Where I continue to bitch, whine and moan like the curmudgeon
I have become.
Next up is the lack of continuity. This is related to
no cohesive universe but also different. One example is what Marvel is doing
now by playing fast and loose with what survives Secret Wars and what does not.
Add in an eight month jump when restarting their books and you have the New
DCU. Remember DC said they were not resetting everything after Flashpoint, but
they did and were constantly adjusting things on the fly. Now Didio has stated
continuity is not important only telling a good story. Which would be great if
they were producing books like All Star Superman, New Frontier, Dark Knight
Returns, Alan Moores’ Swamp Thing. Instead what this has come to mean is that
when a new creative team comes on a book expect a restart of continuity. If
doesn’t tie into what came before, don’t worry just enjoy the great story. This may work at times, but for me it is too
jarring.
When I read a series I get invested in the characters.
Starting over and make jarring changes causes me to lose a sense of the
character’s identity. If I lose interest that I stop caring about their
continuing adventures. Maybe I’ll buy a trade of a good arc down the road, but
why invest in the continuing series. DC really screwed up by introducing a lot
of stuff in the back up stories during the Convergence disaster (or event).
When I tried out a series or two I was already not starting at the beginning as
eight pages had happened as a backup story.
It doesn’t help that the characters never grow older
so the incredible weight of the amount of back stories is impossible to handle.
The writers are forced to pick and choose what is important. So fifty plus
years later Peter Parker matronly Aunt May is still around and had more
adventures then Indiana Jones. Marvel writer’s supposedly have a sliding scale
that everything happened in last ten years, but that means Captain (Steve
Rogers) America was thawed out in 2005. It doesn’t work, the characters are not
creations of 2005. They are creations of 1960’s. Worse even the replacements
Marvel has shoved in the character roles are still old creations. Sam Wilson
and Jane Foster are old as dirt. At least Ms. Marvel is a fresh face. With both
companies any investment you make into a
character or a series will be unceremonious dumped at one point and what “made”
the character for you may now be gone.
Another issue with many comic books is the casting of
characters into roles as opposed to paying attention to established
characteristics. It used to be that characters were so well defined that when a
writer placed them in certain situations you would know how character “A” would
react. The comics almost wrote themselves was what some writers said at that
time. If a character reacted in a different manner then established some
reasoning would be given. I think I first noticed the casting of characters
into roles with Marvel’s Civil War. In order for a Civil War to occur you
needed the characters to act a certain way. The characters were cast into roles
to fit what story the writer wanted to tell. Characters acted less heroic and
very out of character. No rhyme or reason was given.
This has led to more and more the writers coming in who
wanted to tell their story. Often they will just use any character and ignore
long standing characteristics and relationships. So Wolverine and Cyclops
decide to hate each other. Wolverine becomes a professor at the mutant school.
Hal Jordan loses his mind and kills the Green Lantern corps. Of course part of
this problem is companies’ inability to allow characters to age and have a new
generation under the mask. With a character that has been around for 50 years
these are often the only way some writers can manage to introduce some drama
and excitement. Or the dramatic retro-con, where we find out previously unknown
relatives or revelations about a characters past. Still I feel that way too
often a writer wants to tell his grand story (often a rehash of a Shakespearian
play) or editorial mandate that Avengers will fight X-Men and then they cast
the roles. So Juliet will be Sue Storm and Romeo will be Spider-Man, makes no
sense, who cares.
In the same vein I believe way too many writers want
to make some social or political point. Now we all have a world view (except
maybe Kim Kardashian) so I get that you may try to slide in your POV here and
there. That is all well and good, but it is like being beaten with a sledge
hammer anymore. A recent example was in Thor, now a woman. She is Thor for five
seconds and is being lauded as a better then the former Thor. Male bashing was
in abundance in that book. I have no issue with trying to diversify and
represent other groups but you don’t raise up anyone by beating down on someone
else. I have worked with people who felt tearing down others was the best way
to make themselves look good, I disagree. What gets lost in pushing your agenda
in an overt manner is that the writers and companies are not writing stories
for the characters. It seldom feels like writers are coming onto a book with a
vision of who the character is and try to make that happen. Grant Morrison is
perhaps the last writer that I can remember who really did that with X-Men and
Batman. He actually cared about the characters and wrote stories to advance the
characters. If he dropped in his world view here and there, that is fine, but
the story should come first.
Remember you can buy the single issues of this column
and also get the variant covers. We have the A, B, C and D covers that were all
produced at the same rate. Next are the E, F & G covers that are rare,
rarer and rarest. Of course we also have the retailer incentive cover, which is
the same cover where we just drop the coloring and made it black and white.
This is even more rarest and we call it the Virgin Art cover, because it sounds
sexy. Coming soon Part 3!
