The problem with the mainstream media's focus on Superman
Well how about that! I managed to find a copy of that Time article on Superman from two years ago (May 17, 2004) that told the readers what to think/believe is the problem with the Man of Steel these days. And I can't say I'm happy with what they did here. First, the subtitling:
They also interview/get some quotes from the writers assigned at the time to the three current series. But lo and behold, only two out of three writers are actually featured here, and the second one mentioned is one many would rather forget:
The third writer assigned to Superman at the time whom they don't mention is Greg Rucka, who, while not without his faults, was fairly better in his own efforts two years ago. And given that's he's considered by some to have more talent than either Azzarello or Austen, that's probably why he was virtually blotted out of this puff piece for darkness altogether. (Update: since the time I'd initially written this, I've had to reevaluate some of the work by Rucka, and must conclude he's actually one of the worst writers to get his hands on both Wonder Woman and Superman since the turn of the century. If anything, Rucka's only minimally better than Austen, so it's actually best if he wasn't mentioned in the puff piece, though if he were, I'm sure they'd sugarcoat his writings too.)
This also brings me to point to one of the biggest complaints I have today about DC comics: they lack a genuine sense of humor. That's probably one of the reasons why I enjoy Gail Simone's work on Birds of Prey much more, because she hasn't allowed DC's alarming editorial sabotage to get in the way of her talents. Thank goodness.
The Time article I've dissected above is but one example of what's wrong with mainstream media coverage of comics today: they emphasize exactly the same thing without mercy: darkness. People do want and need mirth today, and if Time and their ilk are going to keep on with this, all they're doing is showing why the MSM is not worth reading today.
Update: and while we're on the subject, here's a recommended article by James Lileks that ponders why the screenwriters of Superman Returns deliberately ommitted The American Way from the movie (Hat tip: Betsy's Page).
Update 2: speaking of Azzarello, here's an older item I thought worth noting: From the sugarcoated pages of the NY Times, we have an article all about comic book movie adaptations, including the upcoming Sin City, and frankly, it appears that once again, we have a case of Room 101 talk on our hands regarding what the audience likes in terms of characters. Cases in point:
As for Karen Berger, what does she say in this article?
Not being so interested in movies these days, I guess that's why I won't be in such a hurry to check out Sin City anyway. And besides, didn't Miller's Dark Knight help to destroy Batman in terms of portrayal in his own flagship books?
Update: on the other hand, I also found the op-ed that Alex Rose wrote last year in which he discusses Mark Millar's Superman: Red Son last year on National Review Online. Finding it again, I can most certainly say that it's quite interesting to read, and better than the hack job Time performed. And here's something that really flattered me:
Besides that, here's what I found eyebrow-raising:
I'm not a Bush supporter, and I don't think most Israelis are either, due to his willingness to view the PLO as legitimate, but even so, that doesn't mean that I enjoy the kind of biases Millar and his Red Son seem to be sinking into, which, if they disagree with the Bush administration, are not for the same reasons that I might disagree with the administration for.
If Millar were to criticize the Bush government for reasons that could really make sense, then he'd have an argument to go by. But if all he can do is slam the goverment simply because it's not a leftie one, then he's really making himself look like a joke.
The Man of Steel is looking a little rusty. He's not tragic. He's not cool. Can America's original superhero find a way to reconnect with us?A better question might be - can the MSM find a way to reconnect with the consumer? Because this dud certainly doesn't. Man of Steel is uncool? Please. And who needs more tragic than what we've already got? Gimme a break.
Superman is still the company's flagship icon, but Batman outsells him...Superman may not sell as well as he could, but I'm not sure if Batman sells that well either. In fact, last time I looked, Supergirl was the one selling really high on the charts, showing that a lot of people uphold the return of Kara Zor-El these days.
For America's multimillion-dollar Superman industry, it's a serious problem. This is a guy who's from outer space--he was born on the planet Krypton, let's not forget--but he's also from another time. He debuted in the 1930s, when Americans liked their heroes like they liked their steaks: tough, thick and all-American. Nowadays we prefer our heroes dark and flawed and tragic. Look at the Punisher (wife and kids dead), or Hellboy (born a demon), or Spider-Man (secretly a nerd). Look at Batman: his parents were killed in front of him, and he dresses like a Cure fan. Now look at the big blue Boy Scout, with his cleft chin and his spit curl. He's just not cool.Sigh. This article is what's really uncool. I'm sorry. And who sez that Americans don't like their heroes tough and all-American anymore? Very cynical of Time, I must say.
They also interview/get some quotes from the writers assigned at the time to the three current series. But lo and behold, only two out of three writers are actually featured here, and the second one mentioned is one many would rather forget:
Jim Lee, who's taking over the art on Superman, is fresh from a run on best-selling Batman, so he's in touch with his dark side. But he admits it's a challenge. "Batman is a more modern-era type character," Lee says. "He's fueled by vengeance; he's the boogeyman. Superman is the altruistic alien hero that protects us all. It's difficult to make that believable in this day and age." In their first issue, Lee and writer Brian Azzarello have Superman in a church pouring out his heart to a priest. While Superman's back was turned, a million people vanished from earth, including Lois Lane, and he's powerless to do anything about it. He's a brooding, angry, heavily shadowed Superman, riddled with self-doubt. "For the first time, I was really afraid," he says. "Lost, without my rhythm." You get through the entire issue before you realize not a single punch has been thrown.This part made me want to belch. Yet it doesn't surprise me at all that, of all people whom they could interview, it'd be the one who's now considered the joke of the industry, the one whose writing is astonishingly distasteful and sloppy, Chuck Austen. He exaggerated, of course, considering that Superman does have more vulnerabilities than just Kryptonite (giant robots and apes, for example), and the dialect Austen put into the book back then was simply annoying. Mainly because - while the Man of Steel most certainly can wisecrack, he's still not Spider-Man, and what Awful Austen, now gone to Obscureland, put into the scrips he wrote then was simply not the Man of Steel at all.
When writer Chuck Austen got handed Action Comics, another Superman monthly, he knew punches would be thrown, what with the title and all. But Superman is on the receiving end for a change. "As someone who loved the dark side for a long time, I had little or no interest in Superman for years," Austen says. "He was perfect--his powers left him with no vulnerability. So I requested DC allow some cosmetic changes--make him a bit less powerful, a lot more vulnerable physically." Austen's Superman can take a joke as well as a punch. He rags on his sparring partners for their lame trash talk: "What's next? 'Mindless cretin!' Or 'Had enough?' Or my personal favorite--'No one can stand before the might of--(your name here)." The tone is light and fresh and surprisingly funny. "Much of it is the fun of playing against his type," says Austen. "But much more of it is, without question, to upgrade him a bit. He's the greatest superhero ever created! He needs to be cool!"
The third writer assigned to Superman at the time whom they don't mention is Greg Rucka, who, while not without his faults, was fairly better in his own efforts two years ago. And given that's he's considered by some to have more talent than either Azzarello or Austen, that's probably why he was virtually blotted out of this puff piece for darkness altogether. (Update: since the time I'd initially written this, I've had to reevaluate some of the work by Rucka, and must conclude he's actually one of the worst writers to get his hands on both Wonder Woman and Superman since the turn of the century. If anything, Rucka's only minimally better than Austen, so it's actually best if he wasn't mentioned in the puff piece, though if he were, I'm sure they'd sugarcoat his writings too.)
This also brings me to point to one of the biggest complaints I have today about DC comics: they lack a genuine sense of humor. That's probably one of the reasons why I enjoy Gail Simone's work on Birds of Prey much more, because she hasn't allowed DC's alarming editorial sabotage to get in the way of her talents. Thank goodness.
The Time article I've dissected above is but one example of what's wrong with mainstream media coverage of comics today: they emphasize exactly the same thing without mercy: darkness. People do want and need mirth today, and if Time and their ilk are going to keep on with this, all they're doing is showing why the MSM is not worth reading today.
Update: and while we're on the subject, here's a recommended article by James Lileks that ponders why the screenwriters of Superman Returns deliberately ommitted The American Way from the movie (Hat tip: Betsy's Page).
Update 2: speaking of Azzarello, here's an older item I thought worth noting: From the sugarcoated pages of the NY Times, we have an article all about comic book movie adaptations, including the upcoming Sin City, and frankly, it appears that once again, we have a case of Room 101 talk on our hands regarding what the audience likes in terms of characters. Cases in point:
''Characters with questionable morals are sexy,'' says Brian Azzarello, whose ''100 Bullets'' is an ink-dark crime series about consequence-free revenge. ''They get away with things we would be afraid to try.'' This could explain why so many hard-boiled antiheroes are heading for multiplexes, with not a cape among them.Is that so? Have all the superheroes in capes really become passe that fast? Gee, I didn't know that! Not to mention that Constantine doesn't seem to have made much of a splash either.
Indeed, the moral relativism of ''Constantine'' may be a more appropriate fit for today's world than the moral absolutism of Captain America.But like I said before, the adaptation of Hellblazer (which doesn't seem to be anything big these days either) doesn't seem to have made much of a splash, has it? Their assertion that Capt. America's standings aren't appealing is another grave turnoff.
...it wasn't until the 1980's that a market for mature readers of action comics took off -- and it's been growing steadily ever since.While the one for the younger crowd is dwindling even as I speak. Ha ha ha.
As for Karen Berger, what does she say in this article?
The comics industry may be notoriously guarded about sales figures, but Karen Berger, the executive editor of DC's adult imprint Vertigo (the publisher of noir titles like ''Hellblazer,'' ''100 Bullets'' and ''Preacher''), confirms that Vertigo's numbers have significantly grown for the last five years. The reason? ''It's more interesting to read characters with shades of gray, that have a closer connection to your own life,'' she says.Is that so? I do wonder what she'd say if she knew that personally, I don't put personalities and having a chip on the character's shoulder too high on my value list? Me, I've never been the overly-demanding type, and when it comes to superhero comics, I don't go out of my way to beg for such things. Nope, what matters to me is to have fun, which some new-age thinkers, which seems to include the builders of this article here, seem to consider a crime.
Not being so interested in movies these days, I guess that's why I won't be in such a hurry to check out Sin City anyway. And besides, didn't Miller's Dark Knight help to destroy Batman in terms of portrayal in his own flagship books?
Update: on the other hand, I also found the op-ed that Alex Rose wrote last year in which he discusses Mark Millar's Superman: Red Son last year on National Review Online. Finding it again, I can most certainly say that it's quite interesting to read, and better than the hack job Time performed. And here's something that really flattered me:
"Traditionally, Cap was a World War II warrior who enjoyed stoutly biffing erring Nazis, but who was frozen and then re-animated in the 1960s, when he joined the Avengers. Captain America, as Michael Medved pointed out on NRO last year, has suffered the indignity of being reinvented as Captain Anti-America by Marvel's in-house team of Chomskyites, but that sort of wholesale, mea culpist revisionism is not quite what I meant by writing an "alternate history."Whoa, man, do I love that term "Chomskyites". It's the first place where I actually came upon the phrase, and let me just say that Rose really impressed me with it. Mr. Rose, you rock!
Besides that, here's what I found eyebrow-raising:
"Unfortunately, there's an unnecessary pompousness to the proceedings. Mark Millar makes no secret of his Leftie views — he changed the storyline, he says, to genuflect on "unethical American foreign policy" (yeah, right on); Superman the Sov "is an allegory of George W. Bush and very like America," you get the picture — and doesn't bother mentioning the Gulag even as he paints Stalin as an avuncular fellow."Which is exactly what bothers me about Mr. Millar's approach to the material. If he's really trying to write it that way, then all he's done is yet another unasked for political bias in comic books of the modern era, and stuffed an already overloaded boat with more than it can float.
I'm not a Bush supporter, and I don't think most Israelis are either, due to his willingness to view the PLO as legitimate, but even so, that doesn't mean that I enjoy the kind of biases Millar and his Red Son seem to be sinking into, which, if they disagree with the Bush administration, are not for the same reasons that I might disagree with the administration for.
If Millar were to criticize the Bush government for reasons that could really make sense, then he'd have an argument to go by. But if all he can do is slam the goverment simply because it's not a leftie one, then he's really making himself look like a joke.
Labels: bad editors, dc comics, dreadful writers, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics, Superman
