Kurt Busiek and Gail Simone actually complain about lack of civilian cast members in modern superhero comics
This is all very true and I've been known to gripe about it many, many times over the years. https://t.co/uelm0hkD33
— Kurt Busiek (@KurtBusiek) March 6, 2023
Well in that case, how come he continued to "go with the flow", and had no issues with getting rid of one of the most significant civilian co-stars in comicdom, Mary Jane Watson, from Spider-Man's main cast? Point: many of the writers and artists who may be complaining about mainstream decadence now did almost nothing to turn around a dire situation even then. Here's another post:I'd say so. But "bystanders" and "supporting cast" aren't the same thing.
— Kurt Busiek (@KurtBusiek) March 6, 2023
And maybe that's the problem. Busiek conceived some special guest characters, but did he make a serious effort in the 90s to develop civilian co-stars, or recurring cast members, that could have a long ranging impact? Not from what I can recall, and he certainly didn't complain, as Chuck Dixon may have, if Marvel/DC got rid of characters he'd worked hard to create. That said, if memory serves, the characters Dixon spoke of losing to bad editorial mandates were villains seen in Nightwing, which isn't exactly the same thing, and it's worse if the editors banish honest and law-abiding characters than crooked ones, or easily worse, turn the goodies into baddies in the worst ways.Yeah, but as noted elsethread, that's not about a supporting cast, which is what Gail's talking about.
— Kurt Busiek (@KurtBusiek) March 6, 2023
But -- but -- but --
— Kurt Busiek (@KurtBusiek) March 7, 2023
Gail's not talking about special projects that turn a background character into a lead. She's talking about characters IN THE BOOKS THEMSELVES. I don't get how everyone's so clearly missing this.
Phil Sheldon isn't a supporting character, he's the lead...
Noticing he mentions Harry Osborn, one must wonder what he thought of One More Day's illogically bringing Harry back to the living world after he'd originally been portrayed dying in 1993 (more recently, OMD was retconned away as yet another android/clone idea, and even then, it was all spoiled by coming at Harry's expense), even as Gwen Stacy of Earth 616 continued to rot in the grave. Even before that, when J. Michael Straczynski was writing Spider-Man, he made very little use of Spidey's supporting cast, if at all, save for Mary Jane and aunt May, and that's but one example of how, since the turn of the century, mainstream superhero comics were becoming increasingly mediocre.When @GailSimone talked about Aunt May, MJ and Harry, she wasn't saying they should be lead characters, but that they bring something valuable to the Spider-Man books as secondary characters.
— Kurt Busiek (@KurtBusiek) March 7, 2023
As part of those series' casts, performing a role in books where the hero is the lead.
Yet he dislikes Mary Jane, a character whom Stan Lee drew ideas for from his own wife Joan's career as a model, and I recall reading a sequel to Marvels from the late 2000s where any appearance by MJ was muted at worst. Busiek stopped the story in 1987, at a point that could be considered prior to Peter Parker and MJ's marriage, and it was in this story where Phil Sheldon passed away. So, Busiek apparently so disliked having Spidey in a marriage, he didn't want to explore any further potential in a nostalgia-based tale, and that's one of the most disappointing things about Busiek's approach. Mainly, that he'd rail against a fictional character instead of how she was written, or anything.I don't think readers need to understand the craft of it (though it's fun). I think all they really need to enjoy supporting casts in comics is for writers and artists to use them. It's not the readers who have to be convinced, any more than they did in the 60s or 70s.
— Kurt Busiek (@KurtBusiek) March 7, 2023
Of course not. But again, Busiek must think Mary Jane Watson doesn't have to be in a marriage with Peter Parker, and IIRC, he's not in favor of the Superman/Lois Lane marriage either, so why is he lecturing us when he leaves out significant characters?Non-powered humans don’t have to be part of the battle scenes to be part of the stories.
— Kurt Busiek (@KurtBusiek) March 7, 2023
Here's some extra from Simone:
This is but one thing that led to the watering down of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew adventures since 1959. Besides the PC involved, they apparently thought too much character drama undermined the more action-oriented sequences. But IIRC, when Simone was writing Birds of Prey, she did little to develop any new supporting civilian characters, if at all. So what's her point, any more than Busiek's, if she didn't make a serious effort as a writer to bring more to the table?But I see it a lot in pitches and submissions from new writers and aspiring writers, artists too. Every pitch is Captain America fights Namor, and that is the entire story.
— Gail Simone 💙💛 (@GailSimone) March 6, 2023
Which is fun sometimes. But does it keep long-term interest?
3/
But, if she made no effort to pan Joe Quesada for dissolving the Spider-marriage and alienating the audience, what's the use of stressing this?For DECADES, much of the drama of Superman came from the cast of the Daily Planet. Spider-Man had his most devoted following when Aunt May and MJ and Harry were prominent. It gave context, it gave a reason for Spider-Man to care.
— Gail Simone 💙💛 (@GailSimone) March 6, 2023
5/
And I feel like the movie universes are following this same pattern, moving towards movies with fewer and fewer relatable, non-combatant characters.
— Gail Simone 💙💛 (@GailSimone) March 6, 2023
7/
Oh, she's upholding the Ant-Man sequel at the movies? A movie that's riddled with wokeness? Sorry to say, but that's doing little to improve a dire situation, since the way the movie's written stems from the kind of mindset that led to less co-stars. So this backhanded statement only dampens her argument.Spider-man becomes intrinsically hooked to Iron Man, replacing a lot of Uncle Ben's role.
— Gail Simone 💙💛 (@GailSimone) March 6, 2023
Where are the normal people reacting, in ways that we would react if our neighbor or friend became the Crimson Fork or whatever?
9/
This reminds me of a recent Flash storyline, where Linda Park West suddenly develops speed power of her own, not to mention Moira MacTaggart in the X-Men retconned into a mutant herself, which, again, makes the creations into more of a mockery, when they're changed into full-fledged super-doers themselves. They don't have to be turned into superhumans in order to take part in a battle, and canonizing the powers they now have is lazy.It gets a little muddy and there's less feeling of wonder.
— Gail Simone 💙💛 (@GailSimone) March 6, 2023
Speaking of Wonder, that movie did it right, it HAD Etta and Steve, the soldiers and others, and it made Wonder Woman look like a miracle. Take that away, it'd be a far lesser movie.
11/
Gee, this gives her whole argument a backhanded feel, when those "game-changing" stories she says she loves were a huge part of the problem.I do feel like fatigue might set in. For a while, every few months was some huge, game-changing event in superhero comics, and I love those stories.
— Gail Simone 💙💛 (@GailSimone) March 6, 2023
But overuse does bring fatigue.
12/
I also noticed another writer named Patrick Gerard respond with the following:
And even when they are these days, the trouble is that it's all kept very superficial and severely limited to just a few tropes: skin color and LGBT ideology. No serious effort is made to emphasize civilian co-stars and guests with Ukrainian ancestry, for example (so it's mystifying why some of the aforementioned writers are making use of Ukraine's flag symbols in their profiles). Mainstream publications are particularly damaged as a result of this PC approach to storytelling.I think as I said elsewhere in this thread that there can be a tendency to "elevate" background characters into heroes/villains. It's a trick that works sometimes but can be overplayed. If heroes aren't regularly interacting with normal people, the magic gets lost.
— Patrick Gerard 🇺🇦 (@PatrickGerard01) March 7, 2023
It's one thing for a professional writer/artist to complain about what's gone wrong with superhero comics. But if they did nothing to mend the situation at a time it might've counted, they're just as responsible for the downfall of the medium.
Labels: dc comics, history, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, Spider-Man, Superman, women of dc, women of marvel
