Ron Marz gives superficial interview on writing
It's been a while since I'd noticed any news about far-left comics writer Marz, but now, he's journeyed to India to attend Bengaluru's convention and was interviewed by The Hindu, where what's told is predictably at a superficial level, and offers nothing truly challenging:
And it wasn't Kyle who replaced Hal, but rather, more precisely, the editors like Kevin Dooley, who imposed a very bad mandate. The editors are primarily the ones who disappointed there, and attempts to appease the audience by turning Hal into a new Spectre didn't work either. If it hadn't been for the nasty way Hal was kicked to the curb, audiences might've been okay with a successor. But because Hal was forcibly turned into a villain, compounding some of the worst storytelling that came after GL's 2nd volume was cancelled in mid-1988, and the damage compounded by the incredibly crass way it was done, that's why the audience in the long run didn't warm to Kyle, though they shouldn't have "projected" upon the fictional character. What they should've done was campaign for the guilty editors to resign, and boycott the 3rd GL volume, which now stands tainted by the disgraced Gerard Jones, who did a very poor job that the editors only took advantage of for the sake of forcing their sloppy directions upon the GL series.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the other controversy unmentioned here is how Kyle's original girlfriend, Alexandra deWitt, was only created to be killed after several issues, in the now notorious "fridging" scene where Major Force throttled and then stuffed her lifeless body in the icebox. And then the unfunny farce was compounded by not giving Kyle another "civilian" girlfriend, but rather, 2 different superpowered girlfriends, Donna Troy and later Jade. If that's all they would allow, what creativity are they actually achieving? Such editorial mandates and restrictions have only brought down creativity for mainstream superhero fare many years ago. And why is it okay to upset the audience? That kind of thinking practically brought down Star Trek too, recalling writer Michael Chabon said he wanted to do something like that when he was working as a producer on a sequel to The Next Generation, titled Picard. That's not how you win over an audience and gain their confidence. In fact, it's quite alienating.
Interesting he implies he's not enchanted with the DEI propaganda that became a sad staple of entertainment in the past decade, which I'm guessing is what he means by placation. He may not have actually done this himself when he was writing GL and even Silver Surfer, but recalling his successor, Judd Winick, might've done something like that (establishing Kyle was half-Mexican), something tells me Marz might've also been willing to do that if he'd wanted to conceive a PC shield like what was seen in the past 2 decades at Marvel/DC, with the diversity-casting farces.
And DC/Marvel's continuities are now in tatters, which he doesn't acknowledge. In any event, if they wanted to, they could surely change the publication format to a whole paperback/hardcover format, but apparently, that would only scuttle their ability to concoct busloads of crossovers, which they can't let go of, even though what began with Secret Wars and Crisis on Infinite Earths destroyed mainstream comics in the long run. Marz, of course, participated in some of these crossovers himself, and clearly doesn't regret his part in bringing down the quality of storytelling in mainstream, so what does he think he's achieving here anyway? Comics writers in India would do well to be wary of what he's talking about, including the part where he takes a casual view of the pamphlet format that's now very outdated.
“I try to tell a story that I would be interested in reading. While writing a character, I try not to worry about the audience too much. I try to make sure I am my first audience because I know my taste, the kind of stuff that I want to read and the kind of stories I want to experience,” says Ron.A story that he would be interested in reading? What about the audience? Some stuff he wrote in the past may have found an audience, but in the long run, his GL series starring Kyle Rayner was far from a huge seller. What he could've said was that he hopes the audience will find the story he tells appealing. And that wasn't the case with his GL writing, if anything. Maybe not with his Silver Surfer writing either.
Ron is widely known for introducing the character Kyle Rayner for Green Lantern #48 (1994) as part of the Emerald Twilight storyline (DC Comics). While Kyle is known as the relatable hero, he also sparked controversy for replacing Hal Jordan as the Green Lantern. Ron took us through the process of creating this iconic character. “When DC contacted me for this, I took it as a challenge where I knew I was going to upset a lot of people. So, when Darryl Banks (the artist) and I designed Kyle, we aimed to make a Green Lantern unlike any other Green Lanterns from the past.”Oh, please. Pilots aren't "ordinary" people? I can't buy that. Not to mention that the whole notion they couldn't tell the kind of story with Hal that Marz claims to have done with Kyle is also laughable. Despite what Marz claims, Rayner had little personality applied to him, and the attempts to create drama were very weak. I once found strong hints from a Chuck Dixon forum that there were other people who also thought Kyle was a very superficially written character, and I noticed there were at least a few times in comics from the 90s where Kyle was written as annoying his JLA partners, or even telling a dreadful joke that made the Martian Manhunter angry in the pages of Impulse. I'm sure there were at least a few more. From those examples, it was clear even some of the other writers and artists working for DC at the time were not fond of the character, even though, as a fictional character, it wasn't his fault for what happened to Hal during Zero Hour, the loathsome crossover from 1994 that Dan Jurgens and company still won't apologize for. By the way, how come no mention of the poorly designed crab-mask Kyle wore at the time?
Unlike Hal Jordan who was a former military test pilot, Kyle was written as an ordinary everyday person — he is a freelance artist living in Los Angeles. “As a child, I was a big Spiderman fan, what appealed to me about him was how he was an ordinary guy who had to also think about paying his rent or getting a date for Saturday night. This is what made us all root for Peter Parker outside the costume.”
“That is exactly how I wanted to create Kyle; I wanted the audience to be engaged in his overall life and not just the superhero stuff.”
And it wasn't Kyle who replaced Hal, but rather, more precisely, the editors like Kevin Dooley, who imposed a very bad mandate. The editors are primarily the ones who disappointed there, and attempts to appease the audience by turning Hal into a new Spectre didn't work either. If it hadn't been for the nasty way Hal was kicked to the curb, audiences might've been okay with a successor. But because Hal was forcibly turned into a villain, compounding some of the worst storytelling that came after GL's 2nd volume was cancelled in mid-1988, and the damage compounded by the incredibly crass way it was done, that's why the audience in the long run didn't warm to Kyle, though they shouldn't have "projected" upon the fictional character. What they should've done was campaign for the guilty editors to resign, and boycott the 3rd GL volume, which now stands tainted by the disgraced Gerard Jones, who did a very poor job that the editors only took advantage of for the sake of forcing their sloppy directions upon the GL series.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the other controversy unmentioned here is how Kyle's original girlfriend, Alexandra deWitt, was only created to be killed after several issues, in the now notorious "fridging" scene where Major Force throttled and then stuffed her lifeless body in the icebox. And then the unfunny farce was compounded by not giving Kyle another "civilian" girlfriend, but rather, 2 different superpowered girlfriends, Donna Troy and later Jade. If that's all they would allow, what creativity are they actually achieving? Such editorial mandates and restrictions have only brought down creativity for mainstream superhero fare many years ago. And why is it okay to upset the audience? That kind of thinking practically brought down Star Trek too, recalling writer Michael Chabon said he wanted to do something like that when he was working as a producer on a sequel to The Next Generation, titled Picard. That's not how you win over an audience and gain their confidence. In fact, it's quite alienating.
While comic book characters have evolved over the years, so has the diversity that we see in comics today. Ron holds strong opinions about visualising Indian superheros in global franchises. “Comics should represent everybody and everything, we should have a vast array of comics by a vast array of creators, who bring their experience to it. I also hate when entertainment does this sort of checklist casting that doesn’t seem real and is done just for the sake of putting something out on a buffet table.”I think even this is a lapse in logic. I myself respond to writing and characterization that impresses and draws me into the story. And if there's any writing from Marz's resume that didn't in the end, it was his GL run. Who's he kidding anyway? Not to mention that "real" is also a PC belief being applied here. It depends what kind of story you're telling, and there is such a thing as surrealism in fiction, old and new. What matters is the entertainment merit, yet he remains unclear on that. And what was so integral about how Kyle replaced Hal?
“What should be the focus is making Indian characters, that are as real and integral to the story as possible, I feel readers or viewers respond to characters they care about. At the end of the day, the audience can tell if something is being offered to placate them.”
Interesting he implies he's not enchanted with the DEI propaganda that became a sad staple of entertainment in the past decade, which I'm guessing is what he means by placation. He may not have actually done this himself when he was writing GL and even Silver Surfer, but recalling his successor, Judd Winick, might've done something like that (establishing Kyle was half-Mexican), something tells me Marz might've also been willing to do that if he'd wanted to conceive a PC shield like what was seen in the past 2 decades at Marvel/DC, with the diversity-casting farces.
In an industry that is highly competitive and creative, artists are often plagued by a writer’s block. “That is an excuse to not do the work. Comics are creativity on demand. It is a monthly business in America. You have to be constantly producing. It was taught to me quite early on in this career that you don’t wait for the muse to strike; you sit down and do the work.”And this is little more than a justification for sticking by an outmoded business model of pamphlets instead of paperbacks. Besides, if he were serious about how to be a writer, he wouldn't have been spending so much time on X/Twitter writing leftist political rants.
For aspiring writers, “You have to force yourself to do it every day, even when you don’t feel like doing it, only then you keep getting better.”
And DC/Marvel's continuities are now in tatters, which he doesn't acknowledge. In any event, if they wanted to, they could surely change the publication format to a whole paperback/hardcover format, but apparently, that would only scuttle their ability to concoct busloads of crossovers, which they can't let go of, even though what began with Secret Wars and Crisis on Infinite Earths destroyed mainstream comics in the long run. Marz, of course, participated in some of these crossovers himself, and clearly doesn't regret his part in bringing down the quality of storytelling in mainstream, so what does he think he's achieving here anyway? Comics writers in India would do well to be wary of what he's talking about, including the part where he takes a casual view of the pamphlet format that's now very outdated.
Labels: bad editors, conventions, dc comics, Europe and Asia, golden calf of death, golden calf of villainy, Green Lantern, history, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, violence, women of dc
