessary than you feel). I know there's no chance of you and I reaching agreement on this point, though, which is fine.

 

[Saint]

There are just somethings from the previous universe that should not have been gotten rid of. Simple things like Superman's costume, the Martian Manhunter being a founding member of the League, Superman's marriage to Lois Lane, the legacy of the Teen Titans being rich and vibrant, Wally West, and so on.

But a lot of things such as lefty Superman, the nuGreek style of Wonder Woman, Darkseid being the threat to unite the League, and whatnot, should most definitely remain.

Surprisingly I find myself not caring one whit about Superman's marriage, which is in stark contrast to intense hatred I felt for Spider-Man's similar situation. Fairly, I never really read Superman on a monthly basis. That's basically meant that all the Superman stories that I've loved, books like Birthright and All-Star Superman, have been stories where the marriage simply wasn't a factor. So, for me, it's like the change barely even happened.

Obviously, people who've been reading the Superman monthlies for years will feel differently.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Surprisingly I find myself not caring one whit about Superman's marriage, which is in stark contrast to intense hatred I felt for Spider-Man's similar situation. Fairly, I never really read Superman on a monthly basis. That's basically meant that all the Superman stories that I've loved, books like Birthright and All-Star Superman, have been stories where the marriage simply wasn't a factor. So, for me, it's like the change barely even happened.

Obviously, people who've been reading the Superman monthlies for years will feel differently.

At least with Superman, getting rid of the marriage was a part of a line-wide continuity reboot. It is nowhere near as offensive as Spider-Man making a convoluted deal with the comic book equivalent of Satan.

 

[CConn]

Maybe I'm crazy, but I swear the whole Spider-Man thing just seemed horribly contrived, forced and unnatural. The Spider-Man comics still don't feel right to me.

Superman's - and even Flash's - series however feel much more natural and seem like they have a real point and reasoning beyond just getting rid of a marriage or making the main character seem more "fresh".

 

[Anubis]

WW being one of Zues' bastards is something that definitely shouldn't stick around.

 

[CConn]

It's like Azz tried to make the Amazons more realistic, my explaining how they can't exist without male involvement.

It's dumb either way. And a waste of time as there's much more interesting things to focus on.

 

[Kurosawa]

I wasn't necessarily making a comment about quality, but yes, I do feel much more positively about modern comics than you do. That's not to say there aren't plenty of disasters, of course.


I expect a significant number of creators would disagree with your latter statement, and see refreshing and revamping characters as artistically necessary to continue telling viable stories about them (personally I think it's less necessary than the publishers feel, but more necessary than you feel). I know there's no chance of you and I reaching agreement on this point, though, which is fine.

Well, of course that's to be expected-when Geoff Johns or whoever retcons out a bunch of old stories that they've never read and wouldn't like if they did read them, and the writer of those stories has been dead for years, there will be no disagreements within the creative community. Just like with modern fans, all names like Finger, Siegel, Broome, Kirby, Fox, etc are to them is the names of a bunch of old dead guys. Very few people involved in the comics industry at any level-creative, executive or the fans-knows crap about the history of comics and have had it hammered into their heads for so long that old comics were stupid and childlike, so disregarding every Batman story that his creator ever wrote, for example, is no big deal at all. To me, leaving a characters history and past intact and taking them forward into new territory is refreshing and revamping them, while rehashing their past over and over is just a case of rewriting previous material with the insinuation that the character's creators didn't get it right the first time. Or to be more precise: do we need the 50 millionth retelling of Superman's origin?

 

[Saint]

At least with Superman, getting rid of the marriage was a part of a line-wide continuity reboot. It is nowhere near as offensive as Spider-Man making a convoluted deal with the comic book equivalent of Satan.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I swear the whole Spider-Man thing just seemed horribly contrived, forced and unnatural. The Spider-Man comics still don't feel right to me.

Superman's - and even Flash's - series however feel much more natural and seem like they have a real point and reasoning beyond just getting rid of a marriage or making the main character seem more "fresh".

Yes, the fact that Superman basically saw a ground-up reboot definitely makes the lack of a marriages feel a lot less arbitrary and unnecessary. With Spider-Man, it was just Joe Q's marriage-vendetta--and nothing else. Also, yes, a completely miserable and asinine story where Peter forgets every lesson he ever learned about responsibility and makes a deal with the devil didn't help.

 

[CConn]

Eh, if the story's good, I'm okay with it.

I mean, even if it's out of continuity now, I still really like Birthright. Even if it doesn't necessarily have a real reason for existing anymore.

I view Morrison's origin in the same way. Yeah, it's not really needed, but it's new and refreshing enough to be a good story in its own right, and that validates its existence for me.

 

[Saint]

Well, of course that's to be expected-when Geoff Johns or whoever retcons out a bunch of old stories that they've never read and wouldn't like if they did read them, and the writer of those stories has been dead for years, there will be no disagreements within the creative community.

I was referring to creator's opinions regarding retcons (future or otherwise) of their own material.

To me, leaving a characters history and past intact and taking them forward into new territory is refreshing and revamping them,

In typical situations, I agree--but the nature of comics doesn't always allow this approach. When it comes to the ongoing history of a high profile character, there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen--and with an issue coming out each and every month, mistakes are going to be made. Often times, it's not even about poor stories or incompetent creators; sometimes it's just hard to see what ramifications your story is going to have in ten years. When mistakes like that get made, mistakes that hurt the character, or that take him too far off his center, sometimes drastic things have to be done to course-correct.

Sometimes.

 

[Mystirious]

Personally the only thing I actually hate about the new DCU is Wonder Woman's origin and the amazons being an island of psychotic sailor lovin' Klingons who sell their sons into slavery for weapons

Everything else I either love, like or just dont really have any strong opinion on either way

 

[Saint]

My opinion of Wonder Woman is pretty simple: I finally care about the character as much as I've always felt I should care about her.

Given that, the changes--though definitely jarring--have clearly been successful for me.

It's like Azz tried to make the Amazons more realistic, my explaining how they can't exist without male involvement.

As he explains it, he's trying to bring her mythology more in line with actual Greek myth--and the rule of Greek myth is basically that everyone and everything is awful. I mean, really, the gods and their like are just not very good people. He's said that over the past century we've "sanitized" Greek myth and he wanted to bring back that flawed, unsettling element to the mythological characters. So, I don't think the changes to the Amazons are as much about realism as they are about making them flawed, and thus truer to the spirit of Greek myth.

Not that this should change your opinion of the changes, of course. I just thought his intentions were interesting.

 

[terry78]

Basically Wonder Woman isn't good, she's just not as bad as the rest of them. I read through one issue, and everybody in it was kind of an a-hole.

 

[CConn]

My opinion of Wonder Woman is pretty simple: I finally care about the character as much as I've always felt I should care about her.

Given that, the changes--though definitely jarring--have clearly been successful for me.


As he explains it, he's trying to bring her mythology more in line with actual Greek myth--and the rule of Greek myth is basically that everyone and everything is awful. I mean, really, the gods and their like are just not very good people. He's said that over the past century we've "sanitized" Greek myth and he wanted to bring back that flawed, unsettling element to the mythological characters. So, I don't think the changes to the Amazons are as much about realism as they are about making them flawed, and thus truer to the spirit of Greek myth.

Not that this should change your opinion of the changes, of course. I just thought his intentions were interesting.

You really like WW in this series?

IMO, her characterization has been very bland and uninteresting to me. She just seems like kind of a vacant supporting character compared to all of the focus that's being placed on the Greek Gods in the story.

 

[CConn]

Oh, and I do get your other point...about the Greek myths.

But, like I eluded to before, there's many other, superior things, about Wonder Woman that should be focused on first; her feminist aspect, her embrace and sponsorship of universal diversity, the implications of her existence in our patriarchal society, her own character progression from a fairly spoiled warrior princess to someone totally unaware of our societal customs and status quos...

All of those things, IMO, outrank a strong focus on the Greek myth. And all of those things pertain to Wonder Woman as a character much more than the myths do.

 

[RockSP]

I like the latest WW book. I've never been that interested in her as a solo character, (though I do think she's gotten the short end of the stick continually in JLA since the 90's) and I've never read the heavily lauded runs by Perez and others so I don't have some heavily biased expectation of how she "should be". The new origin doesn't bother me.

I do agree that she's not really the star of the book (so far anyway). It's more of a team book.

 

[Primal Slayer]

So now we are getting #0 issues of everyone so we can see their origins..shall be interesting. Ready to see how they handle WW and if she will be anything different from JL WW from what we saw "5 years ago"

 

[Saint]

You really like WW in this series?

Sure. I'm not saying it's the best Wonder Woman's ever been written or anything like that; it's just the story that finally got me to buy the damn book every month.

Oh, and I do get your other point...about the Greek myths.

But, like I eluded to before, there's many other, superior things, about Wonder Woman that should be focused on first; her feminist aspect, her embrace and sponsorship of universal diversity, the implications of her existence in our patriarchal society, her own character progression from a fairly spoiled warrior princess to someone totally unaware of our societal customs and status quos...

All of those things, IMO, outrank a strong focus on the Greek myth. And all of those things pertain to Wonder Woman as a character much more than the myths do.

Sure, but it's not an either/or proposition. This is a story about her Greek background, later there will be stories about other things. Similarly, I don't need every Batman story to be a detective story, you know?

 

[CConn]

Yeah, but there hasn't been a good WW story dealing with her societal and feministic impact in literally 60 years. If not more.

If there hadn't been a really good Batman detective story, I'd kinda be itching for one, wouldn't you?

 

[lixdexia]

If there hadn't been a really good Batman detective story, I'd kinda be itching for one, wouldn't you?

that depends, in this hypothetical world would what batman's detective skills demonstrate have become largely irrelevant?

 

[Kurosawa]

I was referring to creator's opinions regarding retcons (future or otherwise) of their own material.


In typical situations, I agree--but the nature of comics doesn't always allow this approach. When it comes to the ongoing history of a high profile character, there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen--and with an issue coming out each and every month, mistakes are going to be made. Often times, it's not even about poor stories or incompetent creators; sometimes it's just hard to see what ramifications your story is going to have in ten years. When mistakes like that get made, mistakes that hurt the character, or that take him too far off his center, sometimes drastic things have to be done to course-correct.

Sometimes.

Most of the important creators of comics are dead.

 

[RockSP]

Important is subjective.

 

[Czar Colossus]

But a lot of things such as lefty Superman, the nuGreek style of Wonder Woman, Darkseid being the threat to unite the League, and whatnot, should most definitely remain.

Superman a lefty? No way. He's a centrist; if any one exemplifies bringing the left and right closer to the center, it is him (when he is written properly).

 

[CConn]

that depends, in this hypothetical world would what batman's detective skills demonstrate have become largely irrelevant?

But Wonder Woman's feminist meanings aren't at all irrelevant.

Judeo-Christian society is still a patriarchial society. As much as our laws and media may try to drive equality, there is an inherent inequality built into our social consciousness.

Not to mention all of the inequality and prejudice still faced by gays, racial minorities, and other groups that Wonder Woman could stand as a role model for.

 

[CConn]

Important is subjective.

Eh, he's kind of unarguably right when you think about it.

The most popular and meaningful heroes - Batman, Superman, Wonder-Woman, The Spirit - we're all created by guys long since passed on.

Stan Lee is really the last bastion of classic creators.