I don’t write many columns, but I need to vent some, and well, what’s the point of being here if I can’t do so. I’m not, generally, one of those comics fans who writes a manifesto or treatise… I’m mostly here for fun, well-told stories with characters I care about. Can there be more? I’m an English Teacher and adore analyzing the crap out of stuff like Sandman, The Nightly News, and Warren Ellis’ use of his pet themes as a crutch, but from mainstream superheroics? No. I’ll read it, but have little interest in writing or, really, propagating it. So what’s this then? This is a pissed off comics fan who absolutely cannot stand the direction of DC Comics.
DC Comics has, right now, two books that have existed for more than a year that I’m wholeheartedly a fan of. Batman and Robin is brilliant, fun, and clever, while Secret Six is consistently excellent characters in consistently intriguing situations. Everything else the line puts out has me scratching my head to some extent or another. I was really enjoying the Green Lantern line until Blackest Night. Brightest Day so far is infecting that line with more of what Warren Ellis called “Johns’s death-soaked shouting opuses.” Seriously, the space police turned into a cheap gore flick where everyone overacts melodramatically to absolutely everything. This stuff makes even the blood riddled Titans look tame. I wonder whatever happened to that franchise…
Of course, it could be worse. It could be Justice League, where suddenly everyone is okay with Green Arrow Murderer and Green Lantern Torturer. It’s appalling how poorly characterized these men currently are and how poorly executed the stories leading them to act this way have been. What the hell happened to James Robinson of Starman and The Golden Age?
Well, he sure won’t be found on the Superman books, where he’s writing an entire trilogy based around racism and no one on either side except Supes and pals has had any sense. Zod actually looked like he was becoming an intelligent, reasonable, yet ruthless character, but no, that was a sham, he’s still pure evil. And General Lane (or should I say General “Thunderbolt” Ross?) likewise has had no proper motivation really explored for his pure evil. This isn’t a study of racism, or a well-developed story. It’s shouting and fist waving, with a bunch of trite speeches and poorly plotted “moments.” To think, I wanted Robinson on JSA so badly.
And ugh, really, JSA. What was the company’s best book of the 90s has fallen apart. Willingham is the master of trite dialogue and, worse, has seemingly no grasp on the characterizations of those he’s writing. I had to drop the book after Mr. Terrific’s terrible speech in the first Mordru return issue. I lasted a bit longer with All Stars, but that book is just… boring. It feels like a shunting off of the characters no one wanted to deal with based on a moral dilemma that never existed in the first place. The kids are the ones who are joining a military organization version of the JSA? Really? Hey, it could be worse, the book could do more than pay lip service to that central premise. With Magog gone, there’s absolutely no reason for two teams, and I’m not quite sure why we’re pretending there is.
Then there’s all the backwards stuff. I don’t need Ray Palmer, a character who, near as I can tell, no one cares for, back as Atom. Why not let Ryan Choi develop more? Hell, Wally West was developed awesomely as Flash. You’re going to tell me a high profile Geoff Johns relaunch couldn’t do as well as the current Barry Allen the cipher version? I love the JLI and am totally fine with bringing them back, but did the tone really have to take over Booster Gold’s book as well as their own? Legion brings back a classic writer, which never seems to work (ask Chris Clairmont and Frank Miller), but also gets right back to ignoring the accessible threeboot for the nearly impenetrable classic team that you have no chance of understanding unless you read Superman and the Legion of Superheroes, Legion of 3 Worlds, AND the current Robinson New Krypton stuff. I love the Legion in all incarnations, but come on!
Even the bat-line sans B&R is collapsing. I can’t figure out why, but Paul Dini has been terrible on Streets of Gotham for most of that book’s run, while Batman shows Tony Daniel is just as unexceptional a writer as he is an artist. Red Robin damn near destroyed Tim Drake as a character. Even Brave and the Bold has stopped being fun, aiming for some kind of pretend emotional gravitas with far, far too much faux emotion. Ugh.
It’s not all bad; Birds of Prey will be, I’m sure, excellent. Batgirl is a hidden gem, to be certain. REBELS is still awaiting a proper new direction, but the first 14 issues were excellent. Still, that’s five books in the entire line, a depressing total. Are we stuck in the 90s again? Where are all the great creators?
Next week, I’ll try and look at what DC’s doing wrong and how they can improve.
