Thursday Won’t Care About You #7: When Good Stories Go Bad

Columns, Insider, Top Story

Spoiler Warnings for Superman: The Last Family of Krypton #2, Shadowland #3, Batman Beyond #4 & Shadowland: Ghost Rider

Annnnnnnnnnd I’m back. What’s up guys, how’s life been?

Yes, I know I haven’t really been gone. I’ve still been doing news roundups and reviews, but I’ve been slacking on this column, and y’know, I’ve really missed it. Not being able to get one of these together every week has been entirely my fault. I spent far too much of Summer over-indulging in substance fueled shenanigans (if you ever get the chance to go to a Crystal Castles show or Rusko show, I highly recommend it.) Then there were summer classes: French, which I can honestly say I didn’t really learn a damn thing in, but still managed to carry on a half-hour conversation in the language with a pretty girl at a party (possibly the only way my brain can recall it,) and a fun creative writing class. The guitarist from Blind Melon was in it with me, swear to god. What I have to show for that is something I’m pretty proud of, my first comic script. I might share it with you guys one day.

And now that school has started, I’ve been busy with that, as well as an internship at the awesome alt-weekly, Philadelphia Weekly. I like to think of myself as being on my Clark Kent tip, but I’m probably more like Jimmy Olsen.

Well, I don’t take pictures and no one makes me get them coffee. I’m more like a random background character in the offices of Ben Urich’s Frontline more than anything else, but hey, it’s job.

But enough of my ramblings about my life/excuses for why there hasn’t been a Thursday I Won’t Care About You in weeks. Now, I want to talk about stories, specifically, good stories gone bad.

Imagine the last time you went to a comic book store and picked up the second or third issue of a mini-series or storyline you’ve really been digging, and then something just happens in the story that makes you put the comic down and think “Okay, this sucks now.”

Or has happened to me recently, this:

Don’t worry, Batman Beyond won’t be the only victim of this column.

Now I’m probably one of the biggest Batman Beyond fans on the planet (I have no real way of proving this and there’s probably someone out there with a room full of production cells and scripts or something who really holds that title.) I grew up adoring Superman and Batman: the animated series.

Damn, now I’m reminiscing.

I actually remember the night Superman: TAS premiered. My dad let me stay up past my bedtime to watch it with me. That’s a good memory.

Even better than that though, is I still remember when Batman Beyond had it’s premiere (which I believe was also a Sunday night. I miss when networks too cartoons seriously) I think it was the first time I had a nerdgasm.

Batman. In the future. And he can fly. AND HE HAS A FLYING BATMOBILE?!

I was all about that.

Sadly, all good things come to end. I was okay with it though. I liked the brief glimpses we’ve gotten at Terry McGinnis and a Batman Beyond-esque future we’ve gotten a couple times in the books the last couple of years (and the fantastic Epilogue episode of JLU. So you can imagine how excited I was when the first issue of the nearly concluded Batman Beyond mini hit the shelves.

Then I read issue four yesterday, and I just had to ask: Why? Specfically, I’m talking about this moment.

Yeah, that’s right. The new Hush who’s been running around is none other than Dick Grayson. This wouldn’t be such a troubling turn in the story if we hadn’t already seen another one of Bruce’s sidekicks become one of his enemies in the Batman Beyond continuity (I am, of course, talking about Tim Drake.)

Not that there’s really anyone else who would make sense, given the knowledge Hush had shown of Batman’s operation/history, but I was hoping for something a little more clever. Maybe dig deep into Batman history and pull someone else out of the woodworks.

Don’t look at me like that, I’m not Grant Morrison. I probably would’ve just picked Alfred or something (an Alfred made younger and insane by Lazarus pits!) or brought Damian Wayne into the Beyond continuity sort of the way we saw him in Batman #700.

I was struck with this issue again a few weeks ago while reading DC’s newest Elseworld Superman: The Last Family of Krypton. I’m a huge Elseworld’s fan and have been longing for a new one of these stories for the longest time, and finally I was getting presented with what I imagine to be a pretty popular what if question: What if Superman’s family had survived?

The story starts off fantastically. We see them come to Earth, we see the impact Jor-El and Lara make on Earth culture (most fascinatingly, the way Jor-El’s approach of fixing the world with science brings out the best in Lex Luthor) and we see young Kal-El grow up disillusioned and wondering about his place in the world.

Then they slap a cape on him, have him start stopping crimes and the story becomes infinitely less interesting, even moreso given the the fact that this Elseworld seems to take place in a DCU without any other Earthly metahumans.

But I think the biggest offender I’ve encountered is Shadowland, specfically, Shadowland #3.

Before the big reveal in issue #3, Shadowland was the Daredevil storyline I’d been waiting years for. Years.

I’ll never forget the first Daredevil comic I ever picked up, in fact, it’s sitting on my desk right now. I had to spend some time in my closet looking through some long bins but I found it. Daredevil #71 from March 2005 (although I’ll be damned if I can ever remember if I even bought it that month.) I was still pretty new to comics, still trying to navigate my way through what I liked and didn’t like. I’ll never forget seeing it on those shelves as I needed to make my final purchases because the store was closing. Tell me you can look at this cover and not want to read it:

And I remember my jaw dropping when I read this panel.

All I could think was “Damn. Daredevil is a bad dude.” and I was hooked. I went out and got all the Daredevil I could get my hands on.

One of the things I’ve always found refreshing about reading Daredevil is that unlike a lot of others heroes (Superman, Batman, Spider-man, etc) his status-quo is completely different than those characters. I remember when I was working my through the Flash volume 2, there’s just this great big huge swath of time where every single new arc some terrible shit would happen to Wally and Linda. I didn’t mind it though, because I knew that in the end, everything would work out okay for them. And it did (other than Wally being shafted out of a starring role and the terribly cliché portents of doom regarding his son that Professor Zoom was dropping at the end of Flash: Rebirth,) but that’s not how it is with Daredevil. The status-quo for DD was (Catholic) guilt, wavering morality and misery.

With each and every arc of Daredevil you could see things starting to take their toll on him. That’s why I was so happy when he accepted the position as leader of the Hand. I thought to myself “Finally, all that crap has finally worn him down. Time to see Matt kick the world in the ass.” Everything that happened leading up to Shadowland (and Shadowland itself) seemed like the logical progression given everything that had been happening to Matt.

Then they had to go and !@#$ it all up:

Yeah, they went and turned Matt Murdock into Hal Jordan. “The Beast of the Hand” “Parallax” it’s the same garbage really. What’s even worse is that the villains responsible, Snakeroot, the secret rulers of the Hand, were all wiped out in what’s possibly the most mind-bogglingly stupid comic I’ve ever read – Shadowland: Ghost Rider – so we can’t even get an eventual confrontation between them and Matt.

Yes, that is an army of angels being commanded by Ghost Rider. Yes, that sounds awesome in theory. No, you shouldn’t read Shadowland: Ghost Rider.

I’m not really sure there’s much else left to say.

Care to share the last time YOU were reading a comic and had a moment where the story just turned sour?