Alexandra DeWitt's 1994 death in Green Lantern may have been retconned away

Superhero Hype lets know that DC, surprisingly enough, appears to have done one thing decent of recent, and that's abandoning the original premise used for setting up Kyle Rayner as the forced replacement for Hal Jordan during Emerald Twilight. More specifically, what originally became of his first girlfriend, Alexandra deWitt, who was repellently murdered by Major Force in 1994, when he throttled her and stuffed her corpse into a refridgerator:

The possible retcon came in “City of Angels,” by Jeremy Adams and V. Ken Marion. The story centers around Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, as he returns to Earth and his hometown of Los Angeles. Joining him is Odyssey the Time Bandit, who is assisting him in tracking fugitive aliens as part of her parole.

While stuck in traffic, Kyle begins to relate his life story and how he became a Green Lantern. He speaks of being raised by a single mother and how art was his only outlet. However, one key event of Kyle’s history goes unmentioned in his recollection.

While discussing his youth, Kyle mentions his first love, Alexandra “Alex” DeWitt. Kyle tells Odyssey of how his sketches of Alex got him a job as a comic book artist. However, Alex grew tired of supporting them both, as Kyle’s dream job didn’t pay well. She also disliked Kyle’s becoming a shut-in, as he stayed home to meet his deadlines instead of going out with her. Both issues led her to dump him.

What Green Lantern death did DC retcon?

In the new story, Kyle tries to impress Alex by showing up at her favorite club. However, this doesn’t work. She doesn’t believe he’s really changed his ways. However, this trip wound up changing Kyle’s life in another way. After the awkward artist stepped outside to get away from the crowds, he was entrusted with the last Green Lantern ring.

[...] Green Lantern #33/#600 seems to change this history. When Odyssey asks what happened next, Kyle does not mention Alex’s violent death. Indeed, he does not mention her at all. Instead, he talks about how becoming a Green Lantern taught him that “sometimes your dreams aren’t just one thing.”

If they really have produced a story retconning a cheap, obnoxious setup - one that was entirely unnecessary for "defining" Kyle - that is admittedly amazing, because it was uncalled for to begin with, one of the worst things the then editor Kevin Dooley oversaw (and also writer Ron Marz, and artist Darryl Banks), and most tellingly, what occurred going forward was held hostage to economy writing, since the only girlfriends they'd give Kyle at the time were Donna Troy, and then Jade. Editorial mandates of that sort never work out well, and that kind of approach is what otherwise brought down superhero comics, since in terms of character growth, they were written into a corner by that kind of character casting, which was increasingly forced. As a result, while this new approach is laudable, Kyle Rayner still doesn't stand as his own character, because he was the product of a mindset that, despite what might seem to be the case, demands that the reader care more about the costume than the character wearing it. Also note that much of the "characterization" Kyle received was contrived and forced, and despite what the apologists might claim, he bore no more personality in the scriptwriting than Hal Jordan allegedly lacked.

Also interesting about this possible retcon is that, as seen in the panel, Alexandra's drawn pretty hot, and the artist wasn't held hostage to the kind of wokeness that Donna Troy was subjected to of recent, and come to think of it, Starfire too. That said, this still doesn't excuse how Hal was forced into the role of a deadly villain back in the day, depicted murdering at least a few other GL Corps members, and then sent into the grave for a time, and later being shoehorned into the role of the Spectre, replacing Jim Corrigan. And that's just another example of how even classic cast members had their personal agency revoked by blatant editors and writers.

Does this mean Alexandra DeWitt will turn up alive later, in whatever they're planning for publication? I don't advise buying DC's modern output so long as they continue to be held hostage to far-left ideologues, but it will be interesting to see if current writers are trying to mend some mistakes as an apology to GL fandom. The premise of Emerald Twilight, along with the maltreatment of Hal in 1994's Zero Hour, will have to be jettisoned as well. Why, it might be more beneficial to rework Kyle and Alexandra into non-superhero cast members, and also non-costumed protagonists. Mainly because even Alexandra had no agency in the handful of issues where she appeared back then, when she served as nothing more than a plot device to be slain by Major Force just to serve as "motivation" for Kyle. There's a lot of things that went wrong with DC around the time of Zero Hour that writers involved with it won't admit, but aren't impossible to mend. And the best way to do that is simply to jettison some of the bad ideas from canon. If writers who care would like to hear what could be done, I'm always open to offering them ideas how to work things out.

Green Lantern in live action is now adapted by producer who despises the color

John Nolte at Breitbart addresses the subject of how a TV producer who apparently dislikes comics is in charge of a new show simply titled "Lanterns":

It has been revealed that HBO’s upcoming Green Lantern series is run by a guy who hates … green.

Executive producer Damon Lindelof (pictured) hates green so much that instead of calling the series by its legendary comic book name, Green Lanterns, he decided to call it … Lanterns. [...]

Lindelof has made no secret of his contempt for the color green. “It’s called Lanterns, because we all agreed that the ‘Green’ was stupid, so now it’s just Lanterns,” he said on a podcast.

Also, as you can see in the trailer, Lindelof’s Lanterns is a neo-Western, but in the comic books, the Green Lanterns are space cops.

Why?

Well, DC Studios co-chief James Gunn thinks that whole space concept is absurd. “It’s a very grounded, real show,” he said of Lanterns. “It’s taking this outlandish concept of space cops with magic rings and putting it in as close to reality as it can possibly be.”

Why does Hollywood continue to hand beloved franchises over to people who hate the franchise?

You could also ask why nobody cared about the abomination called Zero Hour that Hal Jordan was forced into over 3 decades ago, turned into a deadly villain for the sake of replacing him with a younger counterpart who was badly written and characterized at the time, that being Kyle Rayner. And things became worse even after Hal was resurrected, no thanks to Geoff Johns.

I wouldn't be shocked if the produers of this new Lanterns TV show didn't like Marvel's most surreal comics either, like Excalibur. "Grounded in reality" is exactly what's gone wrong, and become far too commonplace in how entertainment is crafted these days. Science fiction's been ruined by such hysteria. Nobody knows how to balance these things out at all.

I'll be staying far away from this new TV show, and this news is certainly telling as to what's wrong with filmmaker Gunn by extension. Which could explain why his takes on Guardians of the Galaxy won't age well, and why it's better to read the original comics instead.

Specialty store manager in Ventura County "contracted" to sell classic comics

The Ventura County Star tells about a man in the region who's making a living selling classics like the Action Comics premiere from 1938 "under contract":

The Ventura County comic book store owner sat in economy on a flight to Sarasota, Florida. In the backpack, sheathed in a hard-cased shell insulated by bubble wrap, was an original Action Comics No. 1. Heague is contracted to sell the 1938 comic book that features the first appearance of Superman and also marks the introduction of superheroes.

There are maybe 125 copies in the world. One in near-mint condition, once owned by and stolen from actor Nicolas Cage, sold at auction for $15 million in January.

Action No. 1 is not just a big deal. In the world Heague has been obsessed with since he bought Web of Spiderman and Green Lantern comic books at the age of 8, it is the biggest deal.

“It’s a unicorn. It’s such a rare thing,” Heague said. “What I have – the stores, my very existence – it wouldn’t exist without Action No. 1.”

Heague, the personable architect of a social media network that includes 22,000 Instagram followers and 9,000 on Facebook, owns Arsenal Comics & Games in Newbury Park and Ventura.

Four years ago, the Ventura native negotiated with Marvel for 6,000 copies of “Amazing Spiderman” to be published with a cover featuring the Ventura pier and the landmark two trees that once sat on a hill atop the city. It was his store's biggest-selling book ever.

He writes comics too in genres ranging from horror and superheroes to humor and romance. An Archies book he wrote with co-authors that include actor Patton Oswalt sits for sale in his stores.

With ties across the comic book industry, he's also developed a reputation for selling big-name books, like the publications that marked the first appearance of Spidermen, the X-Men and the Avengers.

A friend connected him to a man who lives outside of California and owns some of the most valuable comics in the world. The collection included an Action No. 1. The man was looking for someone to sell it for him.

Heague, 33, flew to the man’s home. They talked. Heague, who sells facsimiles of Action No. 1 for $9.99, held an original version of the comic book for the first time.

Just so insulting to the intellect how this is a big deal, but not the reprint archives of Superman's past publication history. Instead of talking all about what the Man of Steel was like in the past century, both good and bad, all they can discuss is owning back issues they'll never read, and keep in plastic "slabs" for ages on end. Even fascimiles are nothing to celebrate, seeing how expensive they are at nearly 10 dollars, and the money spent on those could also be reserved for printing more paperback/hardcover archives too.

I'm also not impressed that the merchant went out of his way to arrange for variant covers of Spider-Man boasting the sight of a Ventura location, but wouldn't negotiate for wall paintings that could feature the same scenario to sell at his store. No doubt, the guy doesn't see any problems with increasingly expensive pamphlets either, and if not, that's another serious letdown. And some specialty store owners even do contract work for all this? That too is ludicrous.

In addition to the above news, The PRP also highlighted a musician who's also making a big deal out of owning a back issue of the Action Comics premiere:

System Of A Down drummer John Dolmayan hasn’t only pursued a life-long passion of music with the aforementioned Armenian-American nü-metal stars, he’s also spent decades in the comic books industry. His Torpedo Comics shop in Las Vegas, NV has been featured on ‘Pawn Stars‘ and he’s worked conventions promoting the business, while also creating and launching comic books of his own.

Over the weekend, Dolmayan showcased what may be his most valuable comic, a copy of the 1938 Action Comics #1. That book marked the first appearance of the iconic DC superhero Superman. An 8.5 graded copy of that book sold for $6 million at auction back in April of 2024.

In other words, this guy's the next speculator to buy these classic back issues in circles on the market, just because owning one is such a big deal, and won't be selling it to a museum at all. That's what's wrong with the whole picture here, and again, it's hugely disappointing how the speculator market continues to be fawned over at the expense of merit-based storytelling in the present.

Does Superman really "leave" his own comics that often?

A writer at Comic Book Club Live discusses how the Man of Steel seems to have quite a few moments where he's missing from his own solo comics:

While Superman launched the modern superhero era in Action Comics #1 and has been the hero of that title for almost all of its long run, the Man of Steel actually finds himself displaced — both in Action Comics and in the Superman comics titles more broadly — more often than most other heroes. And we’re gearing up for it to happen again with Reign of the Superboys, a big crossover event in which the various characters known as Superboy — but who aren’t actually Clark Kent — take center stage in a story whose title is lifted from Reign of the Supermen! (itself a story in which the Man of Steel was mostly absent).

To understand why this keeps happening, first, let’s take a look back at other instances when Superman disappeared from his own titles. Action Comics Weekly ran for over 40 issues, from Action Comics #601 through #642. During that time, Superman was no longer the lead feature in Action Comics, which became an oversized anthology featuring characters like Blackhawk, Green Lantern, Arsenal, and Nightwing. The experiment eventually ended and Superman got Action Comics back, leading into the “Triangle Era” of the Superman titles, during which time Action Comics, Superman, and The Adventures of Superman were joined by Superman: The Man of Steel to make a functionally-weekly story.

That wasn’t the last time Superman exited his own titles, though, and while Action Comics Weekly was seemingly an experimental proving ground for characters who didn’t have their own comic, later stories that took the Man of Steel out of his own comics were more narrative-driven.

The most famous example, obviously, was the stories that happened following 1992’s The Death of Superman. It’s also illustrative of why removing Superman from Superman works so well.

Say what? That's about as effective as saying that turning the Man of Steel into a crazy villain works so well. Sorry, but when it happens far too often - and potentially far more often than it does for Batman - then it doesn't work well at all. It only hints the writers don't know what to do with the star of the show, and would rather look for excuses to spotlight other characters in the star's main comics, rather than in their own separate miniseries or even paperback developed and sold on its own merits.

Interesting that Action Comics' weekly run of 42 issues was brought up, because while there were some stories there starring other characters that worked well enough, the Green Lantern stories almost single-handedly ruined everything. That was where GL's descent into horrible storytelling first officially began after his own solo book ended, as the assigned "creators" went miles out of their way to depict Carol Ferris in the Star Sapphire guise murdering Katma Tui, and if they were trying to make a statement about the South Africa republic's problems with racist apardheid at the time, they destroyed everything based on the bizarrely implausible way John Stewart was turned into a scapegoat: he recommends that Hal steal diamonds from a mine in South Africa, which goes against what Hal was written standing for, which is opposition to stealing. And then somehow, John gets blamed. If the whole idea was to comment on racial issues of the times, they totally botched it. And then, the Cosmic Odyssey special from 1989 made things worse by making John guilty of enabling a planetload of people to die. This is why it's actually despicable Action would be turned weekly, if any stories inside were going to be that bad, and alarmingly forced. Especially considering what other horrors awaited the DCU by the turn of the century. So, while stories featuring Nightwing, Black Canary and Deadman were okay, GL stood out as the rock-bottom feature of the lot, and the whole notion Superman would be sidelined for that is addtionally miserable.

That said, the Man of Steel wasn't literally absent from his own foremost book at the time. But based on how badly written GL's feature was by Christopher Priest and even Peter David, that's why it's a shame Action had to go weekly for that.

As for the Death/Return of Superman in 1992-3, what's so "famous" about that? As I've argued before, when the storyline got around to depicting the Toyman murdering Cat Grant's son, that's what really made it tasteless, and it also came at the expense of a crooked character whom I don't recall ever being portrayed as vile as the Joker before. If that's what the Man of Steel's being absented from his own comics for, no wonder quality went way south since. And what's so "narrative-driven" about all that anyway? It's laughable.

Anyway, this new crossover they speak of is decidedly another best avoided, and while it may not be surprising nobody's willing to insist universe-spanning crossovers have to stop, it's certainly disappointing. Superman should definitely not have to be sidelined because assigned writers may not know what kind of stories to give him, and the increased focus on villains has to stop too. It's no substitute for merit-based writing.

CB Cebulski hires some very disgraceful choices for writing assignments

Comic Book Club Live announced that Marvel and editor C.B Cebulski have hired and re-hired some of the worst writers to litter comicdom in the past quarter century for new writing assignments:

Hot on the heels of DC’s Superman/Spider-Man, Marvel has announced their half of the crossover with the April debuting Spider-Man/Superman #1. And alongside the reveals of the covers, we’ve also got the creative teams for the book, including Geoff Johns delivering his first Marvel work in two decades, and Brad Meltzer writing for Marvel for the first time ever. [...]

Meltzer will write the lead story alongside artist Pepe Larraz, featuring the title characters. In addition, Dan Slott and Marcos Martin will takcle Spider-Man Noir meeting Golden Age Superman, Geoff Johns and Gary Frank send the Super and Spider families against each other, Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman bring on The Mighty Thor and Wonder Woman, Louise Simonson and Todd Nauck pit Steel against Hobgoblin, Joe Kelly and Humberto Ramos cross over Gwen Stacy and Lana Lang, and Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli are back at Miles Morales, and I can’t believe we had him on our live show last night and didn’t know about this. Harumph.

There may have been times when bad writers working at Marvel went over to DC later on (and J. Michael Straczynski certainly did in the late 2000s), but this could be described as the opposite. Either way, it's an utter disgrace that a "novelist" who penned Identity Crisis, one of the most repellent comics minimizing sexual assault and delivering a leftist metaphor for 9-11, is now being hired to work at Marvel on a project, and equally disgraceful that the writer who soiled the Flash, Hawkman and Green Lantern, along with Justice Society, is now returning to work at Marvel, where he also made a shoddy mess of Avengers. Looking at the list, it's certainly quite a Who's Who of horrible, overrated writers, and surely also artists, some who're taking part in a joint project of new team-ups between the Man of Steel and Web-Head. No thanks, I'd rather read the original Spider-Man/Superman teaming from the Bronze Age instead. And how interesting there's at least a dozen variant covers conceived for this project. It does hint they lack faith in anybody taking interest in the brand new special as opposed to the original, if variants are their last trick in the bag.

As for Simonson, there may have once been a time she made a decent scribe, but she's been irrelevant for years now, and it's unlikely she'll deliver anything palatable under Marvel/DC's modern leadership now. Also, is that the original Gwen they're talking about, who was sent to the afterlife in 1973 when the Green Goblin murdered her in Spider-Man? If so, then no matter how you look at this, it clashes with what Tom Brevoort recently said about persuading Joe Quesada they shouldn't revive Gwen. Speaking of which, it may not be surprising if Mary Jane Watson is left out of the new proceedings, but if she is in the story, could anyone be surprised if she gets treated awful?

Based on whom Cebulski's hired, the time couldn't be better to boycott Marvel, and the lineup is certainly an embarrassment.

Columnist for ComicBook thinks the Death & Return of Superman was overrated, or does he?

A columnist at ComicBook wrote about what he considers the most overrated Superman stories in history, and says, amazingly enough, that the Death & Return of Superman's an overrated saga, though there's also parts here that conflict with what he claims. Since this column has number one at the bottom, let's begin with that, if it helps understand what's going on here:

“The Death of Superman” is an iconic story in the history of comics. It made real world news, and lived up to its name. There are some great Superman creators involved — Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Roger Stern, Tom Brummet, Louise Simonson, the late great Butch Guice, and Jon Bogdanove. The art is awesome throughout, capturing the spectacle of this massive fight. However, the fact that this is just a massive fight that repeats itself every chapter is the problem with the story. Every issue of this story follows the same formula — Superman and his friends get trounced by Doomsday, and Superman vows to stop the monster. The last issue is the only different chapter in the entire story, because it ends with Superman dying. “The Death of Superman” is a beloved story, but that’s mostly because of the place it holds in comic history. Even the choice of villain, the then all-new Doomsday, didn’t really feel right. This is a good story, but it’s more because of the spectacle, and the much better stories that came after it — “World Without a Superman,” “Funeral for a Friend,” and “Reign of the Superman” — than for its own quality.

"Beloved", you say? Gee, that's disputable, considering that afterwards, prior to Kal-El's return, the ensuing stories saw Cat Grant's son murdered by the Toyman, and unsurprisingly, this goes unmentioned in the article. "Iconic", my foot. You could surely get a ton of valid issues to write about out of a shoddy storyline like that, yet the writer remains pretty superficial on the subject, and when he brings up Superman's return, listed as 7th on the puff piece, he says:

“The Return of Superman” brought back the Man of Steel after his death against Doomsday. This is a perfectly fine story, seeing the weakened Superman, Superboy, the Eradicator, Steel, and Hal Jordan battle Cyborg Superman and Mongul after their destruction of Coast City. It does everything that it needs to be, but it’s one of the weaker chapters of the entire “Death and Return of Superman” saga. It doesn’t really deal too much with the effects of Superman’s return, just immediately throwing him into a battle against his enemies. The main problem with the story is that it’s pretty basic. There’s nothing wrong with that, and it’s still an entertaining story, but it just doesn’t have the impact that it should.

How fascinating he does mention the storyline that preceded Emerald Twilight, because all that did was add injury to insult. So, nothing wrong with turning Silver Age Green Lantern Hal Jordan into a lethal villian, and destroying his hometown in the process? And then, note how weak the column's take on Superman's going and coming actually is - what good does it do to say it's all "basic"? And why not ask why Superman had to be even momentarily "killed" at all? This article, alas, doesn't seem written to make a thoughtful point. And, the writer's other choices reek of questionable positions too. For example, what's written about Grant Morrison's take on the Man of Steel:

In their Action Comics run, Morrison, working with artists Rags Morales, Andy Kubert, Gene Ha, Travel Foreman, and Ben Oliver, gives readers a very complicated story without a lot of characters that new readers would recognize. For example, Lex Luthor is in it, but he’s not the main villain; in fact, he really doesn’t appear all that much in the story. Instead, Morrison decided to use villains like Metallo, Captain Comet, and an all-new Fifth Dimensional Imp Vyndktvx, with OG Fifth Dimensional Imp Mr. Mxyzptlk playing a quasi-heroic role in the story. It’s a classic complicated Morrison story that plays with the medium of monthly comics to tell its story, which has hurt its reception with fans who don’t love Morrison’s writing. Morrison definitely gave readers an interesting story (all 19 issues tell one story that comes together in last story arc), but this isn’t the best book to start on if you’re a new fan. It definitely has its moments like Action Comics (Vol. 2) #9, which introduced Calvin Ellis, the Barack Obama-influenced Superman of Earth-23 to the New 52, and Action Comics (Vol. 2) #0, a touching story about Superman’s cape, and is honestly the best Superman story we got in the New 52, but it has a lot of drawbacks that keep it from being perfect for any reader.

Oh, so if there's anything considered wonderful here, it's the leftist political influences? In that case, it only compounds the perception this column was written for awkward virtue signaling, and wasn't written altruistically. But, since we're on the subject, interesting Morrison was willing to work with an artist as overrated as Morales, who from what I can tell, is just as liberal as he is. In hindsight, I can't stand Morales' work as artist on the 2002-07 Hawkman series, though his work on Identity Crisis was the really repellent example from his resume. And then, the column brings up a Braniac story written by none other than Geoff Johns, and is just as baffling on that:

Geoff Johns’s post-Infinite Crisis work on Superman has a lot going for it. I’d definitely argue that “Last Son,” “Superman and the Legion of Superheroes,” and Secret Origin are peak Superman, but not every story is as flawless of those three. A perfect example of that is “Brainiac,” a story that reintroduced a more classic version of Brainiac to the DC Multiverse, while also trying to make sense of the various other versions of the character. However, I think that the biggest problem with the story is the change made to Brainiac. Brainiac was always a dangerous villain, but this story made him into a musclebound bruiser who can punch it out with Superman. This is an interesting change of pace, but it also just doesn’t feel like Brainiac. We’ve gotten multiple versions of Brainiac over the years, some better than others, and this one is one of the lesser versions of Brainiac. I don’t have a problem with a super strong Brainiac, but this version of the character never really felt right, and latter appearances by the villain would make him more like the classic Brainiac. This story is an important step in that direction, but it goes much too far. This is still a great story — it has a cool horror vibe to it, a heartbreaking Superman moment, and some amazing art from Gary Frank, but it’s not as excellent as some of Johns’s other work on Superman.

Wow, what's this? The writer's fawning over horror themes introduced in the tale? Another clue this wasn't written altruistically, that's for sure. But now, even more troubling is when political biases come into the news script, as seen in the following about one of John Byrne's stories from the late 80s:

Writer/artist John Byrne rebooted Superman for the post-Crisis DC Universe. Byrne’s run was considered the gold standard for modern Superman for a long time — and there are some good stories from his run — but recent years have seen it get a re-evaluation. Byrne removed many fan-favorite aspects of the character and went out of his way to take away Superman’s immigrant heritage. He wrecked the Krypton mythos, and even disrespected Jack Kirby with Action Comics (Vol. 1) #593 because of a personal feud between him and the King. Byrne did bring Zod back in Superman (Vol. 2) #20-21, with an alternate universe Supergirl asking Superman for his help against General Zod, who killed everyone on her Earth. It’s a good story, but it ends with Superman using Kryptonite to kill Zod, Ursa, and Non. This is a huge misunderstanding of who Superman is; Superman doesn’t kill, he figures out a way to win without killing. Byrne made a lot of mistakes with Superman, and this is honestly one of the biggest. It led to 2013’s Man of Steel killing Zod in that film, another gross misunderstanding of Superman’s character that allowed fans who liked that moment to point at this comic and argue that it was comic accurate for Superman to kill Zod in the movie.

While the part about disrespecting Kirby is valid, based on how he handled Big Barda, the part about "immigrant heritage" is muddled yet telling. Ahem. Even in the Golden Age it was established Kal-El was sent to earth as an infant from an exploding planet, and how many times do I have to point out that makes him a refugee? Also, if memory serves, wasn't the story in focus something set in a different dimension? It may have featured Zod as an opponent there, but IIRC, the woman involved was a post-Crisis reworking of a Bronze Age villainess named Faora, or in the new take, Zaora. And Superman's a fictional character, so it's not whether he kills that's the issue, but whether he should be written doing so that does, and if it suits his character, or doesn't. Though if Supes was depicted in the past being more open to killing aliens as opposed to human villains, that'd be hypocrisy incarnate right there. At least valid point is made about the 2013 film, which never saw an official stand alone sequel; just the equally overrated Batman v. Superman a few years later. There's also what's said about the 6-issue miniseries from 1986 that began the post-Crisis rendition to ponder:

John Byrne’s run on Superman began with this six-issue miniseries. This story told the new history of Superman, doing away with multiple aspects of the character. Gone was Superboy, the Legion of Superheroes, and the various other surviving Kryptonians. Krypton was transformed into a sterile science based society that took away a major part of pre-Crisis Superman. Clark Kent was suddenly a football playing All-American, sent to Earth in a “birthing matrix” and born on Earth in Kansas, taking away his immigrant status. Byrne was going super conservative with his version of Superman and it honestly never felt right. Now, that said, there are some cool parts to the book — the Superman/Batman story is pretty great and Byrne did introduce the corporate mogul version of Lex Luthor. However, the way Byrne fundamentally changed Superman was a huge mistake, and it took years for fans to get back the best parts of the pre-Crisis. I was personally a fan of this story for years, but it just doesn’t stand up when compared with the more classic versions of the character that came in the years after it.

Well if the columnist is implying it's wrong for Supes to be depicted as a proud American fellow growing up, I think that sums up all that's wrong with this jumble of a column. As though it weren't bad enough the "immigrant" propaganda is repeated ad nauseum, and in the most confusing ways possible. And seriously, Byrne's take was "super conservative"? I seem to recall a joke alluding to Reagan from the miniseries, where a police captain unsuccessfully tries to persuade some grocery store robbers to surrender, leaving Superman to clean up the job. It may not have been heavy handed as today's political allusions are, but that itself is hardly the most respectful allusion to conservatives there. There certainly were allusions to other politics liberals might've embraced at the time in Byrne's stories, like Maggie Sawyer being lesbian, but it was anything but conservative, and must we remind that Byrne was the one who made a big deal out of indirectly establishing Northstar as homosexual in Alpha Flight back at Marvel? I guess the columnist is just so determined to be woke, he's willing to throw even an otherwise liberal writer like Byrne under the bus to make his baffling points.

So as a result, I'm not sure it's a case of considering any of these stories, no matter the writers or era, overrated, so much as a supposed fan's desire to virtue signal, and make it far less convincing he believes these stories are overrated. Interesting no pre-Crisis stories were mentioned, and one must wonder why only post-Crisis stories matter here. This is why truly, ComicBook is one of the most pretentious specialty sites for entertainment topics.

Convention director writes unfounded, unclear rant about "toxic fans"

A few weeks ago, the pretentious Comics Beat published a smear piece by the director of NY's Cosmic Con, against what he perceives as "toxic fandom". But something tells me he's not taking issue for the right reasons. Let's see what he says here:

No one goes into comics for the big bucks. Creators were happy to share their personal anecdotes and thoughts with readers who loved comics like they do.

There were still industry controversies fans talked about, of course—how Siegel and Shuster were treated horribly by DC, how Jack Kirby and Stan Lee fell out, how Marvel kept changing editors in chief—but you had to buy The Comics Buyer’s Guide or Alter Ego to learn about them.

And there were always vocal fans. When a new Batman movie was announced, and fans thought that having zany director Tim Burton and comedy actor Michael Keaton meant it was going to be campy like the 1966 TV show, they had to write in to their local newspaper to protest.

When Hal Jordan became Parallax and destroyed the Green Lantern Corps, the fan group H.E.A.T. (Hal’s Emerald Advancement Team) wrote angry letters to DC and took out an ad in Wizard magazine. (The internet existed back then, but it was excruciatingly slow and mostly just screamed at you.)

And is that meant to imply it was okay to degrade Hal for the sake of PC directions that never led to any convincing or organic character drama when Kyle Rayner became the replacement? I fail to understand the point here, but it's not hard to guess the guy would say something similar about where Marvel went with Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson's marriage, and DC went with Identity Crisis. What's annoying about this item is that it doesn't make certain distinctions between what's worth protesting and what would be better to withhold judgement upon, or just not make a big deal out of, which would have to be Burton's Batman film. If that matters, did the fans in question actually intend to see it, no matter the end result of the price of tickets? Well maybe that was, in a way, a mistake. If they didn't think the film was going to take a serious approach and keep the sense of humor secondary, then why make such a fuss? Because they're terrified the end result would only worsen the wider public's perception of comicdom? Please. It should be noted that even novels and theater plays can be affected by the outcome of a film adaptation, but shouldn't be, and that's why, if you really love the source material, then that's all you need. Why make everybody think you're going to throw away money on a movie you might otherwise have no use for?

Sharing opinions, whether positive or negative, required time and effort. Because of that, fans had to take the time to think and express themselves in a way that’d get attention. Even when irate, they had to be thoughtful, constructive, and civil.

Then came the internet and social media. “Social media has certainly enshittified fandom as much as it has everything else in the 21st century,” Mark Waid told me in an email. “There’ve always been brickbat-throwers out there, but when they had to actually write a letter and buy a stamp, you didn’t hear from them as much. Once all they had to do was open a Twitter account, the horse was loose in the hospital.”

I wrote to Mark after reading George R.R. Martin’s blog post, where he lamented that “the era of rational discourse seems to have ended.” Martin started out as a comic book fan. His first published work was a fan letter in Fantastic Four #20, and he’s credited with being the first attendee of the first comic con. Over the years since he’s seen fandom change, and unfortunately not for the better.

“Toxicity is growing. It used to be fun talking about our favorite books and films and having spirited debates with fans who saw things different,” he wrote. “But somehow in this age of social media, it is no longer enough to say, “I did not like book X or film Y, and here’s why.” Now social media is ruled by anti-fans who would rather talk about the stuff they hate than the stuff they love, and delight in dancing on the graves of anyone whose film has flopped.”

This new fandom, which has come to be called toxic fandom, is still just a subset—many more people buy a comic than post angrily about it—but it’s a loud and unpleasant one. Entitled, addicted to outrage, and harmful to the very industry they claim to care about.

Look who's talking. The kind of people who vehemently refuse to defend the creations of the people whose legacies they followed up upon, be it Mary Jane Watson, Scarlet Witch, Jean Loring, Sue Dibny, Karen Page, and of course, the other superheroes themselves besides Wanda Maximoff, and simultaneously, the man writing this cheap piece won't suggest the alleged fans try boycotting books that don't meet their favor instead to send a message. He also doesn't acknowledge that there's certain creators who've engaged in reprehenisble behavior, including Waid, who was sued several years ago by graphic novelist Richard Meyer for tortious interference in a deal with Antarctic Press. Or how about Dan Slott's worst conduct in any medium? How come creators are exempt? If that's how it's going to be, this is just another of victimology in motion.

Each Cosmic Con centers on a theme, and for our last show this past February, the theme was “Battling Hate.” We especially wanted to highlight how, from the industry’s early days, Superheroes fought against fascism and intolerance, to over eight decades of stories mixing in adventures, suspense and thrills with a healthy dose of morality. Helping define right from wrong, in the minds of both young adults and teenagers, setting the stage for “Truth, Justice and the American Way”. We had a “Battling Hate” panel, featuring an all-star lineup: Rags Morales, Ann Nocenti, Alisa Kwitney, Danny Fingeroth, Keith Williams, and Joe Illidge.

Uh oh. They lined up the artist who illustrated the offensive Identity Crisis miniseries, and hasn't shown any genuine remorse for the misogyny it's accused of emphasizing? Gee, that sure is some dedication to "battling hate" right there. I'm not even convinced he's dedicated to battling anti-Israel hate if that's the kind of people he's associating with, and come to think of it, if Fingeroth and Nocenti didn't object to Morales' presence either unless he disowned the garbage, then they too have disappointed. It's also vital to note that, in sharp contrast to yesteryear, today's comics don't battle against the fascism and intolerance of Islamic terrorism, and if that continues to be the case, and nobody argues why it's vital to tackle such issues, then the Cosmic Con panel's "message" falls flat.

We also produced a con-exclusive “Battling Hate” comic. I’d thought it was an easy enough message to get behind (it wasn’t political in any way), but when I reached out to writers and artists to contribute, many were willing to share their stories and thoughts with me, just not in print.

These industry veterans told me that on many occasions they’ve received online backlash and personal attacks, so they just stopped sharing anything beyond whatever project they were promoting.

Roy Thomas, a fan-turned-pro who went on to become an industry legend, cordially declined participating in the comic. “I received quite a bit of toxic hate beginning last April when it was announced that I’d be credited in Deadpool & Wolverine as co-creator of Wolverine,” he wrote to me. “It made me determined…[to avoid] a con where I might find myself in the company of the people who had attacked me.” He’s written an article about the ordeal for an upcoming issue of his own magazine, Alter Ego #194.

This soft-spoken, erudite, 84-year-old man has been bullied into silence. And because of that, the rest of us are missing out on a treasure of stories and knowledge. There aren’t many Bronze Age creators left, every day we lose some of that history.

And this too obscures the more exact picture regarding Thomas' case. Some of the people who were ragging on Thomas began with the widow of Len Wein, and didn't stop there. I may have spotted the awful Dan DiDio attacking Thomas too on Facebook when this was brought up. Somehow, it's just like DiDio to throw a more decent veteran like Thomas under the bus. In any event, the guest writer's failure to consider what industry insiders think of Thomas is dismaying.

“The intensity of fan reactions was different in the 80s and 90s,” Ann Nocenti told me. “Fans would send passionate letters, sometimes up to six pages, single spaced. The language and context were more moderate, because fans who took the time to write or type their grievances, were aware that no one would read their comments if they were nasty or profane. The internet brought anonymity. Now comments can devolve into profane tirades, and no one can call them out. Since there is no accountability, some feel they can get away with being vulgar and offensive.”

“Embattled pros who aren’t white dudes like me,” Waid notes, “I know how much worse they get it. When I was embroiled with that nuisance suit a few years ago that involved ComicsGate, younger creators were privately sharing with me incidents [and] posts…they had received from æfandom,’ and they were plentiful and…repulsive.”

“Yeah, it’s easy to say ‘well, they should just ignore that stuff,’ but the newer you are at this, the more you depend on social media for promotion. It’s a necessary evil, and most contemporary creators don’t have the luxury of walling themselves off absolutely from social media.”

Gee, sounds like Waid's implying these "toxic fans" only go after racial minorities, and that their bile has nothing to do with lack of story merit whatsoever. But what about when Ethan Van Sciver was attacked in the past decade? And I ask that as somebody who doesn't really care for his work. Waid's just making clear he's unrepentant for any attention the Comicsgate campaign's called to wrongful practices in the industry, and refusal to take responsibility from within is practically what enabled men like Neil Gaiman to get away with their terrible deeds for years.

This culture of incivility has migrated from the virtual to the real world, and, sadly, even from fans to some professionals. Larry Hama is a third generation Japanese American and a Vietnam vet. When he first started writing the property he’s most known for, G.I Joe “I was called ‘a fascist’ by a fellow professional. It was during a public event, in front of colleagues and my wife.” When Larry asked the guy if he bothered to read the books, he answered, “I don’t need to read them to know what they’re about.”

When we forget that the creator we’re interacting with is a human being, and when we insult, harass, or intimidate them, or when we see others do it and say nothing, we all lose out. We miss out on their stories, opinions, and tips about the very thing we love. Shutting down our “primary sources” makes fandom a less pleasant place and comics a less fun hobby.

The first recorded Toxic Fan incident that I am aware of involved Jack Kirby. Back in the days of Simon and Kirby working out of Timely (Later Marvel) offices, writing Captain America stories trouncing Fascists and Nazis. Apparently, some Toxic fans (Supremacists, in this particular case) took issue with that and called the Timely office, spewing curses and threats. According to legend, Kirby took the call and in the tense exchange, was threatened in being beaten to a pulp if the “fan” was ever to meet him at a street corner. Kirby offered to run down to the corner and resolve this dispute at the nearest street corner. Co-workers mention that Kirby ran downstairs in anticipation of a fight, just to have this particular caller chicken out.

The guest writer loses all credibility when he claims pro-National Socialist demonstrators were "fans" of a company with Jewish founders, and comics with Jewish creators. And Capt. America was written as an anti-fascist combatant right from the very start of the Golden Age series; the way the Comics Beat guest writer puts it, you'd think Cap had been created several years earlier. I do realize even today, there's all sorts of mental cases out there who could inexplicably buy the products and creations of people with Israeli ancestry, but even so, that's not the case in Kirby's time at all. These were monsters who opposed any negative portrayal of their oh-so precious totalitarians during WW2. I hesitate to think how it would turn out today, if anybody so much as dared to take a negative position on Islam, and there were some examples during the Golden Age of comics. Something I'm sure the guest writer would otherwise fail to address today, if it matters.

All that aside, where has this writer been in the past 2-plus decades, when Joe Quesada spared no expense destroying everything Cap was meant to stand for, making the USA into a scapegoat post-911? Since then, the very image of Captain America even as a costume has been degraded for the sake of far-left political ideologies, while only so many apologists stood idly by as Jewish creations were desecrated for the sake of this slop. One more reason why it's pathetically cheap to scapegoat Comicsgate.

Some of the commentors saw through this shoddy item, and one said:

This article sucks because I was interested to hear what the panel was like and what those people had to say about battling hate. You keep quoting mark waid for some reason. The Roy Tomas claim seems flimsy. Nobody in this article was silenced and if they were you didn’t talk about it. If you’re talking about backlash you receive from a controversial move you made in a magazine that you publish you’re not exactly being silenced and that’s the only example you used to prop up your click bait article title. It doesn’t seem like we’re missing out on any comics. Hearing what the panel had to say unfiltered would be an actually interesting read. Is there a video or transcript?

Probably not. And the writer's unlikely to take any issue with Comics Beat's own wrongdoings. Another said:

This article is a disgusting travesty- for one thing, it speaks volumes that it has a credit by Heidi MacDonald before revealing it’s by the showrunner of Cosmic Con- but the fact that it implies any criticism of professionals is akin to hate speech is bad enough. Roy Thomas has been an outspoken conservative for decades- which is his right- and says things in print (!) like he refuses to capitalize “Black” in “Black people” until “White” for “White people” gets equal capitalization. Thomas’s Alter Ego features regular contributions from journalist James Rosen, who was too extreme for FOX NEWS (!), and now works for Newsmax, a conversative channel that pushes the great displacement theory that immigrants are here to steal votes from White people.

It’s nonsense. Thomas and his manager John Cimino have repeatedly posted that they’ve received death threats; it’s a deflection tactic to move attention away from blatant and disgusting credit theft. I’m amazed there’s no mention in this article about the repeated racial and sexist attacks on creators that have continued for years, especially increasing in modern times with middle aged white male comic fans who complain that comics have gotten “too woke”.

“This soft-spoken, erudite, 84-year-old man has been bullied into silence.” It’s disgusting but also rather easily disproven, since Thomas has not been bullied (called into accountability for your deeds is not bullying), and certainly hasn’t been SILENT as his upcoming issue (great it got a plug in this article! THAT’S being “bullied into silence”) of Alter Ego attests.

There are hateful, racist pricks in every community. As someone who actively fights against said racist pricks, I find it astonishing that online criticism against people who actively seek payment to autograph things- therefore making them public figures- makes them equate that with bullying and being silenced.

Here’s a tip: if you’re being bullied for taking positive stances against hate, screw the bullies. Get louder. If you’re curiously changing the narrative of your career and contradicting decades of previously recorded statements, guess what- people are gonna comment on that. And that’s not bullying.

Heidi, you should never have approved this bulls**t. Or at least rewrote it!

The same poster follows this up on his own blog with a longer takedown. Another said:

I’m not disagreeing with this article. The comic fandom is insane. No creator should be attacked in such a matter that makes them feels scared for their life let alone needs police intervention.

I do find it funny you spoke with Mark Waid. Mark lead a toxic fan brigade against Antarctic Press when they were going to print Richard C. Meyer’s book. Toxic fans flooded all of the phone lines to a hospital that even emergency calls couldn’t get in or out.

Let us not forget the time Tim Doyle lead a group of fans against the Breitweisers because Mitch publicly congratulated Donald Trump for winning the 2016 election. This resulted in Betty getting multiple rape threats and the both receiving death threats.

Then there was the vandalism and threats against the Florida pizza place, Gotham City Pizza, for hosting Ethan van Sciver. Thankfully, many of Ethan’s fans raised more than enough to pay for the damages and a security system to catch further attacks.

I understand why Comics Beat wouldn’t include these testimonies of toxic fandom. These creators “voted wrong” and therefore many involved with this site would think that is justified. Most deranged and violent people often try to find justifications for their malevolent behavior.

A most considerable reason why MacDonald and company's commentaries aren't worth the bytes they're posted on. Here's one more:

Mark Waid is an absolute hypocrite. He has spread false rumors online and bashed people without proof or facts. His audacity here is ridiculous.

It's about time he retired from professional writing already, and MacDonald should do the same. This is another of the laziest propaganda pieces she and her colleagues have posted for the sake of undermining fandom's causes, no matter how legitimate or not they be. This is why her awful Comics Beat site shouldn't be read.

Mark Waid brings back Gorilla Grodd long past the time it might've once worked

In this Newsarama interview on Yahoo Entertainment, Mark Waid talks about DC's new variation on Marvel's "One World Under Doom", here being a Justice League story spotlighting Gorilla Grodd as a prime adversary:

The past and present of the DC Universe are colliding in the upcoming story We Are Yesterday, in which Justice League Unlimited and Batman/Superman: World's Finest will crossover as heroes of multiple eras take on Grodd, the psychic gorilla warlord, and his new/old incarnation of the Legion of Doom.

Mark Waid is writing both titles, and along with artists Travis Moore, Clayton Henry, Dan McDaid, and Dan Mora, he's crafting a four part event that brings the underrated Grodd to the forefront, pulling together threads that have been dangling throughout his Justice League Unlimited run as well as World's Finest.

Well he's doing so far too late, though it's worth noting Geoff Johns' take on Grodd from the early 2000s was very poor, and made the anthropomorphic ape look more like a violent brawler - and potentially carnivorous - than a cunning master planner for world conquest. That told, a company wide crossover spanning issues from every possible title is not the way to go, and if that's the case here too, they're only perpetuating a bad farce by keeping on with something they know perfectly well only makes it harder to afford on the one hand, and takes away stand-alone storytelling value on the other. And as for "underrated", even there, writing merit must apply before making the argument.

Newsarama: Mark, We Are Yesterday is the first big Justice League crossover of the current era of the DC Universe. Contrasting that with the final event of the previous status quo, Absolute Power, this story feels like a much more straightforward hero vs. villain story with the League taking on Grodd. How did you come to this concept as the way to go for this story?

Mark Waid: It actually began with the fact that World's Finest #38 and #39 and Justice League Unlimited #6 and #7 needed different artists to give the regular artists time to catch up. So I said, well, let's make it special. Let's do something where those four issues don't feel like fill-ins in their big events.

It sprang from that, and then I realized, OK, I need a menace big enough. Who can we get? Well, the Legion of Doom makes sense… Except they're not around in the current day. So how do we fix that? Everything became a domino toppling over another domino. And when it's all said and done, we've got a story.

Well gee, isn't Darkseid from the New Gods a pretty good example for a formidable warlord? I'm sure the Legion of Super-Heroes has some examples too. But again, under the kind of management DC's had for too long, corporate or otherwise, this just won't work out, and won't be as "special" as Waid wants it to be.

You've done stories that connect the past and future of the DC Universe before - I'm thinking of the Devil Nezha arc that led into Lazarus Planet, for example. In the case of We Are Yesterday, the connection is even more direct between past and present. What led you to want to bring these two timelines together in such a tangible way?

Well, like you said, I like doing that with World's Finest to remind people that it is not an Elseworlds. It is not, you know, it is not out of continuity. Even though it takes place a few years ago, we remind you every once in a while that it has a place in the DC Universe. So that was my starting point. But then I started thinking about Grodd and his motivations and his goals. You know, Grodd wants something big. I mean, he's got to take on the entire Justice League Unlimited. So to do that, he really wants to put the band back together, right? But he can't really. Luthor's reformed. Sinestro is off planet. You know, Joker is god only knows where - there's no way to put them together the way they are today.

But he, with the help of Airwave, he realizes he can put them back together, back in the day, go to them and say, "I got news for you. I'm from the future, and not much happens in the next five years. You know, you don't make a whole lot of headway. As a matter of fact, you lose a lot of ground. So why don't you come with me to the present day, and we will shake things up."

And here's something very sad about this story: Airwave, the hero whom, IIRC, is a cousin of Hal Jordan/Green Lantern with a similar name, is being turned criminal, just like GL himself was in 1994. More on that soon. For now, let me note it's obviously laughable if they want to depict Lex "reformed", because that was already done with the Green Goblin 15 years ago in one of Marvel's crossovers (Siege), and was nothing more than a forced storyline for the sake of suddenly depicting a scummy villain as a goody.

I'm glad you brought up Grodd, because I feel like he's such an underrated villain, with so much potential to be this kind of mastermind at the heart of a threat to the entire DC Universe. I just want to talk a little bit about Grodd and how you came to him as the main threat here. Obviously you have a long history with his arch-enemy the Flash.

Well, I mean, it made sense to me, in that I like Grodd's motivation. Grodd's motivation is, humans keep screwing up the world. So why do we have them? Let's make it not just Gorilla City, but Gorilla Planet.

I'm also reflective of the fact that he was Flash's first really big villain. People don't remember that he appeared in three consecutive issues of Flash. When he first appeared, Mirror Master was showing up like every five issues, and you know, Captain Boomerang is showing up every 10 issues, but Grodd right off the bat was meant to be his arch-enemy, and that's kind of fallen by the wayside over the years.

So let's get that back on the table, because he is a lot more powerful than most people give him credit for, especially now that his powers have augmented to the point where he is now the most powerful telepath and mentally powered character in the DC universe.

Ahem. There is potential to depict Grodd as a formidable villain in such stories, but not if the writing is terrible, and Waid hasn't exactly proven himself the best writer in years already. And as for claiming "nobody remembers"? That's not the case. Rather, it's if nobody knows the history or does the research. I have some Silver Age Flash archives (and someday, might be able to replace them with the new DC Finest archives), so I'm familiar with some of this history. Perhaps if Waid were to encourage audiences to look for reprint archives, then we could be getting somewhere in terms of story knowledge, but I guess he'd rather everybody pay more attention to his modern writing than that of the past, including his own 90s Flash stories. And as for augmentation, I assume that's alluding to a more recent storyline, but again, DC's output has been worthless for 2 decades now. And now, here's the sad part about where Waid took a certain minor player, whom I think was created by the late Denny O'Neil in the late 70s:

Back to We Are Yesterday, this story is happening in part because the Justice League were betrayed by someone they trusted. Airwave.

Sadly true.

Yes, sadly true and sad for Airwave. I like that character. I hope it's not the last we'll ever see of him here.

That's really a shame, isn't it?

Grodd was pretty ruthless.

Yes.

What I want to ask though is, how will what's happening in this story and what happened with Airwave affect the Justice League Unlimited mission going forward, with this massive roster and the way they've been approaching heroes and building out the ranks?

They are going to have to re-examine their protocols, and they are going to have to be a little more judicious about vetting the candidates. At first it was, let's throw the doors open to everybody, which was a good instinct. But Superman trusts everybody. You know you have to earn Superman's mistrust, whereas Batman is the exact opposite. You have to earn Batman's trust. And Wonder Woman is somewhere in the middle. So this is going to spill out into a confrontation between all three of them, which, by the way, gives me the idea for issue 10, which is great. I should write this down real quick.

This is another example of a "hero gone bad" story that's become very irritating, mainly because of how obvious it is that, because Airwave's a minor character, they think that alone makes it instantly okay to exploit him like tissue paper and turn him into a criminal, all because they believe not a single person who reads this will give a damn. It's also supremely silly at this point how Superman's depicted as more naive than trying to judge by personal character, and couldn't his superpowers make it possible for Kal-El to detect whether somebody's lying, or couldn't there be a story written where he builds a lie detector? Or, where WW uses her enchanted lariat to determine anything? If I'm correct, her creator William Marston invented an early version of polygraphs in his time. For now, what matters is how writers like Waid keep sticking to some very absurd traits for the heroes in focus, all for the sake of shoving them into a conflict, and if memory serves, this kind of insulting direction was also taken during the Infinite Crisis crossover too, in an example of forced storytelling where heroes are clashing with each other, with the worst part being that at the time, it had what to do with the repulsive Identity Crisis. At the interview's end:

On that note, how will We Are Yesterday kind of set up what's coming next in the DC Universe? We've heard about a crossover with the JSA, the next stages of what's going on with the Omega Energy. How is We Are Yesterday a key to that?

How do I answer this? I mean, it's absolutely key to this. The events of We Are Yesterday are a complete story. I don't want to give anybody the impression that we're only giving you part of a story that leads into the next part that, leads into the next part, like you're never getting a sense of closure. It is a complete story, but there are consequences to it that will very much, starting with Justice League Unlimited #9, lead out into the next big happening in the DC Universe. So there is a definite connection there.

They vehemently refuse to stop relying so heavily on crossovers, and that's saying all one needs to know about what's long gone wrong with corporate-owned universes and their storytelling efforts. The interviewer, predictably, raises nary a query about whether this is a healthy practice, and indeed it's not. That Waid so willingly participates even remotely in these line-wide crossovers is telling too, explaining why he's long become irrelevant, and that this story with Grodd is in any ways a crossover is why it won't age well either.

What the documentarian of Shopping for Superman sees in the comics medium

Sci-Fi Pulse interviewed Wes Eastin, the producer/director of Shopping for Superman, a documentary about specialty stores, and how he views the industry. And what was one of the earliest comics he'd read?

Nicholas Yanes: What was your first encounter with comic books? Was there a moment in which you realized you had fallen in love with this medium?

Wes Eastin: I remember having Action Comics 678. THEY SAVED LUTHOR’S BRAIN! and being endlessly entertained by the cover and the book itself. Plus, this was Superman, we’re talking about here. And then… they found a way to KILL SUPERMAN!? Oh man. I remember telling my mom and any adult that would listen, (candy cigar in mouth) “I need to know more! Great Caesar’s ghost, they’re killing a legend!”

Superman, Batman, and then the X-Men (thanks to the Fox Kids show), and Spider-Man were everywhere but I found it hard to keep track of everything from the grocery store and newsstand so I would end up reading a story here and there and have a cursory understanding of what was going on. I didn’t care, really, I loved it. Luckily, there were a lot of single-issue stories which let me enjoy things without having to collect multiple issues to follow a longer story. I wish there was more of that these days for the larger titles.

The added bonus to all of this was that not everyone seemed to like comic books back then, so it felt a little like something that was more for me than everybody else.

Not everyone likes comics today either, unless it's to serve as a political platform for leftism, or even movie material for merely profiteering off of at the original comics' expense. But all that aside, interesting he alludes to the early 90s stunt when DC editorial made it seem like they were killing off Superman, because, even if they did intend to revive him (though not for altruistic reasons), it was still very insulting to the intellect they'd subject an entire franchise to such a stunt, especially given that it wound up leading into a much worse one, Emerald Dawn and Zero Hour, which forcibly portrayed Hal Jordan/Green Lantern as a villain, and there were at least a few increasingly repulsive similarities to that atrocity that came along the following decade, where women were victimized by similar storylines (Identity Crisis and Avengers: Disassembled). I attribute some of that to the Phoenix Saga in X-Men, which decidedly didn't do comicdom any favors in the long run. Seriously, what's so great about a story where a heroine's turned into a madwoman and wipes out a billion beings in another solar system? Thank goodness that was retconned about 5 years later so it wasn't Jean Grey, though it's all been corrupted and taken apart again in some way or other since the turn of the century.

On the subject of stories spanning multiple issues, there's something I'm assuming Mr. Eastin did not clearly raise in the documentary, or maybe we'd be getting somewhere not only in terms of formatting, but also in terms of storytelling. If he'd acknowledge company wide crossovers - which The Death & Return of Superman was a product of, in a manner of speaking - did more harm than good ever since Jim Shooter set the ball rolling with since Secret Wars in 1984, and argue whythe time's come to quit with such dreadful nonsense, maybe we'd see more self-contained stories like what he found more engaging back in the day, but even then, a case must still be made why paperback/hardcover is still the more ideal way to go at this point, and the obsession with variant covers must cease as well, mainly because that alone does not guarantee a good story inside, and it's head-shaking how so much ink was wasted on variant covers that could've been put to use for wall paintings instead.

Yanes: While comic book intellectual properties are more popular than ever, comic books and comic book stores don’t have the same cultural presence. What do you think can be done to increase comic book sales and help make shops more popular?

Eastin: I think stores have made a really strong go of elevating their presence online and in their communities, but that’s not really enough to interest people who aren’t comics readers already.

I think a big help would be if publishers and studios like Marvel made more noise about comics that are coming out, already out, and related to the films they’re making; and could drive new readers in, but advertising books and collections would definitely be a great start.

Some shop owners have repeatedly asked why there aren’t TV ads for comics from publishers or streaming ads. I think that’s a big part of the problem. A great many people aren’t being inspired to say, “That looks cool! Where can I find that?” Another great way to make shops more popular? Watch/buy/recommend Shopping for Superman!

All kidding aside, advertising dollars from publishers and distributors that reach people outside of the established circles might actually help keep readers.

But what about entertainment value? And why not acknowledge how writing merit in the mainstream declined beginning in the 90s, and art merit went south too 15 years ago? Why not also admit ultra-leftist politics have also ruined much of the mainstream, and even independent comics aren't immune? Of course advertising's a vital component of selling, along with how and where to buy, but if there's no artistic merit, sales won't last. Maybe this also explains why the mainstream publishers for starters don't belong in the ownership of conglomerates, but if even independent publishers make no serious attempt to advertise in wider mediums, then obviously something's wrong there too.

Yanes: One of the arguments made in your documentary is that comic book stores are competing against Amazon. However, the number of independent bookstores as well as Barnes & Noble locations are increasing despite competition from Amazon. Why do you think comic book stores struggle to replicate the success currently experienced by other bookstores?

Eastin: Well, that’s an interesting comparison. Bookstores are traditionally very distinct from comic book shops in more than a few ways. Since they’re very different creatures, I don’t know if the comparison is entirely fair. (Isn’t it interesting that we value comics as much as non-graphical prose these days? Way to go comics!) I will say that the bulk of the material that you find in a comic shop isn’t just new issue floppies and of that inventory (cards, trades, toys, etc) Amazon offers a great deal of it at a lower rate with super-fast delivery. They literally undercut retailers, and sadly, there’s no pushback from companies to demand that they only offer their products at MSRP. They’re moving inventory so they don’t care, right? But it devalues the product and makes it so that someone doesn’t think getting in the car and shopping locally is worth it when they can get it cheaper straight to their door. This has been Amazon’s model for years and years. They don’t care if they take losses if they’re dominating the market. Comic shops can’t afford to do that and so they lose a lot of customers to groups like Amazon or even Barnes and Noble which still has more warehouse space and flexibility than any mom and pop shop.

Now, independent bookstores… there’s a lot of potential in those. The one in my town has a good bit of graphics for kids but not a ton in the way of teen-adult. I think you’d see way more interest in graphic storytelling for the uninitiated but I think comic shops still suffer a bit of the misconception that comics and graphic storytelling is just for kids. If someone hasn’t seen the evolution of the material and the stores that sell them over the past 30+ years then they’ll only think the shop is like whatever The Big Bang Theory tells them. I think that common misconception is why you don’t see a lot of readers in their teens up through adulthood come through as often.

No doubt, the misperceptions are still very prevalent, and it could easily be said that's why for many years, north American animation was almost entirely relegated to kiddie fare, well into the mid-90s, and it's not like even the Simpsons ever changed it enough. Let's also consider that political exploitation of animation only hinders the ability to convince older audiences why it's worth their time, just like with comics, as previously mentioned.

But if the issue of artistic merit isn't raised, how do they think they'll be able to convince most consumers no matter their age to take interest in comicdom and find what to enjoy? Why, while adventure is a great genre, I think it can still be beneficial to encourage kids/teens to learn how to find drama absorbing, though it shouldn't come at the expense of action-adventure themes DC/Marvel were built on, and must be developed organically. The same can be said of character drama and interaction, which should be foremost among heroes and civilian co-stars.

Yanes: On this note, in the past I’ve written about how comic book prices are increasing faster than inflation while book prices haven’t and video games are dirt cheap (The Increasing Cost of Being a Comic Book Fan vs. Inflation). What do you think companies can do to make comic books affordable?

Eastin: If your only goal is distraction, then sure, games give a great return on investment. I’m playing Zelda Tears of the Kingdom (finally) but that’s only because I finally spent a couple of hundred dollars on the console and then another forty on the game. Would the same cost translate to 40+ hours of comics to read? For some titles, actually… that’s possible.

Comics are turn-key fun. You don’t need a PS5 or the latest Nvidia GPU to jump in and I think that consideration gets lost in the shuffle when people try to compare the two. Games require an interface, designed to become obsolete, whereas comics can be grabbed and enjoyed immediately.

I don’t think the costs of comics are too outrageous when you see what your five dollars can actually buy you, these days, but I get it. When I bring home a stack of comics that cost me sixty bucks, I think of that as money well spent at a store I love, for stories and art that I’m going to appreciate. In some cases though, I find the current model to be insubstantial in floppy form and really wish there were another 5 pages or so to really give the book a little more oomph. (Every artist and writer just decided to stab me.)

If there should be a decrease in cost for comics for anyone, it should be for shop owners. The margins on new comics are pretty low and it’s impossible to run a store where you only offer new books which discourages buying anything new for your customers to try. Flexibility in the wholesale price would be a huge help for a lot of shops.

And here, once again, we see what's wrong with this whole picture. Even the documentarian himself sounds like he's uninterested in comics making the switch to paperback/hardcover. Sure, $5 or so may not be as costly as $40-plus for a video game cartridge or disk, but it's still insulting to the intellect if it turns out there's barely 20 pages of story inside, and when you have to spend as much as $60 to buy what could be 10 floppies that once would've just cost little more than 2 dollars for the whole lot in the Bronze Age, then it becomes ridiculous. So, while a paperback/hardcover book obviously wouldn't be much cheaper if you bought several simultaneously (and they could be pretty heavy to carry together), wouldn't that at least make for something more relaxing to spend one's pastime with? Much less strain on the hands than a joystick and keyboard too.

I do see Eastin may allude to how even older stories count as something to encourage a new reader to try out, and that's important, because why is everyone being told only brand new stories count as a "jumping on point" when the Marvel Epic Collections and the recent DC Finest archives can provide you with whole stories that could be completed at one's leisure? And why isn't anybody emulating the less politically motivated, more subtle styles writers of the times employed? Or, if it matters, why don't they take on more challenging issues without ascribing to a leftist playbook?

Yanes: While researching for this documentary, were there any facts you discovered that surprised you?

Eastin: You’re asking some dangerous questions. For both our sakes, let it go. I was never here. (smoke bomb)

This may sound shmaltzy but the biggest surprise was just how welcoming and kind shop owners, comics artists/writers, and even distributors were when I approached them. There are always exceptions but once I made clear that I respected their time it was really rare that anyone either passed on an interview or was in any way confrontational. I worried, at the start, that the toxicity of the fandom I’d seen online was more prevalent in the culture and I had just been lucky my whole life. Turns out that jerks are the minority in both the industry and the community, broadly speaking.

Oh, and I learned more about the mafia being involved with early comics distribution than I expected. Y’know, IF the mafia were even real. (I’m no rat.)

Something tells me the claim organized syndicates having connections to early delivery and distribution is exaggerated, though if there were any, I'm sure it wasn't intentional on the publisher's part. That aside, of course it's fortunate that he didn't find the kind of bad attitudes found online, though it should be noted there are bad apples abound, and even "professional" creators who engaged in poor behavior online, if anywhere, and it's a real shame they sullied comicdom, even wasting tons of energy attacking the Comicsgate campaign instead of bettering artistic merit along with their own conduct. A bad attitude coming from a creator can be a key factor in poor sales for any particular comic, and similar points can be made about movies and their actors, writers, directors and producers.

Yanes: On this note, why do you think comic shops continue to be so important to geek and nerd communities?

Eastin: The short answer is human connection. The stereotype about geeks/nerds lacking social graces and abjuring social interaction isn’t entirely baseless but that really hasn’t been my experience. Comic shops continue to be a place where they can find their new favorite thing while chatting with people who are either already familiar or just as curious as them. And while you can get a little taste of that all over the internet, we’re social creatures and face to face interaction has a significant impact on people’s moods, thinking process, etc.

The other thing to consider, for shops that order a nice wide array of offerings, you have a place that allows you to respond to art in a way that doesn’t always translate online. Not only can a cover pique your interest on a new release wall but you’re allowed to pick that art up and give it a look before you take it home and along the way see what other people might be interested in. It’s an immersive experience with the possibility of positive social re-enforcement.

A lot of people liken the comic store to a sort of “third space”. Your work and home are both spaces that you routinely switch back and forth between and the third space is the place you go to forget about the other two for a while. And for stores that have embraced community play with things like Magic the Gathering, D&D, or some form of board game night; it’s the place you go to see your friends and take a break from all your worries (to borrow from the Cheers theme).

Well I'm glad he did have a positive experience at specialty stores, but maybe he should also research how some creators have conducted their behavior online, and show the courage to acknowledge it can be damaging when they act negative for all the wrong reasons, and even go so far as to blacklist conservatives whose beliefs they don't agree with.

Yanes: When people finish watching Shopping for Superman, what do you hope they take away from the experience?

Eastin: For fans of comic shops, I hope they learn something new and walk away feeling like someone made something just for them. It’s definitely a unique film in that it considers the fanboy and the people who are new to comics in general and tries to give them both a fun hour and a half.

For people that are new to comic shops, I genuinely hope it encourages them to visit a comic book store and talk with the owners/clerks to find that perfect story for them that keeps them coming back for more. Comics aren’t just stories where super powerful people beat each other up and from one page to the next you can find inspiration, beauty, and horror in combinations you never thought possible.

My genuine hope has been that people who run comic shops feel appreciated and understand that there’s a love for what they do and what their stores offer and I hope they keep up the fight to keep their doors open!

On that, good luck, but let's be clear that it all depends on whether they're selling merit-based material that ensures their longevity, no matter the genres and themes in focus. And if Mr. Eastin's documentary doesn't have anything to say about the artistic damage the industry's seen along with moral damage, then what good does it do to focus on the sales side? It's practically cheap to just focus on the business side when even the moral and artistic side is relevant. Failure to confront what the industry did wrong artistically won't improve sales fortunes for specialty stores or anybody else, and then someday, if the industry collapses, there's no telling if anybody will admit what went wrong, and whether wokeness destroyed the medium. It'd be great if somebody filmed a documentary with a seriously objective view of the artistic side of comicdom. But alas, if past examples are any suggestion, it's unlikely such a documentary will be made.

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:

“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.”

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.”

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?

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.”

“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.”

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?

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.”

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 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.

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.

FCBD includes some dark offerings, and it's strange how Hal Jordan is not considered for certain stories

Superhero Hype announced what DC, in example, is offering for Free Comic Book Day, including one dark item and another that omits a certain notable Green Lantern from the Silver Age:

This Absolute Universe story will be written by Jeff Lemire, with art by Giuseppe Camuncoli and Stefano Nesi. Set in this particularly dark DC alternate reality, the story will center around a gathering evil. [M]eanwhile, a mysterious figure with unclear intentions reveals an interest in the new Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman of this reality. [...]

In addition to the DC All-In/Absolute Universe special, DC is offering two books aimed at young readers. The first is a special Free Comic Book Day preview of Superman’s Good Guy Gang. The new graphic novel, aimed at early readers ages 5-7, features a script and art by Rob Justus. The story will find a young Superman trying to form a team with Hawkgirl and the Green Lantern Guy Gardner. The full book goes on sale July 1, 2025.

It's appalling they continue to perpetuate the culture of darkness, and while I think Guy Gardner's got potential as a character if written well, it's becoming laughable at this point how GLs like him are being cast in these stories instead of Hal Jordan. The choice reeks of editorial mandate, and it's regrettable how Hal continues to be marginalized. All that aside, I wouldn't be fooled into taking home the items from DC/Marvel as they stand today, and hope there's independent publishers with something better to offer, and that includes stuff that's more optimistic.

A columnist who's disappointed with the new Superman film's costume designs, while James Gunn politicizes its release

A writer at Comic Book Movie took a look at the costumes featured in the trailer for the upcoming Superman movie overseen by the pretentious James Gunn, and is unimpressed:

If you’ve read my articles before, you’ll probably know I’m not the biggest fan of James Gunn. I know I’m very much in the minority here, but I don’t love any of his superhero projects. I like some of them, but I don’t love any of them. For the most part, I dislike them. I prefer movies and shows with a more serious tone, and that is definitely not what Gunn is known for. Regardless of my feelings towards Gunn, I want DC to succeed in building a cinematic universe. I’ve loved DC characters since I was a small child watching Batman: The Animated Series. For decades, I’ve wanted to see all my heroes on the screen together. Ultimately, that’s what I want. So, while I don’t like Gunn, I love DC and, of course, Superman. I don’t want to bash DC, but I want to give honest opinions more.

My honest opinion is that these costumes do not look good.

In the trailer, we see many characters: Superman, Clark Kent, Krypto, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Mr. Terrific are all present. Some of their costumes are better than others, but almost none of them are great.

Already, I see people criticizing Guy Gardner’s haircut. Yes, it’s goofy and awkward looking, but that’s exactly what it’s supposed to be. Gunn certainly didn’t have to make it that goofy and awkward, but I like it. However, Green Lantern’s costume has a lot of white for a Green Lantern. Guy Gardner’s comic book appearance has a little bit of white in it, usually in the collar or gloves, but this costume is more white than anything else. I was hoping we’d see the costume that has a huge collar, but it seems like they went with a leather jacket that isn’t made of leather kind of look.

Hawkgirl’s costume looks significantly better than Green Lantern’s, but there’s still a lot of white where you don’t expect it to be. I very much like that there’s lots of gold, but it seems like the green in her usual comic book costume has been replaced by black. She looks more like a wannabe biker than a superhero, similar to Green Lantern.

[...] Clark Kent’s new haircut resembles a certain internet personality from 2019 that I can’t fully type out called the f*** boy haircut. Short on the sides, enormously poofy in the front. I am certainly not a fan of the haircut, but everything else we’ve seen about Kent looks great. He’s very tall, moves awkwardly, and seems to be unsure of every step. Lois looks great too, but her costume is fairly easy to design. The same goes for Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor. He looks perfect as the villain. Thank heaven he’s bald and we didn’t get another weird Jesse Eisenberg Lex Luthor.

Finally, we’re on to Superman. I still feel conflicted about his outfit. I love the collar, I love the trunks, and I love the symbol, but the whole thing looks like it doesn’t fit him. I think the problem I have with it is the same I have with the other heroes: it looks like the CW. Maybe it looks so much like it’s made out of plain fabric because it is made out of plain fabric in the movie. Maybe Clark makes it himself or Martha Kent makes it, but that would take the opportunity to have it be part of his Kryptonian heritage.

Personally, I just hope that, if Guy Gardner's in this film, they didn't draw from Gerard Jones' take for a wellspring. Jones' writing is a stain on anything Green Lantern-related, plain and simple. As for Hawkgirl, if this is the Kendra Saunders edition, I'm decidedly not interested at this point, because her premise, co-written as it was by James Robinson and David Goyer, built on what happened with Sheira Sanders in 1994 during Zero Hour, and putting Shiera into the body of her niece is no substitute. Besides, like countless other storylines since the turn of the century, it ultimately led nowhere.

But if this is supposed to be a stand-alone film, wouldn't the superhero guest characters conflict with the focus one would expect to be heaped upon the Man of Steel? I think the only thing that's impressed me of what I may have seen so far was a screencap showing Superman making love to Lois Lane while hugging her in the air. The kind of scenes that have occurred in past comics, but if Gunn's going to inject anything overly leftist into the film, it only sours the milk.

And on that note, Fox News reports Gunn is politicizing the upcoming Superman movie - hardly a surprise at this point - with an announcement to accompany its release:

Filmmaker James Gunn says the battered-looking version of Superman seen in the trailer for his highly anticipated "Superman" film represents America.

During a recent Q&A session at the trailer’s premiere, the director acknowledged the political implications present in the film, saying there is a theme of a bruised and bloodied America running through it.

"We do have a battered Superman in the beginning. That is our country," Gunn said at the event.

[...] In addition to reintroducing audiences to the classic Superman characters, the roughly two-minute trailer featured the titular character in dire straits, lying bloodied and bruised in an Arctic wasteland.

[...] Gunn said the shocking images of the broken hero are a reference to an America that still stands for goodness despite what he called its current bloodied and beat-up state.

"I believe in the goodness of human beings, and I believe that most people in this country, despite their ideological beliefs, their politics, are doing their best to get by and be good people — despite what it may seem like to the other side," he said.

But the beleaguered state of Gunn's Superman represents America when corrupted by "darker voices," he said.

"This movie is about that. It’s about the basic kindness of human beings, and that it can be seen as uncool and under siege [by] some of the darker voices are some of the louder voices."

Elsewhere during the Q&A, Gunn reiterated the idea that the movie is about human goodness overcoming these "darker" influences.

He said, "It’s about the basic kindness of human beings. It’s a noble premise, and one that seems designed to appeal across the political spectrum. It’s a moral call to embrace decency and optimism."

Gunn, who steered clear of political specifics, has long been a critic of President-elect Donald Trump, calling him in a 2017 post "an incompetent President forging a full-blown attack on facts and journalism in the style of Hitler and Putin."

Unfortunately, chances are very high the "darker influences" he speaks of allude to - surprise, surprise - right-wing/conservative politics. In Gunn's world-view, there's no way leftist/liberal politics could possibly be bad. And that's the problem. The UK Independent notes:

Expanding on the idea, the 58-year-old added: “I believe in the goodness of human beings, and I believe that most people in this country, despite their ideological beliefs, their politics, are doing their best to get by and be good people — despite what it may seem like to the other side, no matter what that other side might be. This movie is about that. It’s about the basic kindness of human beings, and that it can be seen as uncool and under siege [by] some of the darker voices are some of the louder voices.”

“I’m excited for people to get to see the essence of what we’re doing because it really has been like this private secret that we’ve all been hoarding,” Gunn later told Variety.

“We felt really good about it, like from a moral place, even from the beginning. We all felt like we were doing something good, both in terms of quality and in terms of actually something that’s not a fascistic power fantasy.

But couldn't the addition of The Authority to the screenplay conflict with that claim? This article also notes:

Others weren’t as enthusiastic about the comments. “A children’s comic book character from 1938 that shoots lasers from his eyes is not a useful lens for modern day politics,” noted one person.

A second joked: “Definitely something a man with conservative friends would say.”

On this, I'd argue the problem is conservative/right-wing views being shut out of Hollywood, and if a conservative viewpoint's not allowed to be applied to Superman, then that's but one problem right there. The gatekeepers retaining ownership of Batman won't allow conservatives to write the Masked Manhunter or apply their views to him anymore either. Even with Wolverine at Marvel, this wouldn't be allowed. And it makes no difference that even right-wingers don't think the Man of Steel has to be a killing machine in all instances either, though a point should be made that, if killing a murderous criminal is what it takes to prevent an innocent and defenseless victim of crime from being murdered and even raped, then is it wrong for the hero to choose saving the life of an innocent, and should such a story premise remain throughly unexplored? Food for thought that anybody who's studying to be a writer might want to consider.

All that said, I won't be surprised if this latest take on the Man of Steel does make quite a bit of bank when it premieres, even though the people who oversaw its production are hardly deserving of an audience. And it's unlikely to reverse the dwindling fortunes of the comics proper, which have long lost direction to wokeness. Seriously, what's to celebrate, especially if the fans spoken of only care about the movies, but not the coherency of the comics?