What a Catholic commentator has to say about Marvel/DC history while discussing Voyage Comics' contributions to the medium

A writer at the Catholic World Report discusses Voyage Comics, the publisher specializing in religiously-themed stories, and along the way, has what to say about past Marvel/DC publications with allusions to leftist ideology. Some of which are admittedly quite interesting to ponder, including a certain aforementioned tale from 1986 that led to a disturbing form of editorial mandate the following decade or so:

Back in the late 80s and into the 90s, even as an unphilosophical teenager and avid consumer of comic books, I was well aware of flaws in the fantasy worlds of Marvel and DC.

I can, for instance, recall seeing through the thinly veiled propaganda of an “X-Men” graphic novel entitled God’s Country, the villain of which was a small-minded religious bigot who refused to tolerate super-powered mutants. One storyline of The Legion of Super-Heroes depicted a xenophobic dictator taking over the Earth, resulting in a terrible regime whereby hapless space aliens were persecuted.

Quite aside from the obvious virtue-signaling, I was also put off by the superficial and trite conflation of issues such as trans-humanism and extra-terrestrial life with the “gay rights” movement. Do slogans like Coexist! and Can’t we all get along? really represent the only response to the presence among us of alien beings endowed with godlike powers?

In any event, an issue of The Incredible Hulk would finally cut to the chase by featuring S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury bragging about his organization’s acceptance of homosexuals.

To be sure, even in the mainstream comic book industry, there have been exceptions that veer from the reservation of liberal ideology. I still have an old issue of Batman, wherein the hero tracks down an insane criminal who would solve the homelessness problem … by killing off all the homeless. Unfortunately, some of the most interesting comics that part ways with leftist ideology are excessively dark. For example, Frank Miller’s iconic The Dark Knight Returns is laced with gratuitous obscenity and over-the-top violence, making it impossible to recommend this otherwise fascinating account of an indomitable, haunted man resuming his obligation to protect his home city from chaos.

Interesting the guy does have a problem with Miller's resort to jarring violence in the story, though I hardly consider DKR a title worth the time, if only because of what it led to years later, though of course I realize it's not Miller and his story who're literally and/or solely to blame, but rather, any editors and publishers who came within even miles of forcing successive writers to adopt a path where Bruce Wayne would be portrayed as a nasty control freak, almost entirely lacking a sense of humor or any kind of happiness amid the darkness. That direction also led to the horrific mistreatment of Stephanie Brown/Spoiler, because if memory serves, there were storylines where it was implied superhero missions are unsuited for younger protagonists, and all this in a world that was otherwise meant to be surreal. IIRC, even in Geoff Johns' Teen Titans title, this shoddy path was alluded to at one point.

I think the columnist goofed with the title of the X-Men GN, which I believe is actually "God Loves, Man Kills", originally published around 1982, and was the 5th in the Marvel Graphic Novel series that lasted until about 1993, comprising at least 75 stories. And since that came up, one can only wonder if Chris Claremont would've written up a villain who was a Muslim adherent? IIRC, when Claremont later wrote an unsuccessful 2nd volume of Gen13 that came after September 11, 2001, he added a character who was a Muslim to the cast, indicating Claremont was an early example of a writer who went woke in comicdom. And where exactly in the Hulk was Nick Fury boasting about welcoming LGBT agents into S.H.I.E.L.D? Perhaps in the 1990s, when it was more likely such propaganda would turn up, and the late Peter David was known to be a supporter of such ideologies. It is a shame he had to make such a big deal about it, even if at the time, most writers like him originally did it more subtly, unlike the very disturbingly contrived and forced way it's been handled since. Although, lest we forget, the disgraced Gerard Jones was one shoddy writer of his sort from the times who did it, as mentioned, in a very contrived and forced manner, at the expense of a more talented writer (Roy Thomas)'s creation from Infinity Inc. And that was definitely wrong. For all we know, what Jones did may have precipitated the alarming trend among leftist writers of changing a heterosexual character to homosexual, and it eventually led to the damage even X-Men's cast underwent. And even before all that, there was a time when William Messner-Loebs changed the Pied Piper from the Flash to gay in 1990. Just because this was a reformed crook who underwent an alteration of personality, does that make it inherently acceptable? Of course not.

Happily, Voyage Comics avoids political correctness on the one hand and runaway sex and violence on the other, instead opting to celebrate heroes both more down-to-earth and more wholesome than what we typically find in Marvel and DC. Also, intriguingly, heroes are placed not in the immediate “now” but are situated within historical fiction; the “Lionette” and “Phantom Phoenix” titles are set in America in the period between the World Wars.

...A sick popular culture very much needs a Catholic presence, and one way to maintain such a presence is by imprinting artifacts of that popular culture with a Catholic vision. Certainly, our history and culture are replete with real-life heroism, protagonists, and images, which warrant our children’s attention more than do Spider-Man or Green Lantern.

On this, I would disagree just in how he implies Spidey and GL in and of themselves aren't worth our children's time. There was once a time they were relevant, and when most writers/editors didn't force extreme political beliefs into the stories under the confidence that, because these were corporate-owned, they could get away with it. But that began to collapse over time, with GL an early victim of PC post-1988, and Spidey the next victim years later in the early 2000s, when J. Michael Straczynski got his mitts on the writing assignment. I think back to that time and feel disgust at all the apologists who defended and justified JMS' writing, at least until the whole Sins Past debacle came around, and only then may they finally have conceded it wasn't worth the paper wasted to print it. Today, it's definitely aged poorly.

So it's great to have religious stories to tell from that specific perspective of what figures can be considered heroic. Even so, I don't think the columnist should be telling all this at the expense of the hard work figures like Stan Lee did in his time. That kind of bias never helps.

ComicBook fawns over post-2000 Superman comics

ComicBook wrote another sugary article where they predictably set about gushing over what they call the "best" of Superman comics in the 21st century, with the writers of their choices being none other than the worst of modern day ideologues, or even writers who've lost their way post-2000. For example:

Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths is underappreciated; it’s much better than it gets credit for and has some certified bangers. The best of them is probably Dark Crisis: World Without a Justice League: Superman #1, by Tom King and Chris Burnham. The story takes place on a “perfect” Earth for Superman, meant to drain his energy for Pariah. He’s married to Lois and Jon has become his sidekick, working as Robin instead of Superboy. However, there’s something amiss with the world that keeps bothering the Man of Steel, which leads him to make a fateful decision. King hasn’t written much Superman, but has proven to be amazing with the character. This issue is no exception, and it’ll bring a tear to your eye by the end. Burnham is fantastic, really bringing the issue to life. This story is an underrated sensation that isn’t talked about enough.

When King's the kind of writer they recommend, you know something's wrong, and that the comic in focus is both overappreciated and overrated. Where does the writer get off lecturing us that such scriptwriters are the best we can find in this day and age? If this story isn't spoken about much, it's just as well. And then, also to be expected:

Geoff Johns and Gary Frank are one of the best teams to work on Superman in the 21st century. Their run on Action Comics is almost completely perfect. “Brainiac” is a wonderful example of why they are so great together. The story brings back the villain Brainiac, revealing the truth about all different versions of the Coluan cyborg we’ve seen over the years. This one is both an action masterpiece with some amazing worldbuilding, and a tearjerker that will break your heart. The action is brilliant, and the art will knock your socks off. This came during that period when DC was bringing pre-Crisis ideas back to the Superman comics, and is a story that is both modern and retro at the same time.

There they go again with the use of the word "revealing", rather than "establishing", but either way, Johns is unsuited to the task, and Frank shouldn't have worked with him. And there's also the following:

Superman: Space Age is a retro masterpiece, and doesn’t get the credit it deserves. The book starts in the 1985, at the end of the world, and tells the story of Superman’s life, his relationship with Lois Lane, the beginning and end of the Justice League, and a look at Crisis on Infinite Earths that we’ve never gotten before. Written by Mark Russell with art by Mike and Laura Allred, this story is the perfect mix of retro DC goodness and amazing Superman storytelling. It’s not a perfect book — the Lex Luthor subplot isn’t as great as it could be — but it’s so very good. We all expected it to be great, but we didn’t expect it to be as great as it is.

Even if a leftist like Russell wasn't the writer here, the Allreds are honestly some of the most mediocre artists since the turn of the century, and alone could be quite a turnoff. I seem to recall reading some of the former's work in the last year of X-Force, and there too, the art was perfectly dreadful. There's even another item by King listed that at least half admits he's not a fan-favorite:

Superman: Up in the Sky, by Tom King and Andy Kubert, was a huge gamble of a story. King isn’t exactly the most beloved writer in DC Comics, and the book was sold in Wal-Mart in an anthology book that combined it with Superman classics. The story sees the Man of Steel fly off into space to rescue one little girl. On the trip, the hero is challenged numerous times, all while wrestling with whether he should be out here in the first place to save just one life. King and Kubert give readers a story that completely understands the character, a brilliant tale that digs into the first superhero in a way a lot of stories don’t. The art is amazing, perfectly bringing the script to life. This story can easily stand with the greatest Superman stories of any generation.

And only because King's the writer, right? Interesting they admit he's not the most admired writer at DC today, but then, none of the new ones really are, so it's nothing new, yet of course King's politics don't improve anything. But that still doesn't explain why they're fluff-coating his writings despite admitting he's not a favorite writer for the core fanbase they already alienated, and to say a scriptwriter who obsessed over storylines emphasizing heavy-handed takes on traumas is one of the most talented you could possibly find is just insulting.

And all this mishmash takes up valueable space that could've been dedicated to spotlighting the most interesting and challenging new creator-owned comics instead. If they'd just admit there's no point wasting time on modern DC/Marvel, we'd be getting somewhere. Sadly, it's unlikely they'll ever explore topics more challenging, and we'll just keep getting more of this gushy nonsense that always goes for the most overrated writers and stories in the modern era.

"Feminist" site supports Bendis

I mentioned before that Brian Michael Bendis is sadly returning to Marvel to sully the Avengers and other comics yet again. And perhaps it's not a surprise that a supposedly feminist site, The Mary Sue, is actually giving him their support, this despite any and all steps he took in his writing that were denigrating to women, with Scarlet Witch one of his biggest victims. Their sugarcoated lauding is as follows:

Bendis’ impact on Marvel, particularly in the 2000s, can not be overstated. Not only did he co-create pop culture juggernauts Miles Morales, Jessica Jones, and Riri Williams, but he revitalized the main Daredevil title with a five-year run. And then there’s his original tenure on Avengers, which led to landmark events like Secret Invasion, House of M, and Siege.

In 2017, Bendis made shockwaves across the industry with the news that he had signed an exclusive contract with DC. He ended up writing for the publisher for several years, not only on the Superman family of books with Superman and Action Comics, but on other titles like Checkmate and Legion of Super-Heroes.

There had been chatter, as of late, about Bendis potentially returning to Marvel… which would be noteworthy in and of itself, even if he was just taking on a lesser-known solo or team book. But the notion of him coming back to Avengers is something else altogether, especially given the ongoing reverence that people still have for his time on the book. Regardless of whatever the future holds for the larger Marvel universe, Bendis and Bagley jumping onto a book like that definitely has the potential to be something special.

If they had no complaints about how WandaVision and Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness forcibly turned Scarlet Witch into a madwoman any more than Bendis did to her in Disassembled, that says all you need to know just how "feminist" they really are, and not interested in championing fictional women who could serve as inspirational figures, whether they're heroines or anti-heroines (and I can't recall they ever defended Mary Jane Watson either). Of course, "mary sue" is meant to be a figure of speech in fanfiction, either for writers inject themselves into the story where they imagine themselves in what could end up becoming a sick fantasy, or it means a character with no flaws or depth whatsoever that merely serves a selfish purpose of said writer. There may even be a figure of speech like "murphy stu" in use for similar reasons, but that's another story. For now, the puff piece at the pseudo-opinion site makes clear there's certain "feminists" who couldn't care less if Stan Lee's creations dropped off the face of the earth, competely forgotten. Also, curious how the writer makes no mention of the Disassembled event; it's probably no accident she didn't, because that could undermine the narrative she's pushing here.

Interestingly enough, a writer for ComicBook, by contrast, was not so sugarcoated, though he still has a moment of lenience in the following item. First:

Marvel is in something of a rut right now. The Ultimate Universe was the biggest thing in comics in 2023, but DC was hot on the publisher’s tail, and the 2024 one-two punch of the DC All-In publishing initiative and the Absolute Universe destroyed that. Add in the underperforming X-Men line, no one caring about the Avengers, Spider-Man languishing (despite The Amazing Spider-Man finally being pretty good), the latest volume of Daredevil getting panned by everyone and then cancelled, and the rest of the publisher’s output not impressing enough people (besides Zdarksy’s Captain America and Immortal/Mortal Thor), and it’s a dark time for the bestselling superhero publisher.

It's been a dark situation for over 20 years now, and sugarcoating what became of Marvel and even DC is unhelpful. Besides, what's so great about DC's alternate universe line that's got leftist political metaphors sullying its impact? Predictably, this isn't brought up by the columnist, who even has the gall to downplay the continuing disaster in Spidey, whose marriage to Mary Jane Watson, if still decanonized, is a prime reason - and not the only one - why it won't be good.

Marvel is in a bad place, and rumors have been circulating that a familiar name may be returning to the publisher: Brian Michael Bendis. Bendis was responsible for Marvel becoming an unassailable titan in the ’00s, and was beloved by fans for years. He left the company in 2018, working for DC before going to the indies. The writer could be a game-changer for Marvel in 2026, but there’s no real reason he should come back. In fact, he almost certainly shouldn’t, for several important reasons.

Brian Michael Bendis Is Overrated

Bendis started getting attention at Image in the late ’90s with his crime book Torso, based on a real-life Elliot Ness case. He’d end up writing Sam and Twitch for Todd McFarlane and would start getting work at Marvel. In the year 2000, he was given The Ultimate Spider-Man, and that, combined with runs on Daredevil and Elektra, made him a superstar. Soon, he was writing the Avengers and became Marvel’s go-to guy for just about everything, writing the first event of the Marvel event cycle, Secret War, as well as House of M and Secret Invasion. He wrote the Avengers for seven years, the X-Men for three years, and then bummed around the Marvel Universe until 2018.

Many look at Marvel in the ’00s as awesome, but I believe it’s an overrated era. And frankly, Bendis is a big part of that. His overly wordy style did a great job of setting up drama, but his approach to action is far less accomplished. Hate the drawn-out nature of modern stories? That’s Bendis. No matter how acclaimed it might be, House of M was boring, and so was the vast majority of his Avengers run: stories that should have been three or four issues stretched to six to eight. The less said about his X-Men, the better, and his last couple of years at Marvel were a huge failure, with him writing the maligned Civil War II, which ruined Captain Marvel.

So now somebody tells us the real picture of the mid-2000s, which is when things really went downhill, and let's not forget J. Michael Straczynski's bottom of the barrel run on Spider-Man, another horrid example of what's wrong with that specific era. I seem to recall there was a moment where Bendis made Dr. Doom sound juvenile too, though what's really irritating in hindsight has to be a moment where he wrote Hawkeye insulting Hank Pym by asking "don't you got a wife to beat?" This was at the beginning of his Avengers run, and things got worse from there. But unsurprisingly, nobody at the time was willing to admit Bendis is a bad, overrated writer, and if he were beginning with Avengers today, it's a foregone conclusion they'd continue with the code of silence. Unfortunately, the writer goes soft on criticism with the following:

One of the most annoying issues for me is Bendis’ tendency to not use the character’s individual voices that had been built up by creators over the decades. Let me list the characters he was able to write correctly: Spider-Man, Daredevil, Captain America, Wolverine, Luke Cage, and I guess Spider-Woman. Every other Bendis character was basically just Spider-Man (you could probably count Jessica Jones, but he created her, so that doesn’t count to me). If you hate the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s quippy sense of humor, thank Bendis.

All of that is before we even get to his DC run, where he wrote a few good books, with most of his work at the publisher not landing. Ironically, in my opinion, he was actually a better superhero writer at DC than Marvel, but that’s not saying much. Marvel fans had started getting tired of Bendis during his X-Men run, and only got worse as things went on. Bendis did some great stuff at the House of Ideas — Daredevil, The Ultimate Spider-Man, his work on Miles Morales, Dark Avengers — but he’s not the one that is going to fix the tailspin in quality that Marvel is currently in.

Sorry, but even at DC, he wrote crude, juvenile dialogue, and went increasingly woke in scripting the Legion of Super-Heroes. He also caved to a petty complaint about a Superman story where a villain used a slur, even if it was depicted negatively. And of course, the way Bendis had the Man of Steel cast aside his secret ID was contrived and forced. Come to think of it, even the similar direction Bendis took with Daredevil was the same. One more reason it's actually rather late to be acknowledging Bendis isn't a talented writer, and as the article makes clear, even that's conveyed weakly, which is unfortunate. If Bendis did a bad job at DC, just say so, and don't go soft by saying he wrote superheroes better there than at Marvel. Because if his LOSH work is any clue, he didn't. And it's unwise to say he did good work on DD and the Ultimate line either.

Marvel Needs New Blood, Not the Past

Marvel has a lot of problems right now, but the biggest is their hindbound attitudes. Their editorial is run by the same people that have been running things since the ’00s. Names like Brevoort, Lowe, and Cebulski aren’t exactly favorites of fans. The publisher needs something, but they don’t need yet another person from the ’00s. If the company wants to get some heat back — NYCC was a failure for them, with DC running the show — they need to move forward, not backward.

Brian Michael Bendis hasn’t been a superstar in a long time. He’s a great crime writer, but he was pushed into a place where he wasn’t very good, and while a lot of fans liked him, a lot of his work and writing style is now mocked by fans. Marvel has depended too much on inertia and fans buying by rote. Bendis might do numbers on a Daredevil comic, but he’s not going to be the killer application that makes the company hot again.

Gee, do these propagandists really think that, with leftists like the above editors running Marvel ever still, they'll be hot stuff again? Nope. And the way they say fans "liked" Bendis, and then say they mock his style is also awkward. Especially when he himself insulted fanbases by refusing to acknowledge the reasons any fans don't like his work is because of where he took Scarlet Witch for starters, and that he relied on an irritatingly drawn out form of writing where he'd pad out his stories for the sake of 6-plus issues, which only made his writing all the more boring and lethargic. If Marvel and DC still rely on that kind of approach to storytelling, padding out their scripts ad nauseum, how do they expect anybody to be engaged in the stories?

The writer at ComicBook might admit Bendis was a bad writer, and might admit more than the Mary Sue's more biased article does. But it's still very lenient on Bendis' past mistakes, and leaves room to wonder if the 2nd writer really even wants any improvement. So long as Marvel's run by such dreadful management that since turned to wokeness, nothing will improve. And why not suggest Marvel/DC's time to close down business in their current format might be for the best? Even if they do cease publishing, that doesn't mean they can't be revived one day. And so long as it's under a more reliable ownership, that's why if they close and later reopen, then it'll be worth looking forward to. Certainly so long as they don't hire bad writers like Bendis.

It appears the social justice mob is tearing down on Jim Shooter, even after he's gone

No sooner did the news of Jim Shooter's passing come out, shortly afterwards, as this biased-looking Bleeding Cool article says, there's LGBT advocates tearing down on Shooter, accusing him of homophobia over the story he oversaw in the Rampaging Hulk title around 1980, involving 2 homosexual rapists threatening Bruce Banner at a YMCA club:

This week saw the passing of Jim Shooter, writer, artist, editor, publisher and Editor-In-Chief at Marvel, Valiant, Defiant and Broadway Comics. Among all the tributes made to the man and his impact on the comic book industry, caused it, as Bleeding Cool described it, to "grow up", there are plenty of anecdotes that swing all over the place regarding the man. And more often than not, as well as discussion about his rules, there using the word, "complicated". Former Marvel/DC writer, editor and gay activist, founder of the Gays In Comics panel at San Diego Comic-Con, and for years the most prominent out creator in mainstream comics, Andy Mangels picked up on that yesterday, posting to Facebook an article he wrote for Amazing Heroes about gay culture in comics back in the nineties, and then posting further;

"REGARDING JIM SHOOTER'S DEATH …
I'm seeing a lot of tributes, and a lot of them using the word "complicated." Well, I'll add one more word: Homophobic In Rampaging Hulk magazine in 1980, Shooter wrote a damning story about Bruce Banner almost being raped at the YMCA by two lisping, mincing, queens. So horrific was it that it made newspaper and magazine stories at the time (Advocate, Village Voice, and Omni among them). I later wrote about in Amazing Heroes #143-144 and again in The Advocate. Throughout the years, Shooter was alternately defensive, angry, and defensively angry about people's reactions to the blatantly awful story. On his blog (especially in the comments), he defended it, even against the words of gay ex-Marvel editor Roger Klorese."

I wonder if this same kind of despision strongly hinted at would've been seen if Shooter had published a story about lesbian rapists? Speaking of lesbians, you don't usually see this kind of fuss made about Mystique and Destiny, the 2 villainesses who led the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants during the 80s. Otherwise, they wouldn't have lasted beyond a few issues, if they even made it to the drawing board. That said, this Mangels sounds like quite an entitled ideologue who doesn't want to recognize that LGBT can do bad things, and that's what this story was about as explained in the following coming from his blog at the time. First, the query was asked:

"I would love to know more about was your involvement in The Hulk magazine #23, the story where Bruce Banner is nearly raped in a YMCA shower. From memory, the story was quite controversial and resulted in an outpouring of mostly negative letters that were published in the letters column for two issues. I would love to know what your inspiration to write the story was and the fallout that occurred afterwards."

Shooter's answer was:

"A friend of mine at the age of 15 — maybe 16, not sure — had been attacked in exactly the same way at the McBurney "Y," and escaped, as Banner did. That scene was a small bit, not by a longshot the focus of the story. I was a charter subscriber to New Woman Magazine, which had run a series of articles about rape, and in particular one about "Post Rape Syndrome." Many rape victims are in shock during the actual attack, almost numb and disbelieving. Their reactions — anger, horror, humiliation, the whole emotional gamut, often do not set in until afterward. I thought, what if, for once, Banner did not turn into the Hulk when it was convenient, but only afterwards, when the reactions set in, when it wasn't convenient. The bad guys, to me, were just that — bad guys. Marvel was an equal opportunity employer. Anyone could be a bad guy. It never occurred to me that a couple of bad guys could be interpreted as a sweeping indictment of gay people. As far as I know, we received a total of six letters regarding that issue, two positive, two neutral and two negative. I believe we printed all of them. I wrote personal replies to the negative ones. The comment I received that meant the most to me was Stan's. He was worried when he heard about the story. In particular, he was worried that it might offend the producers of the Hulk TV show. Then he read it. He called me (he was in LA) and said it was the best comics story he ever read. Stan, as you know, is prone to hyperbole, but clearly, he liked it. He also told me not to worry about the reactions, if any. He said he would stand by the story. So do I."

"There was spillover into a second issue's lettercol, comments on the comments. A reporter from the Advocate came to interview me. The first thing he asked was why Marvel was anti-gay. I said we weren't. Why then, he asked, didn't we have any gay characters? I said we had lots of them. He asked which ones. I said, "You can't tell, can you?" He folded up his notebook and left. And wrote the story he always intended to write anyway."

So, is there something inherently wrong with wanting to address the fact that homosexual rape exists? That's what these charlatans seem to be implying. Over here in Israel, there was a scandal involving a LGBT activist who was accused by at least 5 men of raping them, and the worst part is that the leftist district attorney refused to indict him, thus throwing his victims under the bus. In the ultra-Orthodox community, there was a scandal involving 2 once-revered - and now deceased-by-suicide - figures who it turned out had committed both heterosexual and homosexual rape. If Mr. Mangels believes it's unacceptable to make a point how nobody, no matter their sexual preferences, is incapable of committing heinous acts of sexual violence, then he's excusing those particular offenders too. What a disgrace. Here's what Bleeding Cool quoted from Mr. Klorese:

"In your recollections of the HULK story, you talk about your handling of the rape as based on a true incident, as if that somehow absolves you for responsibility for its effect. And you talk about the letters received as "two positive, two neutral, and two negative" — probably accurate, but oversimplified — and say "I believe we printed all of them. I wrote personal replies to the negative ones." There's the oversimplification. First, even accepting the rape as a value-neutral story point — which is not easy — you omit the fact that you portray the rapists as fag stereotypes, right down to the lisping "oh, pith." Second, at a time when there were few if any VISIBLE gay characters in mainstream comics, presenting rape as the ONLY same-sex sexual interaction is thoughtless at best. And as for your "you can't tell" witticism, that's the point. Saying that the "good" gay characters are the invisible ones, the ones who can't be seen with a same-sex partner behaving in as PG a manner as their opposite-sex-pairing peers, sends gay and questioning readers a hell of a message: hide who you are, that's how to be "good." If, of course, they even heard your hushed-up message. (Remember, this is the era in which we first saw Nightwing and Starfire in the sack — nobody was even asking for that, just a little discreet interaction on the order of the kids in the first few issues of YOUNG AVENGERS.)

"As for the letters: I wrote one of those, and I suppose you're counting it as negative, since you did reply — with basically a "my toys, my rules" response, to the effect of "I told my story — sorry you didn't like it." But as for the actual printed letter: I wrote a letter praising you for trying to write about more adult topics, but taking you to task for the specifics. Once Ralph Macchio got done with it — ironic that it should be Ralph, since Marv Wolfman called me just after Ralph was hired and told me he would have hired me for the gig had I not just gone back to college, but, hell, no complaints now! — what appeared was… the part of the letter praising your efforts. No criticism."

So in other words, what he was saying is that even if the story draws from a real life incident, it's still inherently wrong to address the subject? For shame. I realize there were times when Shooter came off sound like "it's everyone else's fault but mine", but this guy's doing no better. Shooter's reply was the following:

"When I wrote that scene, I wasn't thinking about "its effect" beyond the way it served the story and established critical things about Banner/Hulk that were germane. As I said, it never occurred to me that there was any "effect" to worry about. Clearly there was, and maybe I should have been more aware. Sorry. I portrayed the bad guys in that scene as they were described to me by my friend, call him MJ, with whom I was staying at the McBurney Y. He obviously didn't hear anyone say pith after he escaped. I originally wrote "piss." Worried about using that, I made it "pith." Lynn Graeme, the editor — I always had an editor — specifically mentioned that as being sardonically sinister, in character for that bad guy. So I left it. I'll concede now, in retrospect, that it was a bad idea. Sorry.

"When I wrote the story, I wasn't thinking about what was or wasn't going on in mainstream comics. I was thinking about that story. It didn't appear in "mainstream comics" anyway. It appeared in a Code-free magazine. I didn't ponder what was going on in mainstream magazines, either. I was just trying to write a good story based on experiences I was close to. I wish I had been smarter, wiser, more conscious of what that little bit might mean in the great context of comics publishing, but I wasn't. The preceeding sentence was not written in a snarky way. I mean it. I wasn't as aware as I should have been, or someone better prepared than me might have been. But I was younger then, and so was the world. That's the only excuse I can offer. Sorry. As for my "You can't tell…" witicism, as you call it, the point is that I knew the guy was going to write his article as he did. It wasn't an interview. It was a fishing expedition to see if he could get me to say something damning he could use. My "witicism" made it clear I wasn't going to, so he left. You missed the point. I think it's quite a leap to say that I was sending a "hide who you are message" in a statement that wasn't made publicly. "If, of course, they even heard your hushed-up message." Well, it wasn't a message. There was no message I was sending, except, I suppose, to the Advocate reporter that he wasn't going to get what he wanted out of me. I'm guessing he wanted an Al Campanis style meltdown. And if you're talking about a message that you think I'm trying to send now by quoting that "witicism…." Come on. Here in the 21st Century? Really? You are correct that most mainstream American comics were still just beginning to deal with sex at all in any way more deeply than seen on I Love Lucy. At first, we mostly weren't very good at dealing with sex of any kind in a more sophisticated, mature, wiser way. I thought the first few attempts at gay relationships done in comics were clumsy and heavy-handed. Slowly, I think, we have improved."

"I told my story. I'm sorry you didn't like it. I wish I had it back to do over again and make it better. For that matter, I wish I had every story I've ever written back to do over and do better. Nonetheless, as I said, I stand by that story. I think it's a good story. Remember, the attack at the "Y" was a bit. The story was not about that bit. I didn't know your letter was truncated. Sorry. Here's a question: would you feel differently about the story if it came out now, at a time when gay relationships spanning the spectrum of the human condition from wonderful to otherwise, are frequently portrayed on mainstream media? Just one more thing: Never, when this subject has been raised has anyone expressed any concern for or interest in the real-life victim. Never a "was he hurt?" or a "that must have been terrifying," or a "was he traumatized?" Does no one care? I have made plenty of faulty judgments in my life, some of them in the Hulk story in question. I bet you've made a few, too. I can assure you of this: There was no malice, no prejudice and no ill-intent."

From what I can tell, if Shooter was apologizing for anything, it was changing a crude word to something he thought less crude. That's probably the only thing to be dismayed at. But with that noted, if a Moslem had published a story deemed anti-gay, would Mr. Mangels and Klorese have kept quiet, in sharp contrast to this case? Sadly, the chance of that is quite likely, so what's their point? No wonder the whole appalling idea of "classicism" has become so common. But, as is also noted in the article, when Shooter oversaw the Valiant brand, there were stories involving gay characters. Seriously, did he have to go to such lengths just to "prove" he's not what they accused him of? Nope.

And on that note, there's also this puff piece, which as some may realize, is bound to be "clickbait", something Bleeding Cool's writers certainly seem to love doing, but if true, suggests Shooter regrettably wasn't above doing something icky:

In 2007, the late Jim Shooter returned to DC Comics to write the Legion of Super-Heroes again, after 31 years. However, the run was heavily edited and truncated, with the final issue having no declared writer, just Jim Shooter saying it wasn't his draft that was published. Years later, he would run his original pitch document. And in the light of certain statements made about Shooter on his passing, it is interesting to see that one of the scenes cut by DC Comics from his final issues would have established the Legionnaire Invisible Kid, usually portrayed as a young man, as a trans woman.

The Invisible Kid, Lyle Norg, was originally created by Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney for Action Comics #267 in 1960. Jim Shooter originally wrote the character back then along with the rest of the Legion, the character was revealed to be gay in the backmatter decades later, in a relationship with Condo Arlik, Chemical King, but never really followed up on the page.

It's just like a shoddy writer of Rich Johnston's sort to use illogical language like "reveal" instead of "established" or "canonized" in description of a fictional character. And just like him to insult the memory of Superman's co-creator for the sake of this puff piece. Johnston presents the following allegedly from a pitch/draft about Invisible Kid, which says:

"Invisible Kid's new body is really new—he is now a she!!! A girl! And a hot one at that! IK arranged with B-5 to borrow gender factors from, um another encoding to change him. The outside, the sheathe of flesh is different, but the inside, IK's essence/mind/spirit, whatever, is as it always was. And now, the outside matches the inside better. Call her Stealth or Covert. She looks sort of like…a lot like Gazelle.

Now, I don't know if this is the real deal when it comes to script pitches and drafts, but this is still as embarrassing as it sounds. And lest we forget, Shooter, as noted before, once made a condescending remark about Dream Girl, in example. So, coupled with all the above, it wouldn't be surprising if he really was willing to pander to the perverse, sadly enough. Just because this is sci-fi, that makes it instantly acceptable? Nope.

Now, if we were to bring up something more positive about Shooter, here's what writer D.G. Chichester had to say about his experiences:

Jim always treated me graciously and professionally. His sense of humor stood out, too. When everyone at Marvel were learning to juggle, I noticed Jim’s fumbling efforts and suggested “Juggling for the Complete Klutz” — earning a priceless look from Archie Goodwin but laughter from Jim himself. Two particular professional interactions with Jim were especially meaningful. When I finished that spring stint at Marvel, I would be going home for summer since I had another job lined up and still had schooling to finish at NYU. During that spring fling, among my other tasks I had I’d taken on some grunt editorial work on Bernie Wrightson’s graphic novel Hooky: a Spider-Man meets monster riff. [...]

That summer, out of the blue, I received a bonus check for that additional work signed by Jim Shooter. Whether via Lynn or Jim himself, there was recognition that I’d gone above and beyond. That few hundred dollars meant a lot at that point and warmed me up to Marvel even more when they later extended an offer for me to return in the fall as an assistant editor at Epic.

From what Chichester says further, it sounds like the New World acquisition put the kibosh on the possibility he could get the job, since they undoubtably were responsible for Shooter's dismissal. And to be sure, it can be validly argued whether being bought by what was then a corporate owned studio hurt Marvel more than helped, even though it was actually years later when they were bought by Disney that things began to go even more south than before. This is definitely also the situation with DC as owned by Time Warner today.

As I said before, of course Shooter was bound to have been a divisive figure. But no less troubling are ideologues who feel entitled to properties they didn't create, and if Stan Lee was willing to stand behind Shooter on his Rampaging Hulk storyline, one must rightfully wonder if they're already turning against him too. But then, isn't that why they'd do well to stop obsessing themselves over companies and characters they didn't create, if they don't like the way they were originally structured? I think it's high time some common sense sunk in.

Jim Shooter dies at 73

Trib Live reported that veteran Legion of Superheroes writer and Marvel EIC Jim Shooter has passed away at 73 years of age:

Former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, a native of Pittsburgh, died Monday at age 73.

Shooter died after battling esophageal cancer, according to several reports.

A 1969 graduate of Bethel Park High School, Shooter plotted stories for DC Comics as a teenager, created dozens of characters for several companies and served as editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics in the late 1970s and ’80s.

As a child, Shooter spent a week in the hospital for a minor surgery. He had plenty of time there to read comic books, coming to appreciate the more modern approach taken by Marvel vs. the more old-fashioned DC.

“So, I mean, that’s at 12 years old, I decided I’m going to do this,” Shooter said in an interview with comicbookhistorians.com. “I’m going to write like this Stan Lee guy.”

And in some ways, yes, he did. I'll say this for Shooter: he was a pretty good editor in his time, and there were good things that came about when he was working there for nearly a decade. Including, IIRC, the wedding of Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson, which went to press on his way out. And he did oversee the launch of the Marvel Fanfare anthology, which I thought was one of the best of its kind, if only because the paper quality did it justice, IMO. Shooter also panned the disaster Marvel had become by the time Axel Alonso became EIC, and which, under a corporate ownership, they may never recover from.

But, was Shooter a controversial figure in his time? Was he divisive with his MO? Yes, and there's no doubt people coming from many different positions who could argue that for different reasons, and a few writers left because of disagreements. It could even be argued he has blame to shoulder for allowing a story as tasteless as Bill Mantlo's in Incredible Hulk 256 to go ahead. The Avengers story where Hank Pym was put in a position of looking like a spousal assaulter against Janet Van Dyne was in very questionable taste, and it's decidedly a shame any writers had to keep bringing it up over the years. Shooter once even made absurdly condescending remarks about 2 or 3 Legion members, surprisingly enough. And, I also find it difficult to understand why, if it was his doing, he seemed intent on sidelining Carol Danvers and even the 1st Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew, who IIRC died at the end of the 1978-83 series, but fan protests saw to it she was revived, though she too was still largely sidelined for a time, making appearances in titles like Wolverine's out of costume, and Shooter's successor, Tom deFalco, didn't seem to do anything about that when it could've mattered.

The Hollywood Reporter tells how Shooter originated the whole line-wide crossover concept:

With 1984’s Secret Wars, a 12-issue miniseries that Shooter, Mike Zeck and John Beatty drew, he instituted the concept of publishing crossover events, a companywide initiative that saw one main story play out and influence many of the other titles coming out for months on end. Secret Wars was a massive publishing success and a toy bonanza. It’s a concept that is still being used by Marvel and DC to this day, in varying degrees.

Oh, and they don't have any issue or misgivings about it? Sigh. This, from an artistic/business perspective, is something requiring an objective view. I know that at the time, Marvel wasn't seeking the kind of direction DC lost their minds over - that is, killing off almost every character they thought was an expendable burden, as seen in Crisis on Infinite Earths for starters - but in the long run, Secret Wars had a ruinous effect in that you had as many as 2 or more company wide crossovers occurring every year for a long time afterwards until today, forced by editorial mandate into many different ongoing series and possibly miniseries, and it damaged the stand-alone quality and creative freedoms of the assigned writers. And nobody in the MSM will challenge that today. If a story like Secret Wars matters, it's entirely possible to do one that's self-contained without forcing separate monthlies to be part of it, and then have all these different heroes and villains and civilian co-stars appearing in a single stand-alone miniseries or maxi-series tale without intruding upon what a separate series has to offer. Yet no mainstream press source is likely to make the point and argument today. What the Hollywood Reporter does mention, though:

But despite the successes, and Marvel’s growing corporatization and assured dominance in comics, Shooter’s hard-driving and micro-managerial style began to alienate talent and editors. He drove Miller to DC — twice — where the creator left an artistic mark on literature and pop culture with his masterpiece, The Dark Knight Returns. He pushed Byrne to DC, where the writer-artist’s Superman relaunch became such a media event it made it to the cover of Time magazine.

[...] Shooter was indeed fired by Marvel in 1987 — a failed publishing initiative and the rough relations with editors and talent finally taking their toll. But he remained a player in the industry and a few years later launched Valiant Comics, a company that in the 1990s rebooted such comic characters as Magnus, Robot Fighter and Solar, Man of the Atom while created new heroes in an attempt to compete with Marvel and DC. He even brought along Marvel veterans Bob Layton, Barry Windsor-Smith and Don Perlin, among others, for the venture.

Micromanagement can be a negative approach to business handling, and depending how he did it, that was a mistake. As for Valiant and a few other ventures he worked on, they may have had a few significant stories, but none of what he oversaw by then lasted long.

Forbes noted one more controversy worth pondering:

But that success came, 80s style, with sharp elbows and attitude. Shooter had strong opinions about how to make comics and he leaned hard on the company’s talent to execute according to his vision. His tenure was marked by stories of creative blowups and controversies, including his insistence that the X-Men character Phoenix had to die to atone for crimes she committed in the story, over the objections of the creative team. In 1987, after Marvel had been acquired by New World Pictures, Shooter, whose welcome was already wearing thin, was, by some accounts, fired for demanding editorial autonomy and the payment of royalties.

On the topic of the Phoenix, depending how you view it, his opinion Jean Grey would have to die as atonement was understandable, based on how Claremont and Byrne, believe it or not, wanted to basically write her being let off the hook with barely a slap on the wrist for slaughtering a planetload of alien inhabitants, which is stupefying. But an even more valid question can be made as to why Shooter was okay with turning Jean de-facto into a monster in the first place. An established character whom I thought I was supposed to be rooting for, and they force her into the role of a demon instead of creating a new character to fill the role? I know it was reversed in 1985, when Jean turned up again circa the Fantastic Four's series. But look how much damage has been wrought as later writers started regurgitating the Phoenix themes ad nauseum, and nobody thinks that's embarrassing? Ugh. Now, we'll never get an answer as to why Shooter saw nothing wrong with tarnishing one of Stan Lee's creations during the Bronze Age.

As for royalties, was that in connection to artists and writers who wanted special bonuses for use of what they created? Well, I think that's okay, but the way Shooter approached it was decidedly awkward - if memory serves, his idea was for creators to be paid according to how and when the characters they developed were used in written stories going forward? What they should really be paid for is when their stories are reprinted in paperbacks and hardcovers. Something that's bound to be the case today, but back then, while there were early examples developed (and the Masterworks originally came up at the time he'd left), the efforts then were still too little, and of course, they never even considered changing the approach to serial fiction - shifting from monthly pamphlets to paperbacks - even though there are advantages. As I've figured, it could've been because they didn't want to forfeit the whole line-wide crossover concept, even though as has since been the case, they did more harm than good, and House of M and Civil War were just some of the worst.

In conclusion, Shooter was one of the better contributors to comicdom, but he did make mistakes just like everybody else, and there are certain steps he took that were decidedly regrettable. But, there were also plus sides, and I do appreciate what he oversaw at the time, including what was done for Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and various other series and miniseries. But will today's industry learn from his ups and downs how to best manage things going forward? Don't bet on it.

What certain longtime readers may actually think of the "5 years later" run in the Legion of Super-Heroes history

I thought of searching around to see what some people who post on message boards think of the 1989-94 run of the Legion, and found the following statement at the Classic Comics Forum, which gives a viewpoint, if anything, that I'm sure there are others who concur with:

9. 5 Years Later/Giffbaum/Glorithverse Legion (1989-1994) Ye gods, what a Legion! I hated the art, and the writing (in general) wasn’t a lot better. As one poster here mentioned, this run reads like fan fiction. And not good fan fiction, either. Another poster said that this run is best treated as an Elseworlds Legion, and I completely agree with that. In fact, I think DC agrees with it too, as they seem to have pretended it never happened. Way to pessimistic of a future for me (did I mention that they destroyed the earth) and the lack of superhero costumes was not to my liking. Giffen’s art also get lazy, as he’d have multiple panels, or pages, with no drawing, just black panels with dialogue. He also must have hated drawing faces, as he would often have faces in shadow, so that all we’d see was a black blob where the face should be. This run rebooted reality something like 3 times in the first 6 issues, with scant explanation. Things got so confusing that they finally added a “What Happened Before” feature in the letter column to help the poor readers figure out what the heck was going on. Even that they screwed up, as they wanted to start doing that with #2, but it didn’t start appearing until #6. This series was a bit confusing, especially early on, and it was too dark for me. Out of the thousands of sci-fi futures out there in fiction, almost al of them are pessimistic, if not dystopian. Star Trek and the Legion of Super-Heroes are about the only optimistic futures I can think of, so I don’t appreciate when fanboys (and fangirls) take them away! Also, I really didn’t need to see Shvaughn Erin retconned into a man. Now, having said all that bad stuff about the Legion, I will say something good about it – Tenzil Kem!! He was awesome! The issues he was in, I loved. If I made a Legion All-Star Roster, or a list of my favorite Legionnaires, I’d have to find a spot for the 5 Years Later Tenzil Kem!

If I were to include the Legion from the Legion of Super-Heroes animated series on here, I’d probably put them at #4, just ahead of the Threeboot/Waid Legion. It was an enjoyable show, especially the first season.

Not many supervillains, mostly invasions & politics; costumes not as good or distinctive of eye catching

If I had included the Legion from the animated series, they would have ranked #4, just behind the "Archie" Legion and just ahead of the Threeboot Legion.

Years ago, I owned an issue or two from the Legion series of the time, and now that I recall, I don't think the artwork was so great there either. Even the writing wasn't good enough, and I'm sure there's worse that I may not have noticed. That aside, I'm glad to see somebody else was revolted by the repellent retcon forced upon Shvaughn Erin. What makes it particularly grating is that, if memory serves, there were a few new characters seen in the stories at the time, yet for some reason, the Legion's quasi-civilian co-star is the one who's picked to serve a tasteless retcon that has the effect of making her look creepy and icky viewed in the context of what was thought up by Tom and Mary Bierbaum, along with Keith Giffen? Ugh. Seriously, they owe an apology.

Also, IIRC, it was in this run where Shrinking Violet was turned into a product of "punk" subculture, and implied she was lesbian. Gee, if that's what this particular run was produced for, maybe the assigned writers should've created their own comic? Alas, by that time, it could be argued DC was taken over by early editions of wokesters who exploited their creations for tasteless retcons and pandering. And now that I think of it, what else did the Bierbaum couple do that's significant? From what I could tell from their resumes, they were in writing at least until the turn of the century, but don't seem to have much memorable in their lists. The Five Years Later run was phased out about 5 years after it had begun, and while it may have recently been reprinted in omnibus archived, I think it'd be best to save money and not waste time on something that seems dedicated more to desecration of other people's creations than true love and appreciation of the characters involved. "5 years later" was easily the worst moment in Legion legacy, though Brian Bendis' subsequent writings definitely rival it in badness. If anything, the early 90s Legion stories were a telling example of the encroaching wokeness that turned up at the time, and has badly influenced comicdom ever since.

A recurring civilian cast member from the Legion of Super-Heroes who deserved far better

Long before the cult of transsexuality became a sad staple of the past decade, there was a storyline in the Legion of Super-Heroes from 1992 that exploited an already established character for an embarrasing female-to-male retcon, that being Shvaughn Erin, a lady cop created in 1978 who'd been involved with Element Lad. And in this Book Riot puff piece from 2 years ago, the writer gushes over the retcon at the time to a woman, which, some could validly argue, contradicts the "feminist" positions the news site is said to build upon, and whether they actually support more female representation in comicdom:

The Legion of Super-Heroes is a long-running DC team of young heroes from the 30th-31st century. Shvaughn Erin was first introduced in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #241 (July 1978) and was created by Paul Levitz and Jim Sherman. She is a member of the Science Police and an ally of the Legion in Commissioner Gordon/Maggie Sawyer fashion, and she’s (arguably) the first trans character in the main DC universe, though she was not initially presented as trans.

Shvaughn was a regular but minor character for years, eventually developing a romantic relationship with Jan Arrah, AKA Element Lad. This didn’t go over well with some fans, who had long read Jan as gay. In fact, as early as 1976 — 12 years before DC’s first out gay character — a fan asked if he was gay during a DC panel at a con. The question was not answered, but DC continued to leave Jan single and ambiguous, perhaps in deference to queer fans. Even Jim Shooter, longtime Legion writer before he became EiC at Marvel, said in a fanzine that he assumed Jan was gay (though given Shooter’s track record, it’s probably best that he never put it in the actual comics). So Paul Levitz giving Jan a girlfriend was not well received by queer readers.

Umm, and why exactly was Levitz expected or supposed to please "queer" readers? Not to mention that, if it's such a big colossal deal, create your own characters to serve the purpose, and stop acting like only mainstream superhero fare is where it all matters. The independent scene as we know it has become bigger than one might think in the past quarter century, and here, when somebody writing for an ostensibly professional site had the opportunity to put a clearer emphasis on something that really mattered, she sticks solidly to blabbering about what she thinks best for established creations owned by corporations.

She may not realize this, but when she indicates she believes it's okay to retcon a woman character into a man, she's supporting the erasure of a woman from the cast. She already did something like that at least 3 years prior to this more recent puff piece, and as a result, I'm not convinced she's really a "feminist", so much as she is a liberal who cares more about LGBT ideology, and puts it on a higher level than that of women's own dignity, right down to doing it at the expense of a fictional character in mainstream comicdom.

This was, um, “fixed” in Legion of Super-Heroes #31 (July 1992), written by Keith Giffen, Tom Bierbaum, and Mary Bierbaum and drawn by Curt Swan and Colleen Doran. During this story, Earth has been taken over by the alien Dominators. The occupation means that it’s impossible to get certain medications — which is when it’s revealed that Shvaughn was born Sean Erin, and has been taking a drug called Profem to transition. With the drug running out, she detransitions — a process that is painful both physically and psychologically.

Jan insists that he doesn’t care, even heavily implying that he would have preferred Shvaughn to have been a man all along, which is…probably less reassuring than the writers think it is. The characters then go their separate ways. Shvaughn only appears twice more in that continuity and continues to go by Sean and he/him pronouns. In his last appearance as Sean, however, he rushes to Jan’s bedside when Jan is close to death and agrees to nurse him back to health, with the implication that the two are getting back together.

Legion continuity was rebooted shortly after this, wiping out Jan’s history with Shvaughn/Sean. Post-reboot, Shvaughn goes by she/her pronouns, though whether or not she is trans is never addressed. Meanwhile, Jan was rebooted back to being a teenager, while Shvaughn is an adult, so their romantic relationship has not resumed.

Wow, it sure sounds like the writer really buys into this retcon so wholesale, she's practically willing to revisionize history if that's what it takes to justify her disappointing beliefs. This is just so embarrassingly bad, and just because this is a heavily science-fiction title we're talking about, does that make it instantly and inherently acceptable to exploit an established character for such a ghastly "everything you know is wrong" direction? Absolutely not. One can only wonder if the columnist would've thought it ludicrous if a male character were written turning out to be a woman by contrast. Sadly, the answer there is probably not, even if that did offer an example of introducing more female representation she's obviously not interested in. Most fascinating is the participation of leftist Doran in the proceedings, as though it weren't bad enough Swan, one of the most well-regarded artists for Superman, had to stain his portfolio with something this humiliating towards the end of his career.

But the saddest part of all is the realization that co-creator Paul Levitz, perhaps based on his past politics, was possibly not troubled at all with the storyline Giffen stained his resume with, and not necessarily because they planned to jettison it anyway post-Zero Hour. On which note, whether or not Legion continuity should've been rebooted, an event as ghastly as ZH turned out to be was still entirely unnecessary in which to do it. There's only so much where such steps could be done "quietly", without needing a whole line-wide crossover to justify these steps. And back to the Shvaughn Erin issue, it's chilling to think of how, if such a sex-change were done today, chances are much higher it would've remained permanently till the bitter end of time, no matter how misogynistic it was, and one of the contributors to this fanblog says in the comments section:

The sex-change of Shvaughn was the most annoying story point I have ever come across. I can't tell if it was misogynist or just plain stupid.

The one who posted the topic, however, says:

It was an attempt at trans representation. 5YL had a lot of LGBTQ+ representation, and the important part of that story is how it didn't matter to Element Lad. Still, once the Dominators were ousted, Shvaughn should have been able to get more ProFem and live her life as she was meant to again, so that it ended oddly.

Ahem. If it's really, truly, absolutely, positively that big a deal, then again, create your OWN characters for that goal, and don't exploit somebody else's. That's just taking advantage of other people's hard work, no matter their politics, and Levitz really made a fool of himself letting this go by sans protest, as did artist Sherman. Now back to the main item:

Like Wanda’s, Shvaughn’s story is well-intentioned but deeply problematic. It seems to be far more interested in heavily implying Jan’s queerness — the language both characters use to talk about Jan’s desires and identity is very loaded — to the detriment of considering what any of this means for Shvaughn. Charlotte Finn argues that Shvaughn is depicted not as trans, but as a cis gay man who transitions solely to pursue a relationship that would be forbidden by his culture of origin otherwise, and also highlights the writers’ use of the “trans character as inherently deceitful” trope.

Shvaughn hasn’t been seen in some time, and Jan is still not technically canonically queer — in fact, a later continuity gave him a crush on a female character. The Legion doesn’t currently have a book, but the next time they do, DC is long overdue to let Jan be canonically queer and Shvaughn be canonically, unequivocally trans, whether or not they’re together.

And here, it sounds like she's saying DC is literally obligated to follow her instructions, whether they like it or not, and no matter what the wider fandom thinks of all that. She even implies it was wrong to portray Element Lad in a heterosexual relation, no matter what sexual preference/orientation he was characterized with. Again, this is a case of somebody trying to "wag the dog", to say nothing of somebody who's so obsessed with DC/Marvel from a political perspective, she's not really interested in merit-based storytelling. Yet she presumably continues to lecture on and on about what's good for the Big Two even today, long after they ceased being relevant, and it's clear hardly anybody reads the Legion at this point, mainly because of how the Big Two wound up becoming left-wing propaganda arms worse than in prior eras.

CBR also spoke in 2012 about this retcon that came mainly at the expense of an established recurring character, and their writer says:

Ever since 1964's Adventure Comics #326 (written by Jerry Siegel) had Element Lad say he was "out of his element" when it comes to girls, fans have speculated that Element Lad was gay.

The idea was picked up and developed by fans of the Legion, and it became a common topic for discussion at the Legion fan magazine, Interlac (which began life as LEAPA, LEgion Amateur Press Association).

In the second issue of the fanzine, there was a piece of fan fiction involving Element Lad's homosexuality, and in the third issue, longtime Legion writer Jim Shooter gave his thoughts about different members of the Legion and for Element Lad, Shooter mentioned that he had always assumed that he was gay, partially for the aforementioned line from Adventure Comics #326, partially because he did not seem all that interested in repopulating his race (Element Lad was the lone survivor of a planet) and yes, partially because of the outfit Dave Cockrum gave him, where he had a giant arrow on his chest....

"Speculated"? "Assumed"? Hoo boy, some people sure know, again, how to conduct arguments that're otherwise defiant of logic. First, what if Siegel characterized Jan as shy, which, if memory serves, was a personality trait applied to Superman in his Clark Kent guise, based on how Siegel and/or Shuster said they were shy around women? What if the former characterized Jan as simply awkward with social skills, and knowing how to best communicate with the fairer sex? How do these so-called fans, who sound more like entitled ideologues, jump to these ludicrous conclusions? Even Cyclops in X-Men was characterized as shy/socially awkward in early years, and there were other heroes, teen or adult, whom Stan Lee wrote in similar fashion. But even more telling has got to be if Shooter actually believes what he said. Also, I don't think the arrow design on one of Jan's outfits really symbolizes anything, though what about that arrow drawn on Marvel's Jack of Hearts - a Bill Mantlo creation - in Avengers during the Bronze Age, and on the lower part of his costume? Such a design, based on the setting, did a horrible disfavor to the character of Jack Hart (notice the pun on the name? Good grief). The column about Shvaughn and Jan continues, and on the issue of having a girlfriend:

Well, Keith Giffen and longtime Interlac members Tom and Mary Bierbaum (who became the scripters for Giffen on Giffen's "Five Years Later" Legion of Super-Heroes) did not agree with that idea, and in 1992's Legion of Super-Heroes #32, they revealed that Shvaughn Erin was actually SEAN Erin, and he had taken a drug that changes you into a woman, as he was under the impression that Element Lad was heterosexual.

As could be wholly expected, we're hammered with that shoddy cliche of "revealed", instead of "retconned". That aside, look how here, it's the writers/artists who're said to be the ones disagreeing with the notion of giving Element Lad a ladyfriend. But whether writers or readers, it's an utter embarrassment how certain fandoms become swamped with entitled, greedy ideologues who think it's perfectly acceptable to hijack other people's creations, misread and misinterpret certain meanings of dialogue, to assume specific characters are what they perceive according to their one-sided beliefs. One could say this particular retcon was the sad result of the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity, some of which, again, was retconned away in the post-Zero Hour era. But again, if this is what they really think is such a big deal, they could've at least created their own new characters to serve these roles. As the 1992 retcon makes clear, they're creatively bankrupt.

It could also be said all involved missed a golden opportunity to explore what might've been more plausible in how to characterize Shvaughn Erin - with a name like that, she could be characterized as being of Irish or Scottish descent, with the last name first and the first name last (and that was possibly the intention of the prior writers, based on the futuristic setting). They could've developed a tale where Shvaughn's portrayed as proud of her ethnic heritage, loves to eat traditional Irish dishes like colcannon and boxty, which could be a great way to depict how certain national traditions of dining survived or were revived well into future centuries. So again, we instead have a classic case of allegedly professional writers taking the almost hilariously cheap route, and how do we know the LOSH fandom was all in the same boat on the Shvaughn-to-Sean retcon? Do they realize they're putting words into other people's mouths?

Next, since we're on the LOSH topic, more of recent, Comics Archaeology brought up some of the contributing writers of the Legion's past stories, including Jim Shooter, and what's revealed here - which may come from a Facebook group discussion - about how Shooter talks of the cast of characters is nothing short of grating. For example, what he reportedly said about Cosmic Boy:

Kind of a yutz – manly, strong, secure, and yet no one suspects that he isn’t bright enough not to be. Questions of a philosophical nature rarely form in his mind. He is a good counterpart to Bouncing Boy, having that dumb ego B.B. lacks. He will shave around his ears forever. On the good side, he is dedicated, direct, and reasonable, he knows his lack of high intellect and delegates the thinking, rather than attempt it himself. He is a good leader, a quick thinker if not a deep thinker, and one who relates well to those behind him. Even as a leader he is a team player.

And on Dream Girl:

I never believed that she scientifically changed Light Lass’ power. It could only have been White Witchcraft – and for some reason W.W. didn’t watch the Legion to know about her. Dream Girl is dumb. Her power is more or less hit or miss in value (though it is always accurate) and I’m sure her main service to the Legion is in her quarters after dark. She needs constant reassurance of her value, and since her Legion career has been less than stellar, the only way to get psychologically stroked is to allow herself to be physically stroked. By anybody. She has a need for love, adoration and reinforcement of her narcissistic self-image. Star Boy is either too dumb to realize this, or has resigned himself to it. His most fervent wish is to get her off to some godforsaken observatory somewhere, alone. Forever.

Now you could say it's tasteless how Shooter - and the Bierbaums - inject allusions to sexual fetishes into the mix. But that's got to be mainly because of how they insult the above characters as "dumb". Good grief, what are they thinking? Oddly enough, if anybody alludes to the topic of shyness here, it's Shooter, not to mention the Bierbaums, who also allude to the unfortunate retcon in later years where Shrinking Violet was depicted as a lesbian:

Painfully shy, insecure and possibly not quite competent in the early years. Probably was dealing with issues of sexual identity, not able at first to accept her lesbian nature. Never really had it together until she found Ayla, but after that, she becomes one of the Legion’s best.

Now isn't that odd how shyness is only brought up in the context of homosexuality, not heterosexuality. And they don't acknowledge that, Comics Code or none, this was stuff that simply wasn't explored by most writers until the 80s, and when they did, they acted like it was all something that should be inherently accepted, not whether gays and lesbians should be encouraged to learn how to best relate to the opposite sex. And look how it's implied that opening the closet somehow makes one a master warrior, to say nothing of a "better person". Gimme a break, and let us be clear. Both men and women alike can suffer from shyness, and difficulty to relate to the opposite sex, based on any number of problems that have nothing to do with homosexuality. Once again, talk about hijacking serious psychological issues for the sake of a narrow belief!

And back to the subject of Shvaughn Erin, a terrible shame she had to be victimized by the results of insularity, and cowardice at creating new characters for mainstream comicdom. Similar points can be made about Shrinking Violet too (who, by the way, was another Siegel creation, with artist Jim Mooney). There's just simply no excuse, and aside from all that, it's stunning how more creative potential like ethnic/national backgrounds is thrown into trash bins for the sake of PC belief systems, which only goes to show there's no true respect for national cultures and such. Shvaughn and Violet deserve far better.

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.

Superficial article on how superhero stories tell that of USA Jews

The Conversation posted an article about the history of USA comicdom and how it metaphorically tells the experiences of Jews. And perhaps the most distorted part has to be at the beginning:

Nearly a hundred years ago, a hastily crafted spaceship crash-landed in Smallville, Kansas. Inside was an infant – the sole survivor of a planet destroyed by old age. Discovering he possessed superhuman strength and abilities, the boy committed to channeling his power to benefit humankind and champion the oppressed.

This is the story of Superman: one of the most recognizable characters in history, who first reached audiences in the pages of Action Comics in 1938 – what many fans consider the most important single comic in history.

As a historian of American immigration and ethnicity – and a lifelong comics fan – I read this well-known bit of fiction as an allegory about immigration and the American dream. It is, at its core, the ultimate story of an immigrant in the early 20th century, when many people saw the United States as a land with open gates, providing such orphans of the world an opportunity to reach their fullest potential.

Taken in and raised by a rural family under the name Clark Kent, the baby was imbued with the best qualities of America. But, like all immigrant stories, Kent’s is a two-parter. There is also the emigrant story: the story of how Kal-El – Superman’s name at birth – was driven from his home on Planet Krypton to embrace a new land.

That origin story reflects the heritage of Superman’s creators: two of the many Jewish American writers and artists who ushered in the Golden Age of comic books.

Oh good grief. This is classic confusion and distortion at its worst. Kal-El was a refugee from a destroyed planet, and yet another propagandist is obfuscating it all for the sake of modern PC narratives that it's entirely a metaphor for immigration. And he wasn't "driven" out of his homeland; his father and mother built a rocketship to transport Kal-El to Earth as a means to save his life. What does the Conversation think they're accomplishing by persisting with this kind of confusion? It's not helpful and embarrasses the legacy of Siegel and Shuster. Besides, the propagandists who're pushing this idiocy don't give a damn about Israel, the land of Siegel/Shuster's ancestors. What is telling is how the columnist implies the USA is almost literally a "land with open gates", as though it's perfectly okay even then for an older person to just stroll through the USA's borders without proving their worth and honesty. It's a disgrace how the surreal boundaries of science fiction are being blurred with reality. Yet, it's nothing new.

Comics also reflected the feelings and fears of Jews in a moment in time. For example, in the wake of Kristallnacht – the 1938 night of widespread organized attacks on German Jews and their property, which many historians see as a turning point toward the Holocaust – Finger and Kane debuted Batman’s Gotham City. The city is a dark contrast to Superman’s shining metropolis, a place where villains lurked around every corner and reflected the darkest sides of modern humanity.

By sharp contrast, very few comics today, mainstream or otherwise, are reflecting the reality of the Hamas bloodbath during October 7, 2023, if at all. It's highly unlikely you'll see illustrations similar to Captain America's debut issue - where he punched Hitler - depicting any heroes punching an Islamofascist. That's one of the saddest results following September 11, 2001, when al Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center in NYC; many people in the entertainment world vehemently refused to take a convincing and objective approach to the subject of Islamic terrorism, if at all. I remember when the now defunct Crossgen had plans to produce a comic titled American Power, written by Chuck Dixon, and that too was cancelled, possibly more because of leftist opposition than because of their bankruptcy. And lest we forget Marvel's turn to apologia when they put Captain America under the Marvel Knights imprint; that's when the imprint really became worthless, and why it was decidedly best discontinued in 2006. And then, near the end, a bad writer is brought up:

In later years, Jewish authors such as Chris Claremont and Brian Michael Bendis introduced or took over mainstream characters who were overtly Jewish – reflecting an emerging comfort with a more public Jewish ethnic identity in America. In X-Men, for example, Kitty Pryde recounts her encounters with contemporary antisemitism. Magneto, who is at times friend but often foe of the X-Men, developed a backstory as a Holocaust survivor.

History is never solely about retelling; it’s about gaining a better understanding of complex narratives. Trends in comics history, particularly in the superhero genre, offer insight into the ways that Jewish American anxieties, ambitions, patriotism and sense of place in the U.S. continually changed over the 20th century. To me, this understanding makes the retelling of these classic stories even more meaningful and entertaining.

I wonder why Bendis matters here, after all the damage he contributed to the Marvel universe, and later DC's, recalling he wrote the Legion of Super-Heroes? And his stories were anything but patriotic. Why, patriotism under Quesada and Alonso was effectively destroyed as a concept when they ran Marvel. To note a writer as awful as Bendis only makes a farce out of this whole observation, and he did no favors for characters of Israeli/Jewish descent either.

It goes without saying the columnist doesn't comprehend much about complex narratives either, or maybe such leftists wouldn't be so hostile to certain ideas supported by conservatives. And it should also be noted that, if leftists aren't willing to take an objective view of subjects like Islamic antisemitism and terrorism, it only has the effect of making stories about the WW2 Holocaust look like a joke. If you can't be straightforward about issues that're still prevalent, even communism, then what good does it do to even talk about Jewish experiences?

Steve Lightle, RIP

Sad news has come that artist Steve Lightle, who worked on Legion of Super-Heroes and X-Factor in the 80s, passed away at 61. And you know what the worst part is? As revealed by Walt Simonson:

I was deeply sorry to learn this morning that Steve Lightle has caught the last train out, a cardiac arrest apparently brought on by Covid-19. I didn't know Steve well, but liked his work. He did a fill-in issue of X-Factor during my run.

— Walter Simonson (@WalterSimonson) January 8, 2021

If there's any veteran creator out there who'd tragically succumbed to the illness the Chinese commies foisted upon the world, we know who it was now. It's a terrible shame. I wish to offer my condolences to Lightle's family for their sad loss.

Valdosta Daily Times sugarcoats some of the writings of Brad Meltzer, even while admitting his Justice League run was dreadful

Here's another sloppy article on the Valdosta Daily Times, which otherwise fawns over novelist Meltzer's comics writings. What it does do right is state that his Justice League work is disappointing. What it does wrong, however, is laud his Identity Crisis miniseries, and the first line about the JLA story conflicts with what's told later:

There's nothing wrong with "Justice League of America: The Lightning Saga."

The story arc partners the JLA with the Justice Society of America. It even pulls in some members of the future Legion of Super-Heroes.

But given the excellence of writer Brad Meltzer's previous "JLA" storylines: "Identity Crisis," "The Tornado's Path," as well as his bestselling novels, such as "The President's Shadow," and history books – "The First Conspiracy" and "The Lincoln Conspiracy," "The Lightning Saga" is a bit disappointing.

Perhaps, it's because of the aforementioned guest stars.

There are just too many of them.

I'd almost consider this alleged putdown worth congratulating, if it weren't for the sugarcoating of Identity Crisis (and as noted, to say there's "nothing" wrong with the Lightning Saga dampens the impact anyway). Something tells me that, in a post-Harvey Weinstein era, the columnist doesn't have what it takes to tell about the anal sexual assault(!) that occurs in the 2004 miniseries' 2nd issue, told from an entirely masculine viewpoint, which makes his stealth promotion tactic here only more offensive.

Add them to the already full JLA roster then it becomes a rushed smorgasbord of superheroes – a bland, uncleansed palate taste of everything followed by the dissatisfaction of being miserably full.

The strength of Meltzer's earlier JLA works is the study of complexities – with the personalities of characters as well as their relationships with one another.

That's missing in "The Lightning Saga."

Every time the story leans toward character development, a dive into the interpersonal workings of a relationship – like lightning, it's gone.

Honestly, doesn't this describe Meltzer's earlier mini just as well? Aside from how out-of-character the cast acts in Identity Crisis (Wally West more concerned about the magic "lobotomy" of Dr. Light, as it was described at the time, than about the villain's rape of Sue Dibny, for example), if there was supposedly "character development" in the story, it was pretty much thrown away by the time it concluded, mainly because the "culprit" was made out to be an ordinary co-star, Jean Loring, and not a real villain, superpowered or otherwise.

And there are so many characters, some readers may finish this story arc uncertain why the heroes teamed up and what they are fighting for. Essentially, Legion members start showing up in their past which is our present, the JLA and the JSA, a super team from the past, must hunt the Legionnaires down.

Or something like that.

This is similar to a problem I've noticed in Geoff Johns' writing (who receives credit on the paperback too): too many nostalgia elements, even if that's the least of what's ghastly about his work. In the past, most writers with a more competent approach would just focus on about a dozen superheroes in a team at most, even as others could enter the spotlight later on, and some already there could bow out for a time to make room for the other cast members. But in this overrated tale from the late 2000s, Meltzer just stuffs in all the characters he can, regardless of whether it hurts the story and takes away impact. Mainly because who in the establishment press at the time was actually going to criticize him to the fullest? He's an establishment personality, and the press will act as his apologist if they want to.

And again, the newspaper columnist sabotages whatever impact his take on this trash could have by claiming Identity Crisis was great, when it was nothing but sick, and Rags Morales' artwork only made it worse. In hindsight, it's embarrassing that the late artist Michael Turner would've ever agreed to draw cover illustrations for Meltzer's work, including the Lightning Saga, IIRC, while Alex Ross, by sharp contrast, wisely refused the offer.