The Four Color Media Monitor

Boy, reading this silly piece by Joseph Szadkowski in the Wash. Times has certainly taught me an important lesson about being too reliant on specific writers for a paper just because it happens to be one I find better than most others (even the Wall Street Journal's been going down in quality to some extent lately). Because, there's a little bit of something here that shows that he's just reading it as eye candy, while not looking very deep into anything else, plus, he exhibits the same kind of sensationalism that several other newspaper writers have:

Since the death of the Elongated Man's wife, Sue Dibny, in the spring of 2004, DC Comics has put its fans into an emotional and multilayered story crossing over most of its best titles (around 78 comic books, to be more exact), which has led up to the current, universe-shattering developments in this monumental seven-part miniseries.

"Emotional"? I am not amused.

Billed as the sequel to the Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries of 1985, in which DC aggressively combined its multiple versions of Earth into one, with some of its heroes perishing in the process, the current event and all of its subplots are bound to give the confused, casual comic-book fan an eye-watering headache. (I review a few of the trade paperbacks below to shed light on the epic.)

And that's a good thing? Please, you can do better than that, Mr. Szadkowski.

Now the real laugh-inducer:

I'll readily admit that I have only a slight idea of what is going on here, but it sure looks exciting as I read such mighty dialogue as "being the only survivor of a reality that never existed" and "the very fabric of existence has shifted."

I can almsot hear him snickering when he says that it looks exciting. And that's where the column blows big time. There's got to be more than just the kind of superficial examples he gives there to convince.

To me, this is indicative of a kind of double-think (two sides of the same coin?) some people who just buy crossover stories because it's supposedly a big party with delicious cake seem to have: they have no idea what to make of the story, yet they go and buy it - and even enjoy it - anyway. Which really isn't deciding where you stand on such an issue. Is it good or is it bad? There has to be a clear choice.

As a team of creators including Geoff Johns, Phil Jimenez, Andy Lanning and George Perez leaves its mark on the unfolding story, it's obvious heroes and villains will continue to die, multiple versions of Superman will be right in the middle of the mess, and comic-book fans late to the game will spend lots of cash to find out what is going on and what is going to happen.

Szadkowski makes it sound as if heroes (and villains) dying is a great thing. All because this is just fiction too, I suppose. There's nothing in this column to indicate that he's sad about that, which is the big problem with this kind of fluff writing: it's sensationalizing death and destruction. Nor does he seem to have anything against readers buying this stuff, noting only what trades they'll need to get.

Labels: dc comics, golden calf of death, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, women of dc