Today's entry deals with something that has been vexing me for the better part of a decade now, and shows no sign of abating.
Seriously, how do the people at DC comics not fucking understand this?! Lately I've heard some people suggest that "DC hates it heroes". And as crazy as that sounds, the most recent evidence of what they've got planned only strengthens that claim.
For YEARS now, DC has failed to understand its heroes, that's for sure. DC have consistently been trying to act like a second-rate Marvel Comics, which kind of could work for them back when Marvel itself was acting like a third-rate Marvel comics, but these days Marvel (which I have never liked as much as DC, in theory) is doing amazing work and has worked at appealing to a very broad range of readers. DC, meanwhile, has been a one-trick pony of gore and "edginess" for so long that many people may have only ever known DC as being about that.
How do they not get this? How do they not understand that DC is all about ICONIC heroes, about Archetypes, and thus needs to be about Optimism?? And I know that optimism is not as cool to 14 year olds with gun fetishes as ripping people's arms off, but its all DC is set up in its lifeblood, in its genes, to actually do well. And you know, if they were to do it well, I'm pretty sure that 14 year olds and 40 year olds alike would be impressed. But no, they insist on trying to make DC's heroes into something they're just not made to be, and in the process radically fucking up almost every last one of them.
Fuck's sake.
RPGPundit
Currently Smoking: Moretti Rhodesian + Gawith's Squadron Leader
Nothing like "darkness for the sake of darkness" to make a superhero comic suck. It's not edgy, it's not mature, it's just empty. Superheroes should serve to bring light into darkness, and if you really need to make a grim and dark superhero story, make it about the burden of having that job, and about how a hero is the one who never gives up on carrying it.
ReplyDeleteYup.
ReplyDeleteAs a pretty consistent DC over Marvel man my entire life I look at my pull list and realize I have more Marvel than DC and most of the DC is just on momentum. With the loss of Legion (again) which had long been my book to end all books and its apparently replacement with JL3000 I could easily conceive of having no or only 1 DC pull by the end of the year (JL:Dark could be the lone survivor).
ReplyDeleteI doubt I'll even keep JL:Dark, the way its going.
ReplyDeleteThe source of all this shit has got to be Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld and Bob Harras. Some idiot at DC seems to think bringing back 90's is a great idea. How else to explain the influx a has-been Image and Marvel douchebags? If they're lucking, maybe they can even bankrupt the company like Marvel did theirs. At this point I kinda hope they do.
ReplyDeleteIt might be necessary. I don't see another way out.
ReplyDeleteI would say the inmates are running the asylum over at DC, but I'm starting to think asylum inmates might do a better job then DC's current editorial staff at the moment.
ReplyDeleteI'd agree.
ReplyDeletePut it this way: Rob Liefield couldn't stand the DC Comics leadership team and jumped ship.
ReplyDeleteTerrifying.
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