The Four Color Media Monitor

Here's an old article from 2004 by Bill Radford of the Colorado Gazette, which may be a Knight-Ridder newspaper, that does something that a couple of press sources on comics seemed to do during the time it was published - it "panned" the Sins Past storyline in Amazing Spider-Man, yet went all the way in favoratism when writing about Identity Crisis. First, Radford says:

The story by J. Michael Straczynski casts a new light on Gwen, who was killed when the Green Goblin tossed her off a bridge in the classic "Amazing Spider-Man" No. 121 in 1973. Gwen, it seems, was drawn to Osborn's strength and magnetism.

But the whole thing just rings false. It's an unwelcome tarnishing of Spider-Man's first great love.

Well, I'm sorry to say, Radford, but, the following rings false too, and certainly cancels out whatever you were trying to say with the above when you first wrote it, bozo:

The past also gets a makeover in "Identity Crisis," a riveting seven-part series from DC Comics ending in December.

Oops! What's that? "Riveting"? Well then, if you think it's riveting Radford, surely that's also what you think about Sins Past, too? I fail to see the logic here. Sorry.

Sue is murdered by an unknown killer in the first issue; the rape, told mainly off-panel, is revealed in flashbacks.

Comic-book readers are used to villains plotting to take over the world. But rape?

"That is a little bit rougher," acknowledges Dan DiDio, vice president and executive editor of DC Comics.

"But we tried to tell that in the most responsible way possible."

And what way would that be? By not giving any female perspective in the miniseries? Sorry, but there too, the article bombs out big time. It's shockingly dishonest, and what MSM journalist Radford did there is also what's known as shilling, or even prostrating himself in a company's efforts to ruin its own comic books.

The story has generated a great deal of controversy -- and DiDio couldn't be happier.

"The last thing I want to do is ever tell a story that is met with general apathy," he says.

Here we go again. It's sales through controversy, and DiDio couldn't give a damn what anyone thought, since all he cares about is that we're willing to pay our hard-earned bucks straight into his wallet.

"Identity Crisis" is part of an effort to give more emotional weight to the heroes of the DC Universe, home to Superman, Batman, the Flash and countless others.

"There's always been certain perceptions about DC characters being a little bit softer," DiDio says. "The DC characters have always been very proactive and very heroic and very set in their ways in how they do business, and we wanted to look at them in a different way."

And after that travesty, that's exactly why I realized that the whole notion that the DC characters ought to be "stronger" instead of "softer" is just plain stupid. I've long since learned that it pays not to be too demanding, which is why I don't ask for DC characters to have a personality at any price, and certainly not if it calls for ruining them in retrospect.

DiDio did indicate though, his stance on superheroics: as he hints in the quoted - and highlighted - text above, the heroism is something he's sadly ungrateful for.

And the Colorado Gazette is just one more MSM newspaper source I hereby disapprove of.

The most hilarious thing about this is how Radford seems to imply that Marvel's characters are holy and should not be tampered with, yet DC's are abusable to the very end. It's incredibly illogical, and makes any newspaper or comics press source that pulls that type of act look ridiculous. How can they say that they disappove of what Marvel does if they cannot say the same about what DC does? That Sue Dibny is a minor character and not part of the same kind of legacy that Gwen Stacy is is no justification for turning her into the plot device she was two years ago. Misty Knight and Colleen Wing, girlfriends of Power Man and Iron Fist, respectively, are relatively minor characters too, but would that justify turning them into plot devices? Or Betty Brant Leeds? No way.

The only reason I can see for Mr. Bill Radford and his ilk to take the kind of double standard they do, upon closer contemplation, is that clearly, DC Comics does not hold the value for them that Marvel Comics does. It's weird how Marvel, over the years, managed to literally take up some kind of influence over people to the point of being considered a holy artifact, but that's what articles and views like these seem to suggest. And is a perfect lesson for me why I will never disdain DC's characters just because they don't have meaty personalities like Marvel's may.

(By now though, with the kind of hack writers Marvel's been taking in, Straczynski being one of the sort, any personality their characters have may be slipping away, sadly enough.)

Labels: dc comics, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda