The Gold Standard: A Mini Rant On Cynics, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Just Love Comics

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Anybody else remember when comics were fun? When people bought them to read them and enjoy them? They liked the characters and the storylines, and even if there was a bad issue, they still found a way to enjoy it. I remember those times, and I’ll be damned if I don’t miss them.

The cynics of today have devolved into a crowd of elitists who dig for any and every flaw they can find and then erase anything positive about it. They will refuse to admit that even a page of a book is good because they’ve found a way to enforce their belief that it’s simply the worst thing ever, and they can do it with almost any title you pick out.

You can tell me that I’m being naive, or foolish, or flat out stupid. But you know what? I buy comics to read them and enjoy them, and I can look past the flaws of the single issue if the good outweighs the bad. Maybe it’s because I don’t go in expecting a book to be awful because I don’t like a new costume, or I don’t think things should be rebooted, or even because the writer isn’t some critically acclaimed superstar who is “too good” to appeal to the masses on a top 20 book.

But at the end of the day? It’s incredibly rare that I ever finish reading my comics for the week and feel like I wasted any money; whereas these people tend to complain even more about how they wasted money on the same books I enjoy. So at least my money is well spent.

And yes, my enjoying of Justice League #1 sparked this, as I’ve had quite a few people come after me for apparently not “reading enough real books”, and “buying into their crap”, and my personal favorite of “not getting that a better writer would have debuted the entire roster in one issue”. But you know what? I read the issue, and now I want the second one. I didn’t need Johns to blow his load in the first issue, because now I know he has plenty left to go for the rest of the arc. I get the pacing, it’s the standard trade length story arc, but that’s not a bad thing! I don’t want a bunch of one and done stories in every book, I like story arcs and longer form story telling. I like nicely characterized stories, regardless of how many characters are a part of it, and how many could be.

At the same time, I don’t mind someone hating a book after being critical about it. I know that might sound weird, but seriously, huge difference between critics and cynics. A critic will form an argument they came up with on their own, sure, it might go in line with issues that more people have, but it’s their argument. A critic isn’t someone who picks up the issue, looks at the cover, and already knows how they’re going to feel about it. Most importantly, a critic can be argued with.

Come to think of it, my favorite critic is a complete cynic. Anybody else remember The Critic? Great cartoon.

The DC Comics Relaunch has drawn its fair share of both, but the key difference is the ability to argue. I support the Relaunch because I understand why they’re doing it; sales are in the toilet and print as a medium is dieing fast. Marvel has succeeded in branching out and doing well with movies and other projects, but DC hasn’t quite figure it all out (though they do  tend to do animated better than Marvel, in my opinion). Trying to relaunch it all, bring everything to number one, and try to generate a potential continued interest in readers old and new; that’s something I can completely respect. I don’t view it as DC’s last hail mary pass before going down, I see it as them trying to turn things around by doing something different.

I get what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and why it needs to be done. I don’t take offense to stories I enjoyed potentially being wiped out, or to new costumes, or the “Of America” being taken out of Justice League (for the life of me I don’t know how Fox News hasn’t attacked that one yet), hell, I’m not even offended that my favorite book (Batgirl) ended and the main character (Stephanie Brown) benched in favor of their predecessor (Barbara Gordon).

It’s just…what I don’t get it how people can be so predisposed to not liking something, yet still run out and spend their money so they can keep saying that they don’t like it. I mean, yes, I read Avengers and groan about it, but there’s obviously something about the book that I like or else I’d drop it like X-Men, or JSA, or Dark Knight. I can’t enjoy everything, after all, and sometimes a book is so bad that I just stop spending my money on it. Other times I’ll hold on thinking I’ll get some payoff, or hell, let’s look at the Relaunch.

Books I won’t be buying, at all, include Blackhawks, OMAC, and Men at War. Two of them I have absolutely zero faith in, and another I just know that I won’t enjoy. I’m not going to buy them to complain about them though, I’m not going to read them so I can gripe about them. I’m just going to skip them along with several other books that I know won’t be up my alley.

I’m not going to say that if you don’t like it quit reading, because if you want to spend your money on something you clearly don’t enjoy, then hey, I’m just glad that you’re supporting your local comic shop.

Sorry about that, just needed to get it off my chest and out of my system.

A lifelong reader and self proclaimed continuity guru, Grey is the Editor in Chief of Comics Nexus. Known for his love of Booster Gold, Spider-Girl (the real one), Stephanie Brown, and The Boys. Don't miss The Gold Standard.