The Four Color Media Monitor

First, the good news: Marv Wolfman is going to write Nightwing's adventures again (H/T: Titans Tower Monitor). He'd already written some stories for Dick Grayson and Roy Harper, aka Speedy/Arsenal back in 1988-89 in Action Comics Weekly, which were some of the strongest features in a whole mix of different character entries, including where Roy found out that he was father to Cheshire's child, Lian.

...Didio said that Marv Wolfman will be making his return to the character, along with Dan Jurgens penciling for a four issue arc, beginning with issue #125 of the ongoing series.

Now, the bad news. As told in the same article, they're shafting Wally West in favor of Bart Allen as the Flash.

Responding to a question about the Flash and Bart Allen becoming the new Flash as a result of Infinite Crisis, Didio said that he felt a change was needed with the character as he stood because, as he said, there was something very generic about the Flash. Themes were repeating, he said, and he wanted to bring a new generational aspect to the forefront again. In noting that Bart is the Flash for this new generation of the DCU, Didio added that Wally West is gone, but not forgotten.

So that's his little game, eh? I'm not impressed. The whole argument that the Flash was generic is laughable due to the fact that, they'd actually done something like try and "develop" characters like Wally in the late 80s, but while there were some high points to that, people got tired of the whole notion after awhile, and so they turned to nostalgia without making too much of a fuss over development. But then, if there really was something generic, well then, why didn't they just hire some writers who could actually do something about it? Or, why didn't they leave Wally and Linda and the twin children around so that the parental theme could be explored as an example of trying to break the generism? I'm sorry, but DhimmiDio makes no sense, as usual, and I strongly disagree that the Flash is "generic".

And when he gets around to the meaning of fun, he once again tells everybody what to think and believe:

Didio said they’re thinking about doing more with Captain Carrot, although, as he’s said before, doing “fun” comics is a hard sell because simply, they don’t sell. Didio noted that there is a strong core audience that wants “fun” and lighter themed comics, but by and large, the audience is not big enough to support a book. “People tell me that I hate fun books,” Didio said. “And that’s not true – I hate books that don’t sell.”

Translation: he knows there's a strong core audience, yet he'd rather not listen to them.

Using an example, Rucka pointed out that Kyle Baker’s Plastic Man series wasn’t cancelled because it was bad – it was cancelled because no one was buying it, even though it’s a fun book.

I think it's more likely that it was cancelled because a]they weren't making any genuine efforts to promote it, and b]Baker, as the artist on Truth: Red White and Black may have turned off some people, certainly me. His job as an inker back in the late 1980s actually strikes me as very unappealing, and given his own apparent political positions, I have no interest in doing him any favors, that's for sure. But that aside, DiDio was trying to confuse details by making it sound as if nobody wants to buy a brand new book they'd launched, because it was fun. What about Action Comics, Flash, Wonder Woman, JLA/JSA and even Teen Titans? Has anyone else ever shunned them because they were fun? Not to my knowledge, and something tells me that the devoted fans most certainly wouldn't.

So here's an interesting question that DiDio might want to answer: have you ever tried putting "fun" into some of the flagship titles, such as Superman? Something tells me that Geoff Johns, whom I lost faith in when I realized he was going along with the company's viewpoint, isn't going to do that so easily.

The rest of this article is pretty laughable too, with DhimmiDio and even Paul Levitz repeating some of their laughable arguments of recent that Vertigo should remain separate, because "Levitz does not feel that it is appropriate for mature-audiences characters, or characters that are and have been used predominantly in mature-audiences stories to appear in all-ages titles, or titles aimed at a more general, or younger crowd." Oh, I see, so Levitz is also clowning around? Figures.

In fact, as Photon Torpedoes indicates, this does seem to be a sales stunt:

Didio must think he's going to pull off the same trick as DC did in the 80s with Wally appearing in Flash #1. There are some parallels--Wally wasn't a very likeable character in the first two or three dozen issues. He took money to deliver a heart to the West Coast and slept with every bimbo in sight. As the series went on, Wally became a better person and a more reliable hero. I think we stuck with Wally as readers, because we had a two decade history with him. We had already invested a certain amount of time, from Wally as a teenager in the Flash to a college student in Titans. Bart has had only a decade or less. I could actually see sticking with Bart if they hadn't made him into a sucky dude drinking in pubs. It might have been better to have him learn how to control his Impulse-nature into something more mature. The big question is whether this new Flash will lure in any new readers than Wally West.

Very true. Something tells me that this may not go over as easily as Wally's ascension to Scarlet Speedster due to the fact that, as enjoyable as Bart's own solo book (Impulse) was for a time when Mark Waid first launched it, Bart's popularity may have plummeted since then, maybe ever since Geoff Johns used him rather half-heartedly in his take on Teen Titans, and now, what have we here, he's no longer using him as a cast member in that one due to his new starring role in Flash! Also, Wally is actually more down-to-earth as a character than Bart, one more reason why for him, being in the lead is more easily managed. Do I detect that Linda Park West is going to be turning up again soon, this time in her mid-40s, as the mother to some now grownup twin teenagers, one of whom will take up the mantle of Kid Flash?

In any case, this news tells why fans of DC and Marvel are going to have to start showing that, if they don't approve of this increasingly forced attempt to replace older characters with newer ones, then the antagonism will just go on and on.

And that's why I've got something to say to all those who care: enough turning the other cheek! You find the steps taken at one point bad, yet you're willing to continue buying the books nevertheless. If Identity/Infinite Crisis was meant to affect the DCU as a whole, ditto Avengers: Disassembled and House of M with the MCU, then what's the point of continuing to buy the books that end up getting soiled? Barry Allen's legacy was embarrassed by the whole IC fiasco, yet you continue to buy it when the editors do something crass to tarnish his history?

Maybe comics grew up, but the audience didn't. We make comics into a literal obsession and a habit, to the point of ridicule, buying them no matter the quality, letting the editors and publishers lording over our favorite characters and titles get the idea that they can just go and slap the stuff in the face and nobody will put a struggle, and even going so far as to attack and harrass the critics of these steps, because we're so terrified of if the series were to just end in the gutter of cancellation. Grow up! It'd have to be better than to let them continue getting subjected to editorial and scriptwriting bias and abuse.

That's not saying nor even suggesting that you and I should just give up comic book reading. Far from it. But if you can't boycott certain series and perhaps even a major company to send them a message, or even try to criticize the editors and their apologists, then what have you accomplished? Nada. I wouldn't be surprised if even Superman and Spider-Man, if they existed in real life, would argue that it's foolish to let yourself get finked every Quesada and DiDio out there, and tell you that, if editors like those are going to insult your intellect, that you shouldn't have to put up with it any longer.

Look at the Hollywood box office scene, and you see that Tinseltown is floundering of recent, because moviegoers are getting tired of their attempts to foist a stream of worthless biases on the public. Even comic readers might be among those fed up with Hollywood's dishonesty. And if moviegoers can show the film producers that they're not going to be hoodwinked so easily now, then comic fans can do the same.

What's really needed now is to get the news columnists and analysts who might care to notice. Most syndicated news and magazine columnists, like Michelle Malkin, Peter Beinart, Diana West, Mark Steyn, et cetera, are pretty good, yet they may not consider comics important enough to write about in depth, so is it any wonder that you don't see them writing about the state of the comics industry or even interviewing the writers, artists and editors on TV so far? But maybe there is a way to persuade them AND their publishers, if necassary, to take up some interest and see what's going on. They may also need to take into account whether or not children read comics today and if it's good or bad for them today, but that aside, if comics were taken more seriously as a subject for research by the mainstream writers in the news, THEN maybe it'd be easier to deal with the problem. How to get them to sit up and take notice is a challenge, I'm sure, but it may be possible.

Until then though, what needs to be done is to send a message to the companies that, if they're going to go and screw around with our favorite heroes, that we're not gonna take crap from them anymore. And we could also send a message if say, Sword of the Atom were to be published in trade format, all four parts of the miniseries plus the three specials, and buy that to show that THAT'S the character history we want for the Ray Palmer and Jean Loring to have. It may be possible to call out and ask if it'll be published in trades, so don't just stand there, do it! The same goes for a whole bunch of other, better comics from both DC and Marvel too.

If you can't break the habit of buying and reading comics no matter the cost, what have you accomplished?

Topic linked with: The Mudville Gazette, Point Five, Stop the ACLU, Third World County, Wizbang.

Labels: dc comics, Flash