The Four Color Media Monitor

Even long after the late Joanne Siegel sent an angry letter to Time Warner telling them to lay off their lawyer, Time Warner is still causing trouble for the heirs of Superman's co-creator, and may gain access to papers they hope to use against him, and mostly likely against the Siegel and Shuster estates as well. It's really terrible seeing how the company blatantly seeks to sabotage their right to regain their part of the copyrights on the Man of Steel, and Warner is only making themselves look all the more bad by conducting a smear campaign against the lawyer.

Labels: dc comics, Superman

DC Woman Kicking Ass interviewed Barbara Randall Kesel, the former wife of Karl Kesel, about her career as a writer and editor for DC, including how they handle their female cast, and she does seem to confirm the accessibility of their output is not very good:

DCWKA: How do you think DC handles female characters vs. 25 years ago? What’s better?

BRK: What’s worse? Hmmm… any answer would have to rate each individual title, and each character in that title. The company as a whole has a strong bias toward an older male readership, which is kind of limiting. Even so, I could pick up a half dozen and find scenes I’m proud of. What’s better is that the world as a whole is better represented—it’s not just white males. What’s worse is that the stories, while intense and exciting, don’t seem to be at all accessible to new readers. Given the success of superhero movies in recent years, you’d think at least part of the audience would be invited to sample the source material, but you see current-day sales figures, and… doesn’t look like it.

I was just discussing this with a prominent comics creator on Monday, how DC has such a wealth of iconic characters but seems determined to keep them inaccessible to the general public. The material is so intense, both on a violence and sexuality level, but also on a plain ol’ composition and storytelling level, that it’s a bullet train—hard to leap onto something that never slows down beyond blur. Of course, the next new generation of readers likely won’t want to touch an icky old paper comic anyway, so we just need to set up their iPad version to read panel-by-panel so they can access the flow at their own comprehension speed.

She does admit where they went wrong by turning their output into such an inaccessible mud swamp, but still falls short of the mark. And DC's treatment of Sue Dibny, Jean Loring, and even Lian Harper, among several others, should be enough to signal that something is wrong with how they've dealt with their female casts.

Labels: dc comics, misogyny and racism, violence, women of dc

USA Today's written about some patriotic covers Marvel's publishing for Captain America and a few other books, to coincide with the upcoming movie (Hat tip: Colossus of Rhodey):

It turns out that there's a little bit of Captain America in all of us.

Timed to the upcoming July 22 release of the Captain America: The First Avenger movie — starring Chris Evans as the star-spangled superhero —Marvel Comics is releasing a series of variant covers for its July superhero titles with an "I Am Captain America" theme.

The covers, done by a bunch of notable comic-book artists, all depict real-world American heroes — with a dash of Cap thrown in, such as a shield or that very recognizable "A."

Joe Quesada, Marvel's chief creative officer, came up with the "I Am Captain America" concept, according to the publisher's editor in chief, Axel Alonso. Quesada also drew a stunning version of a firefighter in the heat of the moment that adorns the variant cover for Wolverine issue 12.

But do covers alone guarantee that the story inside will be worthy and respectable? If history from this past decade is any suggestion, the sad answer may be no. Why, for that awful story written by Jon Ney Reiber in 2002, one of the covers bore the caption "fight terror", but in the end, the whole story was little more than apologist, blame-America propaganda.

Also, not all the covers feature crimefighting figures. There's one with a little league baseball pitcher, another with an ice skater, and even one with a freight truck driver, but are those heroes in the same way as a police officer and a firefighter? Not really. They could symbolize some of the best things about American sports and entertainment, for example, but hardly heroes in the sense of army and firefighting personnel. Whatever, there's no telling if the stories for the books they wrap around will be anywhere near as good, and if recent publishing history says anything, it's that chances are slim to none.

And Quesada's name alone could be enough to discourage many knowledgeable people from trying them out.

Labels: bad editors, Captain America, marvel comics, politics

Business Week tells that as readership declines, the companies should be trying to restart the market with the iPad and other such concepts. While this is an idea, they should also consider moving away from the monthly pamphlet format they're going by and do more comics as a straight-to-trade approach.

They also tell how there's no coverage of readership decline:

The trouble facing the comic book industry may not be getting the same coverage as the decline in print news and magazine readership. Marvel (DIS) and DC (TWX) in particular are making money at the box office and on merchandising that softens the pain of the readership decline. Ultimately, having fewer readers is bad for business, even if the business's foundations have shifted.

That's not the only thing not being covered in the wider press - even the reasons for the decline and its precipitation aren't being discussed, and it can even be because the companies won't discuss how their abuse of their properties has driven away much of the audience, both casual and hardcore. If they don't bring that into focus, there's little chance a shift to iOS technology will ever rebuild Marvel and DC's comics fortunes.

Labels: dc comics, marvel comics, sales, technology

An article in Vietnam News about a manga exhibition held at Hanoi's National Museum of Fine Arts, the first official one for Japanese manga in the country.

Here's also another article with several pictures from the museum.

Labels: Europe and Asia, exhibitions, manga and anime, museums

CBR has published another of Joe Quesada's foolish columns, where they draw from reader questions with Tom Brevoort serving as an answerman, at least in theory, but not really giving much insight at all. First, let's take a look what he said about crossovers:

Kiel Phegley; All right! All fan week! Let's get the ball rolling on the big macro Marvel level with Dog asking, "Why do smaller events like, say, Spider-Island and Schism, seem to get scheduled at the same time as bigger events such as Fear Itself? If I'm not mistaken, the same thing happened with Civil War and Annihilation. Might those smaller events draw away a few more dollars if they ran unopposed, so to speak? It's almost like the shadow of the "company-wide" event dooms them to sales mediocrity from the get-go. Conversely, couldn't having something to hook people in sell a few more books during the lean, winter months?"

Brevoort: From what we can tell, Dog, it doesn’t really make much of a difference in terms of sales -- readers are either interested in these stories or they aren’t, and they come out for them regardless of when they’re released. Part of the problem is that we’ve got so much stuff happening in the Marvel Universe at any one time that it’s impossible to not have any overlap. (We certainly don’t want to have huge swaths of time where nothing interesting or important is happening in titles not in the center of a crossover, as they wait for their turn in the spotlight.) But we do this both ways -- "Shadowland," for example, was released without any immediate competition. Thing is, there are only so many months in the year to work with, you know?

Yawn. If recent sales are any indication, they're coming out for them less and less, as the stories have become meaningless, and that's not very respectable of him to treat the audience like they're mindless zombies. He also fails to realize that it's quite possible to have so much going on in the MCU without crossing it over so forcibly with other books. The man's clearly forgotten what it meant to write self-contained stories.

Now, here's where Brevoort provides a lame answer to another writer's question on issues involving sex and violence as depicted today:

Finally, while I know there's sometimes just different standards that different people bring to their entertainment, I thought this long question from EarthOneComics was so polite and well-spoken even though it's a tricky subject for many. He said: "My questions are about the content of your various A rated titles. To give a bit of context, it seems to me that in that last decade or two comics have been infused with a greater degree of violence and sexuality. The amount of blood shed in any given injury seems to be in excess of the actual damage the wound would cause - an example being Spider-Man fighting the Thunderbolts in the New Ways To Die arc. Compare that to the Uncanny issues of Mutant Massacre, a story you would expect to contain lots of bloodshed, and you see a vast difference in terms of what is seen on panel. With regards to sexuality, in some ways I will admit what is portrayed in the books is in line with other forms of media, but sometimes the costumes can be a little too revealing. The occasional use of outright (though shadowed) nudity also strikes me as odd as it never seems to serve the story in anyway - in particular Brian Bendis has done this twice in Avengers. As a devout Christian and a young father it’s unnerving to see what’s out there some weeks and I adjust my purchases accordingly as best I can. I thoroughly enjoy the books I buy and it pains me to have to skip out on some of my favourite characters' stories, but at the end of the day I have to do what's best for me and more importantly my son. I want to know how Marvel decides what's acceptable content in it's books. How are these allowances improving the stories? I get that creative types need to be able to express themselves but it seems to me that MAX and Icon are more suited to liberal amounts of violence or sexuality. If it’s really a comic for as many readers as possible, shouldn’t it try to appeal to the broadest sensibilites as well?"

Brevoort: I think it’s no surprise, EarthOne, that there’s been a greater permissibility in entertainment across all media over the 25 years since "The Mutant Massacre" saw print. For example, language is now allowed on basic cable channels that was considered a little shocking on pay stations in 1986. This is the world and the culture that we live in, and comics tend to keep pace with the larger trends in this regard.

He wasn't very clear here, but even today, language may still be weirdly taboo in Marvel's mainstream books, while violence, in sharp contrast, is still allowed in heavy doses, to the point of where it's leaked deep into the books that were once more family friendly, like Spider-Man and the Avengers. For example, there was that time when Tigra was beaten up by an invisible thug called the Hood. The violence was allowed, but profanity was censored, even in this later age.

Surprisingly, it's not new: although there was some mild profanity in Marvel and DC books published since the 1970s, back in the late 80s, when the Punisher began, there were some issues where profanity was censored yet the violence was allowed to remain. There was even a Black Panther story published in Marvel Comics Presents in 1988, "Panther's Quest" that featured quite a bit of bloodletting yet even there, profanity was not allowed, not even milder forms. Even though the stories were well done and the violence itself served the story plausibly enough, that the editors even at that time would do such a strange thing does take away from the full impact they could've had.

Even within a company like Marvel, there are numerous points of view on this subject, because it’s an issue that is very much subjective. Each person’s personal line for what is and is not acceptable is a little bit different -- and even that might depend on the circumstances. There have been occasions I’ve been privy to, for instance, where a particular editor or creator was against a depiction of violence in another person’s book, but was perfectly fine with doing the same kind of thing in their own book. That’s not hypocrisy, that’s a person making a judgment call based on his subjective reading of the context. I find that there is no absolute right-and-wrong definition that will make everybody happy when it comes to these kinds of questions.

Oh really? This is just as ambiguous, since what if the scenario's he's alluding to were if an editor/writer balked at depicting certain acts of violence within a series that's more family friendly, and it was in a more adult series like the Punisher that they didn't have a problem with it?

Now, here's where Brevoort really teeters into a laughable statement:

At Marvel, we’ve got broad guidelines about what we think is acceptable in all of our different titles, but we will adjudicate specific instances are acceptable or not. There’s a different yardstick we might use, for example, when dealing with "Amazing Spider-Man" and "Wolverine." But for the most part, we depend on our individual editors to use their own judgment when it comes to these matters, only involving people further up the chain of command, such as myself, Axel, Joe Q, Dan Buckley or Jim Sokolowski, in an instance where the decision could have a greater impact on our business, or might have ramifications beyond just publishing -- the greater the impact, the more people who might be consulted. And then we make the best call that we can.

Oh, they've got broad guidelines alright. Ones that make it acceptable to depict graphic gore in the X-Men and even that horrific scene in an issue of Spider-Man #526 where Morlun returns from nowhere and devours an eyeball, yet profanity still looks otherwise taboo. Why, there's even smoking that's taboo. When Joe Quesada took over as EIC, he immediately set around to banning the depiction of cigarette smoking, probably even if depicted negatively. So, no more humorous scenes of the Thing and She-Hulk smoking since that time. And when they published the awful Sins Past storyline, it was told that Quesada decreed Peter Parker never had sex with Gwen Stacy, because he says so, and apparently to make Gwen (and by extension Mary Jane Watson) look like a kind of baddie along with Norman Osborn.

In fact, these guidelines of theirs have increasingly shut out conservative viewpoints altogether, seeing how their current stable of writers like Matt Fraction resort to such awful assaults on conservative standings.

But make no mistake, one of the fundamental appeals of comics, and Marvel comics in particular, is the fact that they’re dangerous. They’re edgy. There’s an aura of the illicit to what we do that’s extremely attractive to our audience, and a necessary part of our appeal. Marvel Comics have always been dangerous and on the far edge of popular culture -- those Frank Miller "Daredevil" and "Wolverine" comics, for example, while they might seem a bit quaint by today’s standards, pushed the envelope when they first came out. We try not to do violence simply for the sake of violence and sexual material simply for the sake of sexual material, but in that same spirit, we’re likely going to be more permissive than some. The vast majority of our titles are rated at the T+ level or higher, which means that they’re aimed at a teenaged audience. And that audience is exposed to far greater amounts of violence and sexuality at an earlier age than anything you or I would have experience in our youth. Video games alone have redefined the standards for where the line is when addressing that audience. And it’s an audience that doesn’t want to feel talked down to, or that will accept a sanitized product. In a very real way, parents aren’t supposed to feel completely at ease with them -- that’s part of why kids like them!

After all these years and their degeneration into sleaze, that's really rich. What about all the violence and even gratuitous sexual relations in Ultimate X-Men? Violence and sex alone do not a good story make; it's how well they suit the story that does. And when Brevoort says their current output is aimed at teens, I'm afraid it's at those who don't care about good writing. Or, put another way, they're so juvenile, it's no wonder they no longer please anyone. Why, he's practically given teens a bad name, making it sound as though they have no sense of judgment.

So long as Brevoort remains with them, he too is a serious liability to Marvel. He may have once been decent enough, but today he's lost any talent he might've had, and is not helping Marvel one bit.

Once, Marvel was edgy and creative. Now, they're bankrupt.

Labels: bad editors, crossoverloading, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, violence

The Blaze posted this picture of what Bane, one of Batman's adversaries and the one who'd temporarily broken his back in the early 90s, will look like in the next movie installment for Batman, The Dark Knight Rises, where he's played by Tom Hardy.

In fact, it raises some interesting questions of whether Chuck Dixon, who came up with the supervillain at the time, will get any credit for his part in introducing this mammoth-sized strongman to the DCU and Batman's own world.

Labels: Batman, dc comics

IFanboy writes about why the announcements DC and Marvel make that some of their books have sold out and they're going to run reprints don't really mean anything. I've been aware of this myself for a while, because the announcements don't actually say how much was sold, and indeed, when you look at the sales charts, we see increasingly how they actually sold very measly sums less than 100,000.

In fact, there's something here that also gives a clue to why the market is so bad off:

The comic book direct market isn’t like a typical retail ecosystem, for many reasons. One of the major differences is the lack of returnability. The majority of periodicals sold in conventional outlets are returnable; and distributors and publishers have to accept that unsold inventory as it’s returned. The direct market, via its agreement with Diamond, is not allowed to return most comics. If a store owner orders 50 copies of a particular comic, and only sells 10 copies, the store owner is stuck with the 40 unsold copies. The publisher already got his money for the 50 copies, and has nothing left to worry about. As a result, store owners have to be VERY careful not to over-order, because they pre-pay for their inventory.

This is what happens when you've got virtually just one distribution service to deliver the books around. That's exactly why pamphlets are no longer a good way to publish comics, because Diamond has effectively monopolized the whole system to the point of corruption, yet the companies won't even make a serious effort to shift to a different format, because they really don't care about gaining new readers in better markets.

Labels: dc comics, marvel comics, sales

The LA Times Hero Complex site has published another article on the Action Comics #900 controversy by an AP Wire reporter. It's really not much different from others of its sort, but if there's anything that could be commented on here, it's this paragraph:

Which brings us back to “Action Comics” No. 900 and the Superman who, in that one short story buried deep in the book, balks at being pushed around by the White House. It’s easy to wonder: Would this Superman have helped the Navy SEALs who raided Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan earlier this month?

First, let's remember that Supes is a fictional character. The question is whether the writers and editors in charge at DC would be willing to write a story - preferably a fictionalized allusion to such real life events - where the Man of Steel aids the US army in battling jihadists? For now, the answer appears to be sadly, no. Even now, after the amazing victory against the al-Qaeda a few weeks ago, it does not appear DC and Marvel would be willing to capitalize on the potential of writing a metaphor inspired by these real life events where the superheroes make a serious effort to battle terrorists, who, depending on the setting, could even be armed with sci-fi weapons. The DC/Marvel staff holding the properties hostage in their grasp are so far to the left, they've made it near impossible to do something really inspiring with their excellent stable of superheroes.

Only by undergoing a considerable company makeover with a better owner included would it be possible to do any of this.

Labels: dc comics, politics, Superman

In this posting on IO9 about Aquaman, they say:

In celebration of Mermaid Day, we're paying tribute to Aquaman, the most marginalized superhero in history. Despite possessing fantastic ichthyosapien powers, Aquaman just doesn't get the love he deserves.

But neither do Elongated Man and the Silver Age Atom; they - and their spouses - are equally marginalized and still done zero favors by the company in charge. In fact, even Metamorpho and Black Lightning are pretty marginalized to boot. I don't suppose they'd be willing to consider them as well as the king of Atlantis?

Labels: Atom, dc comics

The sales charts were published for April, with solely Fear Itself selling over 100,000 copies. Everything else, however, sold well below that, and it's possible that Marvel's latest crossover will soon drop to those levels as well. And while the Thor movie is doing pretty well at the box office, the Thor comic sold less than 83,000 copies. Again, this is a sad example of how, even if a movie wins over the audience, it's not prompting them to buy the comics en masse.

Labels: sales

A much later article on the controversy of Superman giving up citizenship in Action Comics 900 has been published in the Nashua Telegraph. I thought I'd seen it all, but this one is really disgusting, as the writer really goes beyond the pale into a politicized bias:

It seems impossible to avoid the “Superman renounces citizenship” controversy, so let’s tackle it head on.

For those just coming in, the debate is born of an exchange in “Action Comics” No. 900 in a short story where Superman stands in Tehran for 24 hours (but otherwise takes no action) to show solidarity with pro-democracy demonstrators.

As I said before, that's just the problem: he takes NO action. He doesn't disarm the dictatorship's police, who would be very likely to fire upon the demonstrators after he was out of range when leaving the scene, and there's little to no chance they would actually accept that rose one protestor handed out, nor does he seek and destroy Iran's nuclear arsenal or other weapons. Nor in fact does he even free the political prisoners who've been victims of torture and rape in Iran's savage prison systems. And on top of all that, the story does not work well with reality, making it a classic case of poor timing.

When the Iranian government calls this an act of war by the United States, Superman tells a worried U.S. national security adviser that he’ll renounce his citizenship because he’s “tired of my actions being construed as instruments of U.S. policy.”

Aaaand cue the faux outrage, especially on the right of American politics.

I don’t mean to pick on Fox News, but they were braying the loudest. The story, titled “The Incident,” was condemned on “The O’Reilly Factor,” “Fox & Friends” and “Fox Nation,” where potential presidential candidate Mike Huckabee called it “disturbing.”

Umm, haven't you heard? Huckabee isn't running in the coming election. That aside, why are we supposed to care what a totalitarian regime's dictators think of the USA? Such nerve calling our anguish faux.

GOP activist Angie Meyer ranted on Fox that it showed “a blatant lack of patriotism,” that it “belittled” the United States and that it was an “eerie metaphor” for America’s apparently low (in her view) standing in the world.

Well I'm afraid that regardless of whether Superman is a US citizen, it's insulting that he should be giving up any status he's got, because the story structure makes it sound as though being an American is only an embarrassment. And by acting ashamed of being American, that only encourages the kind of negative sentiment any foreign foes of the US may harbor. The newspaper writer's attack on the right is also insulting.

While I’m glad the Man of Steel is still important enough to get that kind of coverage, I’m deflated that this non-story is the reason.

First, let’s put it in context. Superman’s remarks ran in a measly nine-page backup story in a 96-page issue. (By contrast, the lead story was 52 pages.) Plus, he only told us what he was going to do, not that he’d actually done it.

This is a minor story by any measure, and is likely nothing more than a setup.

Well it would have been a setup, had their not been as big a reaction as there was these past few weeks. But the backlash appears to have brought the company to decide to drop the story as is. Well, we certainly hope.

And the talk of a "non-story" is only dismissing the anger as trivial and saying the right is just full of it and making a fuss over nothing. All they're doing is claiming that stories insulting to being American are peanuts and nothing to be concerned about. But as the reaction shows, not so, and the public who feel disgusted have every right to be.

And that flaccid defense that Superman was merely telling what he intended to do? Well gee whiz, that's just the problem! If he gives his intentions, it's tantamount to actually carrying it out, and at the worst place possible! If it hadn't been for the backlash, chances are it would've happened.

In fact, the whole line sounds familiar, like a copy of this Reuters apologia:

In the comic, Superman never actually renounces his citizenship, he only talks about his plans to do that.

Seems like the Nashua Telegraph's writer was so bankrupted of his own apologia, he desperately ripped off another's. What a crock. He goes on to argue:

Second: history. Superman was deputized by every United Nations member back in the 1960s, and although the franchise has been rebooted once or twice since then, he has been regarded as more or less a citizen of the world for decades. [...] Besides, Clark Kent is still a U.S. citizen, and that’s who the Man of Steel really is; the guy in the circus suit is the disguise.

But as I'd said before, that only confirms just how silly and moot any issues concerning citizenship were to begin with! And at the same time, it risks making Clark Kent look hypocritical, as though the guy who's one and the same as Superman is disillusioned to the point where he'd theoretically forfeit his citizenship, yet keeps it nevertheless, not unlike a Chomskyite who hangs onto his citizenship even as he degrades the very country that gives him the right to criticize it.

And if Ahmedinejad didn't like Superman entering Iran before, there's no chance he will even after the Man of Steel gives up his unofficial citizenship. So which UN member, if any, won't be deputizing Supes any time soon?

Third: Trademarked characters rarely ever change. You can’t fundamentally alter a character such as Superman, or he’ll lose whatever made him popular in the first place. DC Comics even admits that.

“Superman … has long embraced American values,” co-publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee told The New York Post. “As a character and an icon, he embodies the best of the American way.”

In other words: Nothing will change.

Oh? They sure seem hell-bent on pushing through the dark-tinged visions they've been blatantly forcing upon the DCU even before Identity Crisis. For now, it can be said that, if it hadn't been for the backlash, it might very well have changed, and not for the better at all.

And even if he doesn't change, that's still no excuse for a writer and/or an editorial board forcing their political views onto a classic character that take all the flavor away.

Fourth: Money. Or, to put it another way, “Geez, it’s not like they killed him or anything.” Because, duh, they did! And the 1992 “Death of Superman” sold enough comics to fill up the Fortress of Solitude.

And just how does that make what they're doing any more appealing - or profitable - in the long-term? How is it even justified? How is it even an excuse for genuine character drama? What makes it better than a story where say, Supes tries to help drug addicts get back on their feet, or save an alien colony that's being menaced by an armada of space warmongers? If this were Clark and Lois' marriage we were talking about on the other hand, that's something worthy of writing for moneymaking. Killing for profit, however, most certainly isn't, definitely not when it becomes the nigh-norm.

Further, where was all this outrage when Captain America quit being Captain America? Because that has happened, too – twice.

As a matter of fact, there's plenty of people today who could argue that the Nomad story and even the one where Steve Rogers was briefly replaced with the guy who'd become USAgent were lousy ideas, but back when they were done, it's not like there was internet, nor did the press take the comics subject seriously enough to cover these things. And if they did, they'd likely favor it, if we know where they stand on the political field.

Here’s the lesson: Comics survive by telling new stories, not the same one over and over. Creators like to shake things up, even if it’s only temporary, even if it’s only the illusion of change.

Oh do tell us about it. If they really wanted to tell new stories, they'd bring up the history of WW1 and the Turkish slaughter of Armenians in the last days of the Ottoman empire. Or, they'd write a metaphor for cases of slave trade in Africa, and how some superheroes try to help save the infidels being oppressed in the Islamic world. Or, they'd write about the problems with left-wing hatred against conservatives. Or, they'd write about how today's worker unions are corrupt. Or, they'd write a story alluding to the UN's Oil-for-Food scandal. Where are stories like those? Without that kind of a balance, how are they supposed to survive? Again, what a crock. And he doesn't make things better when he says:

This is a story meant to sell comic books, not a denunciation of patriotism or whatever other kooky idea you hear from politicians and media talking heads – who, it must be noted, are also trying to sell you something.

Falling back on that classic argument that it's "just stories". Hardy-har-har. And all from yet another person who's trying to sell something as old as a rusty Edsel.

Finally, I have to say my favorite response to the furor is what some anonymous wag said on the Internet: “Oh, no! People who have never read Superman comics are threatening to never read Superman comics!”

Spot on. Not only is this just a story, it’s a story aimed at comic-book readers. Who, obviously, are a lot savvier about comic books than Mike Huckabee.

But that's actually clarifying the problem we face today: the companies aren't seeking new readers, nor are they trying to make their comics more welcoming to newbies, nor are they trying to make them tasteful. I guess he doesn't want nobody new to come aboard the DC/Marvel express and enjoy their classic superheroes and their supporting casts. That's why the threat of not reading their products is actually bad news in long-term, because it scuttles all chances of finding new people to try out their stuff and make money. Thus, the writer contradicts himself. Not to mention that it's just not so that every comics reader knows more than the average politician does from a political perspective. Let's also consider how small today's audience has become, and how many of them stopped reading comics because of foolhardy tactics like these.

And on top of all that, the newspaper writer has the sheer blatant nerve to deride the right for taking offense at a cynical, irresponsible story, no matter how short, that belittles the meaning of being American for the sake of political correctness.

Labels: dc comics, islam and jihad, msm propaganda, politics, Superman

Here's an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about special shows with superheroes put on for children following the tsunami in Japan, at Ishinomaki's Mangattan Museum for manga.

Labels: Europe and Asia, manga and anime, museums

Earlier, Action Comics #900 gave us that wretched short story of Superman ridiculously forfeiting his citizenship. Now, in Superman #711, we get a story where in the closing he actually speaks respectably of American ideals once again.

But does that exonerate DC for allowing David Goyer to inject his personal politics into the short story in Action Comics? Uh uh. At worst, Goyer's ill-advised tale makes Superman look like he's insane with a split personality. And, since the story in Action was just 8 or 9 pages, shoved into the back of the book, one could possibly argue that DC had something to hide.

These conflicting views applied to the protagonists may be fairly common in comics writing, but that doesn't mean it can't be avoided. If anything, if there's a certain vision the company wants to take, they have to make it clear and apply it to all renditions in all published stories. Better still, they have to start moving away from too many political injections.

(By the way, did I mention I was just writing up this post a day and a half ago, and while in the middle, I found that Blogger shut down all user options for their tiresome maintenance operation. Thus, I had to wait until now to get it done, and there was a bit of text that got lost in the process.)

Update: a little more on this at Hot Air.

Labels: dc comics, politics, Superman

Note: Blogger's interminable maintenence caused this post to revert to draft mode. I apologize if anything was lost.

USA Today's written about the Flashpoint crossover we didn't ask for, and continues to ask us to embrace the Flash simply because it's Barry Allen, not because his writing is any good (and as I've long concluded, it's not):

"He's not about a hundred guys who run fast," Johns explains. "He's not Green Lantern where Green Lantern is about this intergalactic space corps. The Flash's huge canvas is time. I've always said when I was redoing both these characters, it's time and space.

"Batman's the ultimate crime vigilante superhero. You will never ever top Batman, and for time travel and crossing all these different planes of reality, you'll never top the Flash. The Flash owns time."

Which is tantamount to elevating Barry Allen and any other speedsters to deity status. And how is anyone supposed to appreciate this if they're going to make him sound like he's an immortal?

Whoever is the central character ultimately shifts focus from event to event, according to DC co-publisher Dan DiDio, and Johns is always the go-to guy in the sense of understanding the full scope of the DC universe, the interactions and the subtleties of the relationships between characters.

"When you enter into creating a universe and changing some of those relationships and those dynamics," DiDio says, "he's the perfect guy because he understands what the status quo is and he's able to break that norm in order to deliver a world that's coming out of Flashpoint."

And predictably, they don't mention how Johns has made several efforts to rewrite the DCU's cast he controls in ways he alone sees fit.

At the same time, Flashpoint editor Eddie Berganza feels that Johns' penchant for putting a "laser focus" on what makes a certain character cool has helped Green Lantern and now the Flash rise from relative obscurity to a more mainstream prominence.

"Instead of dealing with all the little excess baggage that every character comes with, Geoff's biggest talent is to access what's important to some and what isn't," Berganza says. "It's what makes the best story on an emotional level: What do you get the most out of? It's not little trappings about how long the heroes have been around. They all have barnacles, and Geoff is really able to shed them off and get to the point and the heart of the character."

And they don't mention how Johns' specialty is more like throwing out what came before for the sake of PC-ness, seeing how he turned Barry's background dark and unpleasant. And if sales are any indication, I don't think Johns has elevated either Flash or Green Lantern to better recognition by a long shot.

Some of Johns' favorite scenes in Flashpoint aren't the big action sequences or large-scale reveals, but the moments between Flash and Batman when they first meet in the first issue, just because of the way Kubert does expressions. It is a story where both characters play important roles, especially emotionally, and Johns wanted to emphasize that.

Again, this emphasis just signals the problem with this crossover, since it tells how this will likely be a dark-tinged story. In fact, Johns did something vaguely similar in 2003 when he had Hal Jordan as the Spectre erase everyone's memory of Wally West as the Flash.

"The world's so big, you can get lost in it, but as long as I stuck to that, it was pretty refreshing," Johns says. "It's a pretty different story. 'Event' sometimes has bad connotations with it by fans just because they see it's going to be loud and a lot of characters thrown in and no emotional weight, but that's not what I wanted to do. We successfully pulled off an amalgamation of everything."

But what about the monetary cost? There's only so many titles being dragged into the mess, at least 16 minis involved, I don't think people are going to be pleased (just as I'm not pleased at having to rewrite this post all over again because of Blogger's mega-maintenance setbacks). With Batman as a leading focus here, the biggest problem could be more than just loudness - it could be the darkness coming in its wake.

Update: now, here's that CNN page I think I added here as well when I first wrote the post, but Blogger's massive maintenence operation wiped out that part of it. So again, what was I trying to comment on:

Taking decades of mythology in new directions might seem like a daunting task. But Bob Bretall, Mayo's co-host on the Comic Book Page podcast, said it's a balancing act that Johns performs well.

"He can retool a character or his/her history to make it more relevant to current readers without throwing away or disrespecting the work of previous creators."

Oh I don't think so. He made Barry and company's background darker and more unpleasant in Flash: Rebirth, recycling the overwrought premise he'd used for his new take on Zoom from 2003. That's hardly what I'd call respecting what previous generations worked on.

Labels: crossoverloading, dc comics, dreadful writers, Flash, msm propaganda, violence

I was quite bewildered at how long it took Blogger's staff to fix the technology they were working on yesterday, but what was really sad is how it all but wiped out one of my posts; it's still here in draft mode, and I'll try to repost it soon, but that was really sad that this had to happen, and they had to roll back the time settings in order to get their job done. Good grief.

Update: as this message on Google's help forum tells, clearly I wasn't the only victim of this weird reversion to draft effect. Thank goodness only one post and one draft actually suffered from this.

Update 2: a comment that was missing following the setback has been restored. Thank goodness!

Labels: technical matters

After all the controversies that came up previously, now it looks like NBC may not pick up the new WW series at all:

...the scuttlebutt on the street (via EW) says that Wonder Woman, after testing "mixed-to-negative" and receiving a public flogging for costume choice, is looking like a longshot to make the schedule.

All that controversy was for nothing?!? If they've already filmed a pilot episode, does that mean it'll only be viewable on YouTube in a few years, and even then might not be worth the effort? Good grief.

On the other hand, if there's something based on a comic that's actually been canceled, it's Human Target, based on the troubleshooting character of Christopher Chance (via Spoiler TV). As sad as that is, I think this recent take on the subject at Big Hollywood a few months ago could explain why it happened. I also wonder if the studio's jettisoning the official disguise gimmick Christopher Chance usually used in the comics was another contributing factor in the TV series' downfall. If one of the cleverest concepts is removed from the translation to live action, surely that doesn't take away the real potential for interest?

Update: Entertainment Weekly now confirms NBC has rejected the WW series altogether.

Labels: dc comics, Wonder Woman

USA Today writes about Chuck Dixon and IDW's relaunch of the GI Joe comics franchise, which has even won over some military personnel, who even gathered once at a comics store in Tampa for signings.

Labels: good writers, indie publishers

The Post-Journal of Jamestown, NY, has written about the controversy surrounding David Goyer's short story in Action Comics 900 too, but the results are pretty mixed:

Superman recently proclaimed that he is renouncing his U.S. citizenship. The comic character admitted in the historic Action Comics #900 that he is disenchanted by "Truth, justice and the American way." In one sense, it is understandable. The political body representing Americans hasn't been much interested in truth, goodness, or justice for a while. He (the embodiment of his creators) is disgusted with being an instrument of American policy which he thinks is evil, and he understandably chooses to withdraw. Another choice he could have made is to fight the crooks in Washington and the state capitals to reverse their abuses and return truth and justice to its rightful place. That could have served to highlight the dangerous path that America is on. He could have helped make the American way virtuous again by fighting to restore the central role of the rights to life, liberty and property, rights conspicuously absent or flaccid in most countries throughout the world, rights which made America different, the country of which he used to be proud.

Worst of all, his announcement includes a tacit belief in the moral superiority of the United Nations: "I intend to speak before the United Nations tomorrow and inform them that I am renouncing my US citizenship." The U. N. is the corrupt, socialistic parasite on the world population that the U.S. government is becoming to its own citizens. It is the blueprint for the very characteristics which Superman disdains about American policy makers. Thus, he is either ill-informed or he is dishonest (or rather, his creators at DC Comics are.)

First, that should be the scriptwriters in charge of his books. "Creators" is a tricky word, and should really just describe the 2 guys who came up with the Man of Steel back in 1938, Siegel and Shuster. Second, if there's anything about the above that hits bullseye, it's the acknowledgement of the UN's own corruption, and that includes allowing tyrannical regimes ruled even remotely by Islamofascism to maintain a membership in their assembly so long as they continue with their autocratic, barbaric methods, not to mention their continued indoctrination of anti-western sentiment in their educational curriculum.

That Superman has tired of being an instrument of government policy is a good thing. Instead of quitting the American people, however, he should have turned his attention to helping them in their struggle against the politicians who are stealing from the people and bankrupting the country. Someone needs get rid of the crooks and rein in the empire.

More specifically, the writers could have done this, for heaven's sake, but it's their unwillingness to confront their own liberal ideologies that prevents them from coming up with a story to that effect. Otherwise, we could probably have had a decent fictionalized story alluding to how Obama's healthcare mishmash is hurting the country.

And the article turns awkward with the following:

Though Americans should, it seems, quit their support of Superman, his quitting of the American way is actually a positive thing. Dependence of functioning adults on anyone is not healthy or positive, whether it is on superheroes or superpoliticians. Americans became a great people by being free, by being individuals, and by being responsible for themselves, rather than bellyaching that someone isn't fulfilling their every whim.

But independence, responsibility and self-reliance is the American way! Those are beliefs that many made an effort to develop over the past centuries until a lot of these ideas came to bear fruit. By using the kind of wording they do, they're undermining their own argument.

People immigrate to the United States because they see it as the land of opportunity. There was and still is opportunity for those who find a way to fill the needs and wants of others through voluntary exchange, but the politicians and bureaucrats all over this land make it ever more difficult to engage in that voluntary commerce between consenting, free people. Thus, they continually erode the very foundation of America's greatness and goodness, the American way. They are giving incentives to dependency rather than independence.

Immigration is a good thing if the new residents are productive and don't come here to live the easy life on someone else's dime. There is no place for people who take without giving something in return, whether they are descendants of the pilgrims or have arrived on American shores yesterday. America has, for quite some time, become infested with complainers, crying for some savior personality to coddle them and provide all of the things which they should be providing for themselves and their families. We are paying the price of this dependency with a stifling burden of taxes and regulations in place of the freedom to prosper and excel.

Superman, if you cannot stand up in manly character to defend what is great about the American way against the onslaughts of policy-makers, then we don't need you. The superhero mentality is why we are where we are today. We don't need superheroes. We need real, every-day people to be committed to virtue, to what is right, and to what is true and honest, in other words, the "American way". Dishonesty and dishonor are eroding that way. We all need to be our own superheroes, in our work, in our families, in our communities, and all throughout our lives. Superheroes don't whine. They don't give up. They say what they do and they do what they say. They try harder when they are down. They resist evil and tyranny. They inspire other people to be better and stronger. They do what is right, not what is expedient.

Americans, let go of Superman. We don't need him. Are you ready to be your own superheroes?

I don't think this is the way to bring about the argument. It's not Superman's fault but writers, as I've argued a gazillion times, who've brought the situation to where it is now, and the writer of this piece shouldn't be addressing the Man of Steel, but David Goyer and Dan DiDio, among others at DC who greenlighted it (and actually did earlier, but contradicts it with his later address to Superman). And they're the ones promoting and advocating this kind of mentality in their very medium.

What the writer should be saying, if anything, is that if DC - and Marvel - insist on continuing down this dismal path they've taken for many years now, then Americans shouldn't pay their hard earned money for a busload of useless books and spend it elsewhere. Better still, maybe they could suggest, as I myself have, buying out their book publishing arms and reshaping them into something more effective than they ever have been under Time Warner and more recently Disney.

In the end, the article is a very mixed bag. On the one hand, it does recognize that the UN's a corrupt outfit. On the other hand, it spends too much time alluding to Superman more than it does to confronting the writers who penned the story, and the editors who allowed it.

Labels: dc comics, politics, Superman

Some more mainstream press sources are adding their apologia to the issue of Superman's being forced by David Goyer to give up US citizenship, with the LeHigh Valley Express-Times being one of them. For example, the writer says:

I read comics all the time and have for almost all my life, and I find it strange to see so many people take a comic so seriously.

To see so many people upset by a statement from a fictional character is odd.

But to see someone obscuring that said fictional hero is being forced to utter the views of one or more real life scriptwriters who came up with those statements is downright insulting. Mainly because this was a story that involved real life topics like Iran's dictatorship, and putting aside for a moment the story's not making sense in the light of reality when they're still in power, what was really ridiculous was Superman's not dismantling their weapons, and not even taking away the firearms from the soldiers. If there's anyone who needs to be asked why they take a comic so seriously, it's the scriptwriters themselves.

I have to guess that none of these people have ever read a Superman comic, or it's been years since they have done so.

If they were regular readers, they would know Superman's home, the Fortress of Solitude, is in Antarctica, not the United States. He has no Social Security number, birth certificate or any other form of ID, so I'm not even sure he could be a citizen.

It's not like Superman carries a wallet in his tights.

Oh good grief. This is exactly the point even I've been trying to make, that a guy from another planet who keeps his civilian identity a secret is hardly considered a citizen in a sci-fi setting. And that's why it's ridiculous that he's even considering giving up citizenship, and at the UN assembly, no less, which is just what tells how the story was intended as a political statement. Even though it won't change the minds of any dictatorship like Iran's, and not even of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, which is why the story doesn't make any sense. And Iran and Venezuela are still allowed to keep a seat at the UN assembly too.

The writer then goes on to say:

Clark Kent, Superman's alter ego, however, is a U.S. citizen and a resident of Metropolis. But even Kent's citizenship is in question.

Sent from the planet Krypton as an infant, his planet of origin was kept secret.

He is an illegal alien, sort of the first Kryptonian anchor baby.

Jonathan and Martha Kent lied about his origin to get Clark a birth certificate and citizenship.

Not only should Clark Kent's citizenship be revoked, he should be deported off earth.

That is if you take a comic book story seriously.

Well then why even bring up the whole subject of citizenship to begin with? Besides, his own planet was destroyed, so he could surely claim refugee status, something that Koriand'r/Starfire of the destroyed planet Tamaran might just as well have. If we really had to take comics seriously, that is.

Another problem is that, even if Clark remains a citizen, it could still make him look absurdly hypocritical not unlike some Chomskyites who rail against the USA yet keep their citizenship and exploit the benefits of the country they live in. As a result, it's a pretty tasteless way to depict the Man of Steel even from a civilian perspective, because it makes it look as though Clark Kent's embracing the POV of leftists who blatantly tear down the country.

Read enough comics and you would see that stories where heroes turn away from their patriotic origins are common, but heroes always return to their roots.

The Justice League of America turned into the Justice League International and was later just the Justice League before returning back to its original name.

Even Marvel Comics "Captain America" resigned and went by Nomad but eventually went back to being Captain America. Later, he would resign again only to return again.

All changes in comics are temporary, and Superman's citizenship is the same.

Today, he is no longer an American citizen but a citizen of the world. But sooner or later, he'll be back to being red, white and blue.

Or will he? The sad thing is that even there, a problem may dwell: even if DC's editorial quietly drops the story, as they suggested following the backlash, they might still continue to mute all use of patriotism, and there's little chance they'll even publish a story with Superman taking on even fictionalized terrorists with sci-fi weaponry.

The Los Angeles Times has also written about this, and is pretty weak too, but here's where something very confusing and misleading comes up:

Now is when a really heroic task can be accomplished. President George W. Bush originally invaded Afghanistan because the Taliban refused to give up Bin Laden. So has the moment not come to withdraw all American forces from that country?

I am sure that Superman, along with the United Nations, would be delighted to proffer help in bringing the troops home. It would be wonderful to read of these exploits in the next issues dedicated to the Man of Steel, a story of how Obama and Superman — both with remote origins in Kansas, both despised as the "other" and alien — collaborated to create at least one small oasis of peace in a world that, alas, seems to be lacking truth and justice.

That would be a real homage to the many victims of the murderous Bin Laden.

What they fudge up here is that the US administration raided Afghanistan not just to smash bin Laden, but also in order to smash the Taliban and al Qaeda. It's not just Osama alone who's the menace, it's also his whole terror network, plus Islamofascism and jihad, the main code they go by. And by suggesting that Superman work together with Obama, isn't that politicizing the whole issue still some more?

And only one has origins in Kansas, the other grew up in Hawaii. Get your facts straight please.

The Tampa Tribune also wrote about this, and said:

As expected, fans went nuts after Superman made this decision, and their criticism grew even more vocal, seeing as it came just days after patriotism ratcheted up after the U.S. military's successful dispatching of Osama Bin Laden.

The timing of this whole thing stinks, especially when the nation is waving flags and a new spirit of patriotism is sweeping the land.

We have Americans pulling together and here's good old Superman trying to distance himself from the U.S.

As I figured before, yes, the timing makes it all the more awful.

But then they say:

My guess is that DC is trying to breathe life into a character who has been bland for quite awhile.

In case you didn't know, Superman comics have been in the doldrums lately, thanks to a much-maligned storyline that has the Man of Steel walking across the country and pretty much doing nothing but – as they used to say in the '60s – "finding himself."

Correction, the writing has been bland, right down to J. Michael Stracynski's own non-efforts; it's the stories that have been nothing. It increasingly irritates me whenever they fail to cite the writers/artists/editors, the real reason for any of these bad results, in effect letting them off the hook, which just goes to show how they're not as qualified as they may think they are for commenting on the subject if they won't give some in depth focus to what's wrong with JMS' writing, for example.

That this was written as a short story and then shoehorned in among several others in Action Comics 900 just shows how more cowardly the publishers are: if they couldn't market it as its own story, then they've only suggested they were trying to foist it shamelessly upon an audience they thought would be unsuspecting. As it stands now, the story sticks out like a sore thumb, and either most people won't want to buy the book based on its presence alone, or it won't have much retail value in the future as it's considered an embarrassment. And even if they don't follow up on the story as they originally hinted they would, damage has been done.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, msm propaganda, politics, Superman

New York Magazine tells that after the Dark Knight, it appears superhero-based movies may be leaning towards brightness and optimism again.

Now if only we could say the same for what goes on back in the comics themselves.

Labels: dc comics, marvel comics

The AP Wire is paying lip service to DC Comics over their newest money-swindler and Age of Apocalypse ripoff, Flashpoint. And they tell that:

Many of the superheroes will be unlike what most people know of them, including Batman, Aquaman and Wonder Woman, the latter now apparently the ruler of not Themiscyra, but Europe! Batman? He’s running a casino. Aquaman has sunk an entire continent.

In other words, Aquaman is this close to being turned into a villain himself, is he? Even if not, this is just too far to go.

Johns, DC’s chief creative officer and architect of the recent "Blackest Night" epic that gave new energy to Green Lantern, called "Flashpoint" unlike anything he’s done.

"Sometimes I do small series, like ’Adventure Comics’ with Superboy, and sometimes I do things like ’Blackest Night,’" he said in an interview. "And this, for me, is a perfect amalgamation of both in that it has a real heart to it and an emotional story at its core."

"Flashpoint," Johns said, "has a real heart to it and an emotional story at the core. It’s really about Flash and Batman and that relationship, but with a backdrop that is really strong for a Flash story and encompasses the whole DC Universe."

The telling that this involves Flash and Batman's relations actually signals what's likely to be the biggest thing wrong with this crossover: it veers far too much to the dark side.

And why is Johns saying this is unlike anything else he's done? He was involved in crossovers ever since 2001, when Our Worlds at War went to press. And try as he may, he's certainly not convincing me this has any heart to it, seeing what the bulk of his past work has been like. (I wonder why that line about hearts and cores was repeated twice? Is he that desperate?)

"Why is The Flash more compelling than all these other heroes you’re bombarded with and why does he deserve to be up there among the greats?" Johns said. "That’s my goal with the book."

Yeah right. His goal is merely to try and convince people based on name recognition alone that this is great. To say something like, "hey everybody, this is the Silver Age Flash, Barry Allen! Isn't he great? Isn't he?" Turning him into a deity is no way to pay respect to a character.

Update: USA Today is also paying sugarcoated lip service to DC's wrecking crew, and tells the following:

For DC, an event series such as Flashpoint is important for the company both financially and creatively.

"Naturally, everything we're trying to do is to sell as many comics as possible because that's the business we're in," DiDio says. "Creatively what it does is it gives us a chance to freshen the pot and think of something. We're telling continuous fiction, so it's important for us to continue moving on in that fashion."

Very funny. Even if they refrain from jacking the prices up to 4 dollars, trying to get people to buy only so many books they may find a waste is no way to run a business. Even now, fewer people are buying, and they're not being creative or continuous, since they ruined their continuity for more than a decade now.

Labels: crossoverloading, dc comics, dreadful writers, Flash, msm propaganda

I just noticed it several minutes ago, but according to The Blaze, DC may be reconsidering their stupid mistake, and they note how:

That story sparked reactions, both positive and negative, all across America. It is fair to say that the overwhelming sentiment was against Superman losing his faith in America.

And they provide the following statement by Dave Dorman, who said:

“I find it very hard to believe that DC Comics has chosen to take Superman–the first and greatest of America’s super heroes and a cultural icon for many generations–and molded him into a piece of political propaganda for this current climate of socialism and world unity. For generations, Superman has stood as a role model for both children and adults, giving them pride in America with his values of ‘Truth, Justice and the American Way.’ Unfortunately, DC Comics has chosen to corrupt that role model, bending it to America‘s current path of failure with 'Mistruth, Social Justice and a One World Order.' In this day when Barack Obama calls the United States ’unexceptional,‘ it saddens me that DC Comics and their Superman creative team couldn’t have restored this true American role model and given kids in America the faith that our great country truly is still exceptional. With one comic, they’ve castrated Superman and hastily thrown away more than 80 years of his patriotic legacy.”

Vinnie Penn, who did some of the artwork for one of his books and worked with Glenn Beck (who owns the Blaze domain) also chimed in:

‘I knew we were in trouble with the last Superman movie, when they removed the ‘American way’ part from Jor-El‘s ’Truth, Justice, and…’ bit. The American way was deemed a scary concept apparently by a studio exec, no doubt the same one who OK‘d the upcoming 'Captain America' film to be relased as 'The First Avenger' overseas, so as not to scare off overseas movie fans. Who, someone seems to think, do not like the word ‘America.’ According to the suit-and-tie guys in the entertainment biz anyway.’

He just made one typo: Jor-El is the late father; Kal-El is Superman's Kryptonian name.

As they tell here, sources at DC have told the company is now rethinking its plans. Let's hope so. The best way, I think, is to just quietly drop the story and not mention it again.

Maybe this could even be the beginning of DC starting to reverse their position on a lot of other grave mistakes they've been making since 2004, and even earlier.

Labels: dc comics, politics, Superman

Following the great news of the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan after a decade of searching, Newsarama has asked if Superman's renouncing USA citizenship is a case of bad timing. An excellent question indeed. It is ironic that, following the execution of a mass murder mastermind, Superman would be depicted doing something contrary to America's celebration of a victory over evil. And why do I get the feeling that neither Marvel nor DC will follow up on this with a fictionalized story where superheroes join celebrations of triumphing over terrorism?

They also asked several writers for their take on the issue, and B. Clay Moore's reply, if any, is really insulting:

B. Clay Moore: I've always thought it was a little silly that Superman would adhere to "the American way" in a modern context, so his status as a citizen of the world makes perfect sense. That's not a knock on the United States, I just think it's just a more logical, inclusive perspective.

And I'm not sure I understand the implication in the second part of the question. Does the killing of bin Laden somehow make the United States superior to the rest of the world? I would hope bin Laden's death doesn't translate into new waves of jingoism and xenophobia. Job well done, yes. But there's a global perspective at play here, too.

Ecch, does that stink. It doesn't make the USA superior to the rest of the world, it makes them superior to terrorists who would do harm to America. It sends a message to evildoers that if they strike, they will pay through the nose. And that's something many other democracies around the globe should try and emulate as well if they want to help make this a safer world. And attacking patriots by calling them jingoists and xenophobes, is he? The shame.

Chuck Dixon's reply is better:

Chuck Dixon: The expression of personal politics has no place in mainstream superhero comic books.

I guess not. Certainly not if they're going to be that blatant.

Brian Reed's reply is pretty good too:

Brian Reed: I admit I haven't yet read the story, but I don't see how Superman ever had an American citizenship anyway. Secret identity, public acknowledgement he's from another planet -- did he take the citizenship test and I missed it? I'm not huge on my DC continuity. Now, Clark Kent, sure, but unless Supes is outing himself, it all seems pretty much beside the point which country he considers himself a member of. Unless he's looking to get hit for back taxes.

Which just proves how pointless this whole story was to begin with. If he's not considered a citizen in his Superman guise, he doesn't even have anything to renounce. It only reinforces what a farce this story really is.

Update: Screen Rant wrote about this too, and if there's anything else in this story that's absurd and trivializing, it's the following picture:
Now does anyone really think this would pass muster in real life? Not only is it a moral equation, it trivializes the seriousness of the issue, and insults the protestors; why would they want to award a gift to a jihad-supporting robot who'd be more likely to gun them down? To give a rose would surely be giving one to Ahmedinejad too by extension, since that's whom the riot soldiers are working for. And if Supes was bragging about this, it seems rather poor for his characterization to do so (as far as I know, in Japan, they consider bragging a foolish thing to do). The writer does make a good argument with the following:

After reading this story, my primary thought is this: Comic books creators just need to stop shoehorning real events into their comic books in an effort to make them more “important” like the “real world.” It’s rarely, if ever, done in any interesting or satisfying way and it almost always trivializes the events themselves. I’m reminded of the time Doctor Doom shed tears at Ground Zero after 9/11

Well said. They also need to stop writing tasteless metaphors for real life events, like Identity Crisis, which are just as insulting as the story in Action Comics is.

Update 2: the New York Post had some good news to deliver while talking about this: the cartoon based on the 99 comic from Kuwait that was going to air on the Hub will apparently not:

...a TV cartoon of "The 99" -- whose mission was "to instill old-fashioned Islamic values in Christian, Jewish and atheist children," wrote a Times of London columnist -- was scheduled to appear on The Hub (formerly Discovery Kids) last October. After I wrote about it, the show was pushed back to January.

Now "no decision's been made about airing the show," a Hub spokesman told me. "It won't be this year."

Score one for justice.

We must certainly hope they won't ever think about wasting anyone's time airing that cartoon again. What this tells is that concerned parents can make a difference. Americans, as I've known for awhile, don't like being lectured about what to think or believe, and if this comic/cartoon comes within even miles of lecturing, and especially painting a dishonest and superficial portrait of Islam itself, then parents have every right to object to the possibility that their children could be subject to such propaganda. Thank goodness justice has prevailed on this particular case, for now.

Labels: dc comics, good writers, islam and jihad, moonbat writers, politics, Superman, terrorism

Almost a week after the insulting Superman story went to press in Action Comics #900, where the Man of Steel says he wants to give up his US citizenship he doesn't literally have, Comics Alliance, which seemed pretty content with the approach, has now started apologizing some more for the dopey excuse for a story:

The number one misunderstanding that pundits have had about this story is that it represents an insult to or rejection of America and its values, not as a decision to step back from American politics and foreign policy, as Superman more clearly indicates in the comic. Some of you may remember when Captain America stepped back from his patriotic identity in the '70s after becoming disillusioned with the country; that is distinctly not what is happening here. There is no disillusionment, no repudiation of "The American Way" -- a phrase, by the way, that was not initially associated with Superman, and only appeared after America became involved in World War II.

Pardon me, but I don't think there's any misunderstanding here - Superman went to Iran and left without actually destroying the dictatorship's weaponry infrastructure, and worse, they had to publish this story to begin with when it still doesn't make sense in light of reality. And please stop using the American Way phrase's exact time of introduction as an excuse for defending this nonsense. It may not have begun with it, but worked well for the comics when they added it.

And, maybe they don't consider the picture above, but why is Superman apologizing to the national security adviser? Real life aside, the only thing he - or more specifically, the writer - needs to apologize for is that he didn't shut down Iran's dictatorship or even their nuclear research, or that the story was even published to begin with. And he doesn't need to renounce citizenship in order to make clear he's not working for the US government. Certainly not at the UN, where Iran happens to maintain an undeserved presence and isn't likely to change their opinion of him anyway.

It's also worth noting that while Superman may be symbolically renouncing his national identity, Clark Kent is another matter entirely, and there's absolutely no reason to think that the Daily Planet reporter's citizenship will change in any way. One of the most fundamental tropes of superheroes is the concept that they have a civilian identity, and when they step into their superhero role, they conceal aspects of that personal identity in order to protect themselves and the people around them from the repercussions of their superheroic actions. In a sense, this is exactly what Superman is doing: removing his American identity from his "professional" identity because he is unwilling to compromise U.S. foreign policy or jeopardize the safety of the American people.

What? His actions endanger the American nation? And here I thought he was in the superhero business in order to protect America's citizens. Doesn't that kind of argument contradict the whole purpose of why superheroes even exist in their fictional worlds and risk blaming only the good guys? Back in WW2, Americans were told that they too need to contribute if we're to defeat evil empires. If neither Superman nor other heroes can act, all because they're scared of being construed as government tools and other absurdities, then what's the point in having superheroes at all? Or even private security companies? And what's the point of fighting supervillains?

And another point is that in his Superman guise, it's silly to even bring up whether superheroes with secret IDs are US citizens per se.

As a country, America has struggled again and again with whether or not to intercede in international conflicts and crises, and many times that decision hinges largely on the issues of politics and resources. Regardless of whether or not involving ourselves is the "right thing to do," we must worry about how it could jeopardize us in a larger sense, the political or even economic fallout it could create, and the money, resources, and indeed, American lives it could cost.

What about the lives of innocent foreigners? They don't count? Are we supposed to just sit on our butts while defenseless people in tyrannical regimes have their lives ruined and obliterated? Oh my god. If this kind of blabber was allowed to reign during WW1 and WW2, they would never have been won and Europe would be a wasteland. Of course it's bad if American lives are lost, but if the enemies aren't defeated, sooner or later, the menace will reach us on our shores, and the price will be much higher. Consider Iran's nuclear menace, for example.

Also, freedom has a price, but weakness has a much greater one.

As an idealized, nigh-omnipotent superhuman, Superman has none of those limitations, and now, by leaving behind his national affiliation, he has even fewer. It costs him nothing to fly across the world, nothing to throw a hundred tanks into space, and and he cannot be harmed by bullets or Kim Jong-Il shaking his fist in the air. So ultimately the question becomes, why would he do less to help fight injustice across the world, when he could do more?

Gimme a break. Are you saying he cannot do more as an American? As Clark Kent, he's got citizenship, but as Superman, these matters are moot. I suppose Black Canary, who largely dropped her own secret ID years ago, should cast away her own US citizenship too in order to make a difference? No superhero has to do that in order to fight injustice, and neither the American born members of The Outsiders nor the foreign born ones gave up their citizenships during the mid-80s. This is exactly why sometimes, it just doesn't pay to put politics in superhero comics.

Another something to ponder is what would the American public think if they saw Superman renouncing his citizenship at the very political assembly that's supporting countries hostile to the USA? Isn't it possible they could be insulted, and less enthusiastic to have him around? This certainly is the effect the story is having in real life.

This decision is a reflection of the fact that those quintessential American ideals of truth, freedom, and justice -- the core of Superman's character -- are much more important to him than the often ugly and compromising business of politics, and that his defense of those principles does not stop suddenly at man-made borders. Although his values have been fundamentally shaped by his American upbringing, he is not blind to the suffering of those who were not lucky enough to be born within American borders, as he was not.

Ultimately, and quite inspirationally, Superman is saying that his need to defend that sense of morality and justice, and do it in a way that doesn't damage or endanger the country he loves, is more important than whatever people might say about him in the polarized world of politics or the court of public opinion, either in his world or our own.

But there's a problem with this argument - by apologizing over getting involved in solidarity with a people coping with a dictatorship, and then renouncing citizenship at the United Nations, which isn't exactly doing anything to condemn Ahmedinejad's monstrosities, Superman is adhering to the ugly and compromising business of politics, by making it look as though he considers the UN better than the American government, when it's not.

And maybe they don't realize, but they just hinted at the aforementioned question of what the American public would think of Superman if he even remotely implied he was rejecting them? In real life, some would probably say he's being truly ridiculous to base his misgivings on what one administration half the nation may not even agree with is doing (or not). And in real life, it's clear that now, many are disappointed with David Goyer for writing something so stupid. Even outside the USA, it's possible there'll be some coming away unimpressed with this sloppy story, which Comics Alliance has the gall to call "inspirational", hinting at just how biased they are in its favor.

But I guess we can't expect much from a site owned by AOL, which has done some pretty horrid things themselves.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, politics, Superman

Let's take a look now at something that may have been overlooked, that being the subtle allusion to the Ground Zero mosque controversy in Fear Itself #1. Spider-Man Crawl Space reviewed it, and was unimpressed, but really galling is the riot breaking out between both the opposition and the apologists for the mosque, which, though not mentioned directly, is obviously what Matt Fraction is hinting at. And:

While Fraction’s word usage was distracting from time to time, there was nothing that drew me out of the comic more than the not-so-subtle allusions to real world troubles. The protests that took place in Lower Manhatten harken back to the turmoil over a mosque being built near Ground Zero. The interjection of a depressed man having to move his family from Broxton because he lost his house and job was a bit much as well. Why were the Avengers so shocked to learn that a riot could be induced by normal people without the nudging of a super villain? Is Steve Rogers just delusional from being hit in the head by a brick during the riot?

Yep, he gets struck with a red rock here, and receives a bloody forehead. Even if it wasn't the opposition to the mosque that threw it, the whole riot subplot is still ludicrous and another serious detractor for this story. And isn't that interesting how, in a book where a deity may be causing a scare, the riot between sides over the unnamed subject wasn't caused by his superpower? But even if it were, it'd still be pretty awful. Mainly because of how they depict the opposition to the mosque going ape and then using a moral equivalent - the pro-mosque demonstrators do too - to cover their tracks. A very cunning weapon of deceit.

Labels: dreadful writers, islam and jihad, marvel comics, moonbat writers, politics