DC is rebooting their entire line of shitty comics. This is huge news because it means that the company is finally going to devote themselves to encouraging innovative creators to come up with fresh, meaningful stories, at least, say, 20% of which will no longer feature 40, 50, or even 80 year old characters promoting bone-headed violence, occasional fascism, and casual racism.
Ha ha. No, I lied. It doesn’t mean any of that. It’ll be the same stupid characters in the same stupid stories created by the same bunch of unimaginative, borderline morons you’ve come to know and love. It’ll be stories mostly about white men mostly for white men who love their own childhoods so much that they don’t care how much said childhoods are repeatedly, brutally, and incompetently defaced. It’ll be crap and everyone will know it is crap, and there will be massive crossovers which will be mostly devoted to rearranging the crap in the toilet bowl, and then standing back and watching as the crap floats aimlessly out of position and chortling happily at the amazing newness of those patterns formed by the same old crap which have been sitting in the same damn bowl for decades.
Of course, everyone has an inalienable right to love their cultural products, no matter the stench. And now there are films which somebody other than the same eight people seem willing to watch no matter how lousy they are, and somehow that validates everything. Iron Man was a dunderheaded imperialist fantasy for the scumbag arms dealer in all of us, but, hey, Robert Downey, Jr. is a cutey; who can argue with that?
Still, I can’t help wondering…is there a moment, sometime, when we can maybe stop this? When we can pick up these slack, sodden bags of incompetently tailored power fantasies, look at them one last time, and say, you know…fuck this shit. I want my power fantasies to be competently tailored…or at least not moldering. Let me give my hard-earned cash to some moron who owns the boring, derivative nonsense he’s peddling, rather than to corporate drones so soulless that they’re willing to thank their overlords for letting them drool lasciviously on the sloppy seconds of octogenarian serfs?
Maybe that moment will never come. Maybe Superman will always stand for truth, justice, and using your godlike powers to beat up criminals rather than to make the world a better place. Maybe Wonder Woman will always show that strong women wear spangled stars on their derriere and promote peace by hitting people. Maybe Spiderman and the Thing will always demonstrate the heroism of protracted whining. Maybe the comics audience will just get older and older but never die, just shrinking and becoming thinner and thinner until they’re all tiny and brittle like insects, rubbing their legs together feebly to emit their little cricket cries..”is it in continuity? *chirp* “is it in continuity?”
Maybe that’s what has to be. But damn it, even if there’s no hope, even if our cause is doomed, still, I say, the fight is worth it. Stand up now; join hands and say it with me. Say it proud! “Don’t reboot DC! Just fucking die!”
Can’t argue with that, though in some ways, I feel commenting on it at all is giving it too much attention.
In a recent weeding of my home library I weeded all but… 6 superhero comics, and I’m trying real hard to not even bother reading all the crap that comes up in my RSS reader on Marvel/DC/superheroes. Enough already.
In some weird way I feel like the critiques of superhero comics from non-fans fall into the same realm of the endless nostalgic fans. It’s still just too engaged with the crap.
Yep. I’m definitely part of the problem. But sometimes you just can’t keep the (self-) loathing in.
It seems like they do this every year or two. The only twist this time is the digital download angle.
I don’t know much of anything about Geoff Johns, but is Jim Lee really that big a deal these days? Wasn’t his heyday like 15-20 years ago? His art looks about the same now as I remember it looking back then, which makes me wonder about its commercial appeal. I can’t think of a superhero artist keeping star status over that amount of time without a significant evolution in style.
Has there ever been any research into how many readers treat these events as jumping-off points? I was a teenager in the ’80s. I stopped reading Marvel’s monthly line after Secret Wars, and I completely gave up on DC’s when Crisis on Infinite Earths started. I know I wasn’t alone, either.
I just look at this and think, Marvel and DC–more irrelevant than ever.
God alive, won’t Marvel and DC just commit group suicide already? It’d be doing American and world culture a favor.
Perhaps a death squad is in order…
Bravo, Noah, Bravo. Agree 110% with every word.
Sheesh, I thought I’d be strung up, and instead everyone agrees…I guess there must be a deeper well of antipathy towards the big two than I suspected….
Can this even count as antipathy at this point? I think most of us are just plain bored.
Ha ha hah.
Mmf. Just some more tiresome re-jiggering of the same ol’ stuff. And this is considered newsworthy? Are the DC junkies expected to buy every single issue of the re-launch, lest they be hopelessly lost?
Funny the extent the Big Two will go to — “noir,” Western, Elizabethan, Imaginary Worlds, Manga, “dark,” “What if…” variations — in order to keep squeezing juice out of some shrivelled old “property”…
Has anyone ever noted the similarities with this and the way pro rasslin’ (especially WWF/WWE) would switch its star performers from hero to heel, then back again?
Noah, this post is disingenuous. In fact, it’s also hypocritical, insincere, duplicitous, and dare I say … mendacious!
It’s quite obvious that you’re dying to know how this reboot will effect the biggest question in comics today. Namely, when will Wonder Woman stop wearing pants?
Hahaha. This was wonderful and your description of Wonder Woman made me think of Sarah Palin for some odd reason.
“Let me give my hard-earned cash to some moron who owns the boring, derivative nonsense he’s peddling, rather than to corporate drones so soulless that they’re willing to thank their overlords for letting them drool lasciviously on the sloppy seconds of octogenarian serfs?”
You can! You can buy Invincible, about Not Superman’s ™ son following in his footsteps. Or Irredeemable, about Not Superman ™ going crazy and murdering everybody! They’re both creator owned-ish, i guess….
I’ve thought about Invincible and Irredeemable…are either of them any good?
There’s lots of derivative junk out there, though. I was just watching the Mentalist, which is really quite bad and dumb and totally derivative (Sherlock Holmes.) But it’s vaguely professional and not dependent on decades of ridiculous retconned backstory. Not a high standard, but it’s something.
I’ve only read like two issues of Irredeemable. Its structurally complex, like Lost, in that it starts with Not Superman killing everyone but you have flashbacks throughout the series showing you how Not Superman became a jerk. The subject matter, with things like girl superheroes begging for their lives before evil Superman murders them, and whatnot, just holds no appeal for me, so there’s not must I can say that’s positive about it except that its structurally complex. The topic holds no appeal to me at all, so I just don’t care.
As for Invincible… it’s not great, but not bad either, per see, just so-so. Its the sort of book where the protagonist goes to high school, (at least in the early issues) but there’s no scenes in high school not involving some sort of teacher secretly being a supervillian or the protagonist talking to his secret superhero classmate about superhero stuff during lunch time.
You don’t really get the impression that this is a book that has anything really to say about life. I think the art and writing got a *bit* better as it went along verging on, I dunno, competent, but the creators didn’t seem to take the villains seriously enough to build any actual drama, so I lost interest.
I almost want to say with superheroes, Invincible is the best of the worst, due to its creator owned nature but it really isn’t. The corporate owned Runaways book by Brian K. Vaughn (and one arc by Joss Wheden which was pretty good, I get the impression subsequent writers sucked) really was a better recent title, and has at least some things to say about being a teenager and about life. Of course, its not creator owned, nor will Marvel prove to be competent long term custodians of the characters.
Beyond those books, you might have to go to the way way indie market to find creator owned superhero books (other than maybe Hellboy, and maybe a few others I may not have heard of… actually Bendis has a few these days, including Takio, about two sister superheroes which he literally wrote for his daughter).
The problem is, critiquing a way indie creator sort of feels like kicking a puppy. For example, there’s “The Uniques” an indie book created by a husband and wife team: http://www.uniquescomic.com/. Undoubtedly a labor of love. Extremely small time, we’re talking a team lacking a distributor to put it in comics stores small time.
Its sort of a Teen Titans type legacy thing, that begins with all the parent heroes dying in a 911-ish attack. There’s certainly a feeling of novelty and fresh air, if only because its an original superhero universe created by some obviously passionate creators, but I think its fair to say that there’s parts that work better than other parts, and the creators could probably benefit from an editor? But really having a critical reaction to something that small time, it would maybe be like beating a baby seal.. they might benefit from the publicity though…
Another way indie book I’ve read a little of is Dynagirl:
http://www.dynagirlonline.com/
This one I barely remember, but I can say I believe it suffers from the same problem that a lot of indie superhero books likely suffer, the creators are way too enamoured by Marvel and DC’s offerings, so you end up getting a book which feels like a second hand imitation of Marvel and DC.
In this case, its a book about a superhero woman who’s a mom, which is kind of cool, but you read the character description on the web site, and it says:
“After graduation Kerri moved to the big city to fight crime as her alter ego, Dynagirl. During her very first outing she was captured by the notorious villain Simon Hurst and victimized horribly both mentally and physically. The things that Simon forced her to do still haunt her today.”
Now, I have no idea if this was influenced by Alias, the Brian Michael Bendis book starring the superhero girl who was “victimized horribly both mentally and physically” in an early superhero outing, or the Ms. Marvel backstory about Ms. Marvel being raped on an Avengers mission, but gee, couldn’t we have a superhero mom who wasn’t raped? Maybe it would even be a bit more marketable if it was a bit further from what Marvel and DC put out regularly?
I still think Empowered is lovely. And the best mainstream title by leaps and bounds is Tiny Titans, which I think is fantastic. If you’re going to use corporate properties, turning them into stream of consciousness goofiness for 6 and unders is the way to go.
@Pallas I can tell you without a doubt the Dynagirl story wasn’t influenced by Alias, as I’ve never read it or even read ABOUT it. In fact the first time I head of any similarity between the two books was when I read your commentary. Dynagirl was absolutely inspired by two of my favorite female heroes, Ms. Marvel and Powergirl, but only in terms of sass and a ‘hit it first’ mentality. Much like the Alias thing I’d never read that Ms. Marvel was raped. And if you read the description that you quoted, you’ll find it never says she was raped. It says she was victimized. Now you can take that to mean whatever you want, but the details have yet to come to light as to what really happened between Simon and Dynagirl, though we do go into it briefly in the series she first appeared in, Fallen Justice. Will it eventually come to light? Sure. But it’s not something that dominates the story. Her issues with Simon are part of her past, part of what makes her who she is, but that doesn’t define her.
Personally, there are very few comics by either of the Big two that I can stomach even in the short term, so I tend not to read them unless it’s second hand and I don’t have anything better to do at the time. You’re entitled to your opinion on the merits or imitative state of the Dynagirl book, and I have no issue with your opinions there, but you seem to have barely skimmed the book if at all, because you know so little about it. Anyway, superhero books should be fun, and entertaining. We strive to put out quality product in a timely manner, and I feel we’ve done that consistently. If it’s not your cup of tea, no worries at all sir. That’s the beauty of choice and free will. You get to make those choices for yourself.
Cary,
I totally admit to being unfair about Dynagirl- which maybe I read one issue of, and barely remember to be honest. (Same reaction to Empowered, I’m afraid)
I’m pretty burnt out on superhero comics, so if I read something that sounds too much like a “genre” element that I may not personally care for and that I’ve seen before- well, I’m just as likely as not to dismiss it. Like I said, totally unfair.
I think if more people ranted about indie superhero comics instead of the wretched Marvel and DC machine, it might generate more publicity and readership for indie comics, and be better than your comic simply being ignored.
At any rate, I wish you the best of luck, and maybe will give Dynagirl more of a fair try someday.
@Pallas Man I gotta say I appreciate your open minded attitude sir. I fully agree with you, I think Indie books should definitely come under more scrutiny than they do now, simply because it often feels like people give them a pass for being Indie books. I honestly think that’s doing everyone a disservice. If someone hates my book Id’ rather them say that then just say nothing for fear of hurting my feelings. Now I’m not saying we should judge every Indie book by the same criteria as the Mainstream books, because that’s a harsh stick to measure with, but there are areas like storytelling, production value, and such that are far less subjective and could certainly be a basis upon which to rank Indie books a bit better than they are now. Anyway, again thanks for the mention regardless, and I do hope you come back around and check us out. We’re good folks, and we rarely bite without good cause. :)
I’m sorry, but you are just being really harsh. I can’t help but like the super-hero comics–as anyone on my blog would see. I just find them to be kind of fun. I agree about them being power-fantasies and whatnot, and some are crap, but there are good ones and you can’t generalize they are all terrible, Noah. I agree with you on some of your articles, but won’t apologize for liking my silly super-hero comics, major flaws and all.
Of course, I’m a bit of a minority in that I am a mainstream comic reader who also appreciates you folk who are smarter than me at the Hooded Utilitarian–some of the mainstream comic readers would see your article, Noah, and just fly into a rage of swears and insults not wanting to admit that many comics are indeed a bit juvenile. I’m just saying though, aren’t you maybe being a little hard on DC when you say you want them to die, when a metaphorical antibiotic could be used to flush out the crap (of which there is a good amount, don’t get me wrong)?
Hey David! I think I’ve just reached a limit with DC/Marvel. The constant re-re-re-re-booting of the same characters…it just feels really futile and depressing.
I don’t have a particular hatred of the superhero genre. Just, for me, DC/Marvel feels really decadent. In a bad way.
The re-booting does get old, but the companies get so weighted down in continuity they have to do it. That is why I really like out-of-continuity stories and stuff that takes place in alternate universes; that way writers can get away with anything and do stuff that the normal DC/Marvel ruleset doesn’t allow but still use popular characters folk know and love, just in a clever new way. See: Supreme Power (at least before it started going downhill really fast)or X-Men Noir. Of course, people could just be creative and make new characters, but fans want to see Spider-Man, they don’t want something new. Sigh.
I’m a little excited about the re-boot, just because it might allow some new exciting stories to be told, but I do have that cynic bubbling away in me feeling like this is just a cash-grab by DC, which it is, but hopefully it is a cash-grab which will bring out some great stories. After all, when Marvel did some of their drastic re-tooling back in the early 2000s we got the amazing Grant Morrison run out of it (at least I think it was great, some folk hate it).
Oh, and Noah, if you want some good super-hero stories that also critique the twisted idea of how just punching things solves problems try Warren Ellis trilogy-of-sorts he’s done for Avatar comics. “Black Summer” and “No Hero” are both in trade, and “Supergod” will be. Black Summer has a political angle and No Hero both makes fun of superhero violence while enmeshing itself in it–being one of the most gory comics I’ve read.
David, I’m a mainstream (albeit only occasional) comic reader who doesn’t think that the HU writers are smarter than me, thank you very much, and the first comment hit the nail on the head. What is the point of this kind of article? Was putting a gun to your head and forcing you to read their (yes, often stupid) comics one of DC’s many iniquities? Is it that important for you and your target audience to feel a false sense of superiority over the stupid, sheeplike audience you imagine with such doting contempt?
Just because my comments on here tend to be superhero-apologist, by the way, don’t mistake that for excitement over this or any reboot; this whole “Issue 1” thing is a baldfaced grab at mainstream/enthusiast press. I think you and I are both smart enough to know, however, that this screed isn’t much better. You’re grabbing for hits on the back of DC’s corporate non-news, which makes you complicit. Seriously, Noah, you write good stuff when the subject matter actually engages you. A piece like this is just a waste of everybody’s time, and no more intellectually engaging than, say, a “Top 6 Most Awesome Things About the DC Reboot” article.
It’s funny, but very few people seem to get how sneaky this whole thing really is from a distribution standpoint. For the first time ever they’re releasing the digital versions the SAME day as the print versions, and they’re dumping 52 new #1 issues onto the market at the same time. In four to six months well over half of those books will be digital only. A year later it’ll be closer to 90% I’m guessing. DC is herding their readers into the digital age by increments. The print model is dying.
Zach, I hardly ever read DC comics. I sometimes read people talking about DC comics because I’m a comics blogger and kind of can’t avoid it.
As for what the point is; I have a certain amount of bile worked up towards DC and Marvel, and it’s cathartic to express it sometimes. And on an aesthetic level, I think it’s better written than most DC/Marvel product. But that’s an extremely low bar, of course.
Zach, I just meant smarter than me, not other folk.
Cary, I don’t think they will do digital-only for anything but the most inconsequential of books and stories if not for the fact that a lot of money still comes from comic stands and they don’t want to outright piss retailers off any more than they have. We probably WILL see methods like having a print copy with a digital code on stands for a dollar extra like DC has announced they are doing (which I hate; nowadays some music companies have it so that if you buy a physical copy of the album you get a free digital, but whatever). I think digital-only for a big name book is still years and years away though.
That really turned me on.
Sweet talker.
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You write about this like DC and Marvel took your girlfriend, and then you got a new girlfriend and they just took her again. Except that it’s really not worth getting that upset over. A post like this is just like someone preaching to a choir and coming out sounding like a radical. There’s some value in a measured response, especially if you’re trying to make a point, otherwise your argument gets lost in the invectives.
For fuck’s sake, it’s not an argument! It’s invective!
Haha, fair enough if that’s the point :D
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Everybody talks about digital comics like it’s just automatically guaranteed DC and Marvel will be able to hang onto their current sales without offering ink-on-paper comics, but I don’t see it, myself. Those companies are still shedding readers by the boatload, and I don’t see how digital distribution’s going to save them…brand loyalty’s a grand thing, and so’s a comfortable escapist read, but even if you like them, you’ve got to admit the overwhelming majority of these things are possibly not sufficiently well-made to survive any kind of test of loyalty, or for that matter comfort.
It seems to me that digital comics will not appeal to fans who are collector types…you know, folks who are inexplicably willing to pay significant amounts of extra $$ for variant covers or hardcover collections of old badly written, absurdly drawn comics. Non-paper product makes it so there is no object to collect.
Okay, it’s an attempt to appeal to a younger generation who do not read on paper, but for the older readers who tend to print out hard copies of anything they like online because they find it impossible to enjoy looking at art on a screen….digital comics are not very appealing. But I suppose the way they figure it, floppy fetishists will all die soon anyway.
Leaving a big hole in the ground where Marvel and DC used to be?
Sorry, James, I couldn’t quite tell if you were saying “good, get the fuddy-duddies out of it so we can get down to some digital BIZNESS,” or “DC and Marvel are such fucking idiots, I’ll be so glad when they’ve finished cutting their own throats.”
Lies, Lies! Kill everyone!