DC Comics may be trying to ignore/ruin the Atom's history

I've been finding more news that explains perfectly well why I've become such a staunch defender of Ray Palmer and Jean Loring. From some of the news items I've stumbled over of recent, I've been getting the very sinking feeling that DC is trying to do to Ray Palmer, the Silver Age Atom, almost exactly what they did to Hal Jordan, the Silver Age Green Lantern, during the 1990s: reject his legacy and all but obscure him, not to mention subjecting his former wife, Jean Loring, to vicious character assassination, as the following "column" by the knee-jerk Captain Comics, seems to indicate:

The second Atom has proven the most enduring (in fact, the original is dead), and is the most familiar, having appeared in various eponymous titles, as a member of the Justice League, and in a variety of cartoons (including "Challenge of the Super Friends"). But he's never been able to support a title for long, even when he was re-imagined in the '80s as a barbarian character ("Sword of the Atom") and in the '90s as an espionage agent ("Suicide Squad").

I can't tell you much about the "All-New Atom" except to say that it won't be Ray Palmer, whose ex-wife was recently revealed as a lunatic who murdered the wife of a fellow Leaguer ("Identity Crisis"). Apparently, Ray has bigger issues than getting small these days.

The above is written so treacly, without giving any real opinion whatsoever, that it's enough to vomit. And while he may not be able to tell anyone reading his puff piece about the "All-New" Atom, I can: the replacement is an Asian professor from China taking over the role at Ivy University, but if you look at all this more closely, you can see that this is just a road that's been travelled before: the idea that if you put in more "minority" group characters, it'll be considered a masterpiece and'll bring in the masses. Well, I'm sorry to say, but, not only do I not have any idea beyond this what DC's editor Dan DiDio is up to (and he probably doesn't either), the novelty has long worn off, minority group character alone does not equal good storytelling, and doing it at the expense of classic characters who came beforehand is not the way to go either. They did something fairly similar with Kyle Rayner, until recently the Green Lantern of the 1990s, and look where it got to. Nobody was ever really impressed with him, and after a decade, they retired him from the lead role and brought back Hal Jordan again.

Capt. Comics's claim that Ray Palmer has never been able to support a series for long is also ambiguous: Ray's series record was something like this - he had his first series as a bi-monthly during the Silver Age, running from 1962-69, then, in 1973, he made appearances in backup stories published in Action Comics from 1973-82 (and since they were in the same book as Superman's they may not really count, since it wasn't really Ray's own book), then, following Sword of the Atom, which was a 4-part miniseries and 3 specials, he had the 1988-89 Power of the Atom. Following that, he never had another ongoing of his very own, just a couple of occasional specials. But does that mean that he doesn't have any potential? I don't think so.

And to make matters worse, it appears that Capt. Comics is inflating the lie and the propaganda that Jean Loring was ever a crazy lunatic. Which is why I think the time has come to provide any and all with some material that explains what really happened when Jean and Ray got divorced back in 1983. So...

This page is from Sword of the Atom #1. Jean felt that Ray was neglecting her as a wife, and she was also angry that Ray used some of her own money to buy an electronic gizmo to use for case-solving as the Atom. And from a realistic viewpoint, it does make sense. Because yeah, there are more than enough people out there who don't like being taken advantage of, which is what Ray did to Jean by neglecting her and using her own money, when here, he made enough money on his own as a scientist to buy a scintillator.

In fairness to Jean, Ray suggested that they spend some time away from each other. Though she may not have answered directly, you can see that Jean felt bad and was in tears. Ray went to Brazil on a scientific project, and ran afoul of a pair of drug dealers who, when he asked to fly the plane too close to one of their crack-planting fields, they decided to try and murder him, and he had to change into the Atom to save himself. He needn't worry about their finding out his secret ID, since, in the ensuing crash, they were killed. Ray's size-and-weight control belt, however, was damaged in the crash, and it took him time to repair it.

Ray met the Katarthans, a race of tiny aliens who were descended from a colony of convicts sent to exile on earth from a faraway galaxy, and fell in love with their princess, Laethwen. You could say that this too was one of the reasons why Jean was discouraged from reconciling with Ray. But in any case, the fact is that, contrary to the lie spun in Identity Crisis or by any of its knee-jerk defenders saying that Ray left Jean, the opposite is true: she left Ray because she felt neglected by him. Maybe her infidelity with her fellow lawyer Paul Hoben wasn't justified, but there was a reason why she ended up cheating. Because she was frustrated and didn't want to take any crap anymore.

My parents, while they never divorced nor cheated on one another, did have a couple of angry quarrels in years past, and I was afraid a few times that they might break up. Thankfully, that didn't happen, but it was still a painful experience, and if my dad had ever neglected my mother, would it be any surprise if she ended up feeling as frustrated and angry as Jean was with Ray back in 1983?

And as for secret identities, it was Ray himself who decided to reveal his secret ID to the world in a book to be edited together by an old pal of his, Norman Brawler, making Ray possibly the first superhero at the time to go public about his ID. A decision that would lead to a most regrettable tragedy later on, when some government agents who wanted Ray to work for them as a spy firebombed the jungle where the Katarthans were living, murdering them all. Ray sought justice against them by shrinking them, I kid you not.

He later went to visit Jean and Paul at their new residence, and she too was horrified at the terrible news.


This is from Power of the Atom #9. I ask of one and all: does this look to you like a woman who's crazy and would go about slaying in a one-dimensional manner?

I don't think so.

And looking at some of the press material on the ultra-knee-jerk Newsarama, I can't say I'm feeling very encouraged by the arbitrary replacement:

The startling adventures of the new Atom begin in this series based on concepts developed by comics superstar Grant Morrison, written by Gail Simone (VILLAINS UNITED) with Art by John Byrne (ACTION COMICS) and Trevor Scott (THE AUTHORITY) and gorgeous covers by Ariel Olivetti (SPACE GHOST)!

Strange things have been happening in Ivy Town since Ray Palmer disappeared. In fact, it appears that the whole town's been experimented on for decades. Enter Ryan Choi — the young hotshot professor who's filling the empty slot on Ivy University's teaching staff... and who inadvertently ends up filling the old Atom's super-heroic shoes!

Can Choi make a difference in a town more creepy and mysterious than anyone ever realized? And can he live up to the towering legend of his predecessor?

You know, the more I read about the premise they're going by, the more I'm beginning to dislike how this new series is being done. One can guess where they could end up going with this: the white-dwarf star fragment Ray found which he used to develop his size-and-weight control belt must've come, not from outer space on its own, but rather, from off the cargo plane of a shady government operation. Which reeks of almost the same mentality as that which led to Marvel's PC monstrosity from 2002, The Truth, Red White and Black.

Though the series is written by Gail Simone, the idea for the premise was first worked on by Grant Morrison:

Newsarama: Mike, first of all, the solicitation copy for July's All New Atom #1 identifies this series as "based on concepts developed by comics superstar Grant Morrison." So this was one of Morrison’s black notebook creations?

Mike Carlin: Hadn't heard 'em called "black notebook creations"... not sure what kind of notebook Grant uses... but yes, this is one of several series that Grant supplied high concepts and springboards for - that he simply wouldn't have enough time to write himself.

NRAMA: Do you recall, did this concept come from Grant as a detailed, fully formed outline/proposal, or simply one of the brief, brilliant germs of a concept that suggested possibilities? If the latter, do you recall what the "hook" for this new series was?

MC: This proposal was a fleshed out outline of ten or so pages that included the character of the new Atom and several supporting players... as well as a passel of possible storylines. And with Grant there's always a "hook"... and this time it was the idea that the series should be a hybrid of cutting edge sci-fi adventure mixed with a Twin Peaks-kind of weirdness in Ivy Town itself. This we liked!

So let me get this straight. This is supposed to have a weirdness like that on Twin Peaks? I'm going to have to be quite honest here, but, I didn't like that brief series by David Lynch, which never found much of an audience to begin with, and the cinematic prequel he came up with also got panned, and not without good reason. (Though does anyone else find it a coincidence that the murder victim's name in Twin Peaks was the same last name as that of the Atom, that being Palmer?) Simply put, this strikes me as little more than a forced notion for making the characters and the backdrop "more interesting". Except that I learned long ago why it pays not to be too demanding, and that's one more reason why, I'm sad to say, I'm feeling even more uneasy about this.

And while I do find a modicum of what to disagree on with Randy Lander of the Fourth Rail, I will say that he gets some things right in the following, though I also may find some things that I disagree with at the same time:

The Atom probably suffered worse than anyone else in Identity Crisis from character damage (except for Elongated Man) [note: this is the part where I agree], but DC is side-stepping the issue of his crazy murderous ex-wife by creating a new Atom [note: this is the part where I disagree]. And I remember the last time there was a new Atom, it was the terrific (albeit short-lived) Atom in Suicide Squad. This one looks closer to the superhero/scientist roots of the original, with a slight visual revamp of his costume which I find to be an unfortunate change to a perfectly usable classic, akin to what was done to Firestorm. You might be getting that I have a lukewarm, maybe even slightly hostile, take on this new character, but there is one thing that makes me sit up ... That thing is Gail Simone writing. Birds of Prey remains one of the few DC Universe titles I read and enjoy on a monthly basis, Villains United was the only lead-up to Infinite Crisis I enjoyed, and Secret Six is really the only post-Crisis follow-up project I'm looking forward to.

While he's absolutely correct that the Mighty Mite suffered the worst next to Ralph and Sue, I find myself in serious disagreement with the second part I highlighted for this reason:

Is it not so that the damage done to Ray Palmer and Jean Loring, ditto Ralph and Sue Dibny, may still prevail at DC? And think of this: a lot people were rightfully angry at the company for the damage they did to Hal Jordan and the GL Corps back in 1994-95, when they took the damage they did to Hal earlier in Action Comics Weekly and Emerald Dawn (claiming he wasn't as fearless as originally thought, and writing him as getting carelessly drunk) from bad to worse by turning him into a villain and slaying tons of Corps members like Kilowag and Arisia? If it hadn't been for that, maybe some people would've accepted Kyle Rayner much more than they did earlier. The Atom may be a "minor" character by comparison, but that doesn't mean that nobody cares, and Identity Crisis could be exactly what'll make some people who may have overlooked Ray before come out in his favor and defense. It certainly has made me more of a Ray Palmer fan than ever before, how about that. Ditto the Elongated Man, and both of their wonderous wives.

DC went and decreed in 1994 that Kyle Rayner, as the Green Lantern, should be the only one present in the DCU, apparently one of the reasons why Alan Scott had to call himself Sentinel, and Guy Gardner...just that (Alan's daughter, Jenny-Lynn Hayden, had her own codename already - Jade). As a result, much of what the Green Lantern mythos was built on was ruined for many years. It may be too soon to tell if that's what'll be done with the Silver Age Atom, but either way, the Identity Crisis damage is already bad enough.

So please do not misinterpret this - I am as much, maybe even more - a fan of Simone as Lander is, but, the incredibly contrived and stilted way this was all set up is exactly why, as I've decided, I can't support this title. I'm sure that, had she the real influence, she'd do something with Ray and Jean, and certainly something that respects them, but for now, all signs point to negative on that. In fact, chances are that Simone's actually being exploited by TPTB as a sales gimmick! The imposing of John Byrne on the title is certainly another clue. DC's claimed several times in the past and even now that, "nobody cares about the Atom," yet I can't say there's that many people who care about John Byrne now, given some of the very degrading things he's been mouthing off with and even the bias against women he's displayed in some of his writing over the years, which could be just why they put him, of all people, on the book.

And don't misinterpret this either - I am not against introducing a new character in the place of an old one, and have no "grudge" against the new Ryan Choi as a character, nor am I against casting minority group characters in starring roles like these, and it wouldn't surprise me if Simone avoided any of the problems that Kyle Rayner was swamped with for the decade that he was Green Lantern, BUT, because of the incredibly offensive stemmings on which this series is being put together, at the expense of old characters, that's why I cannot support it. I wouldn't be surprised if some comics readers years ago didn't support Green Lantern for the same reasons as I'm giving here. In other words, it's not because they dislike Kyle, but rather, because DC went the arbitrary route at Hal Jordan's expense.

Concur or dissent, that's how I feel.

Topic linked with: Diane's Stuff, Customer Servant, The Mudville Gazette, Point Five, Stop the ACLU, Third World County, TMH's Bacon Bits.

Superheroines do deserve glory on the silver screen

The Kansas City Star's got an article about the sorry state of movies with superheroines in the lead:

Wonder Woman, we need you!

As it stands, nearly all female superhero flicks make our crime-fighting sistas look laughably pathetic. Consider these disasters: “Supergirl” (Helen Slater), “Elektra” (Jennifer Garner) and “Catwoman” (a hissably bad Halle Berry).

None won over audiences or critics, and the reason is obvious: All were rotten.

Indeed they were. The only reason I can see for their ever being made is that the producers seem to think that chicks alone will bring in the teenage boys, and any girls who enjoy the wish-fullfilment angle. But no, it's not that simple.

If you dig deep enough, you will find tough female superheroes here and there. My favorite is 1983’s “The Heroic Trio,” with Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung and Anita Mui. The gory Hong Kong flick finds this kick-butt trio rescuing babies from the diabolical clutches of the Lord of the Underground. Gotta love that.

It’s essentially a pop-up comic book brought to life, with an assertive group of women showing who’s the boss. Skip the lame sequel, though.

At least there are prospects on the horizon. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” creator Joss Whedon is reportedly working on a script for a big-screen version of “Wonder Woman.” It has been in the larval stage for a while, so let’s just keep our fingers crossed that it will end the curse of the bad female superhero movie. If there’s anyone who can do the genre justice, he would be the guy.

I hope so. Likewise, I hope the chosen actress will be hot enough for the role.

Superbad role models: Superman Returns advocates anti-wedlock?!?

Well, I figured that the Newspeak madness that's eating away at Hollywood these days would have its toll on the cinematic version of the Man of Steel just as much as the one in comics, not just in terms of censoring The American Way from the script, but also in views on marriage and how to raise a child. Debbie Schlussel finds that Superman Returns features a few things that simply weren't necassary, such as:

...we got a dumbed down, girlie-man version of Superman in "Superman Returns." Like every sensitive, slacker metrosexual, Supe's gone off for five years to "discover himself." In the meantime, the dullest Lois Lane ever has a child out of wedlock. Nice message to send to your kids who will be begging to see this. No smoking lectures by Superman and plugs for tofu sandwiches got a lot of play though. Script-writers were more concerned with that kind of health than the splendid problems single motherhood brings.

In what is more reminiscent of a Maury Povich "Who's the Daddy?" show than a Superman plot, Lois apparently slept around and thinks the cutesy kid--very annoying and distracting in the film--is her fiance's child, not that of the other guy she was simultaneously sleeping with--the Man of Steel.

Whether it's her fiance's kid or the Man of Steel's, my my, isn't this just wonderful. Just when they had a chance to offer the public a decent movie, they go along and cough up a less-than-innocent premise reminicient of Murphy Brown's needless out-of-wedlock storyline instead (and Warner Brothers TV backed away from a lot of that premise some time afterwards). They say that showbiz people were against marriage in the 50s, and apparently, they still are. (And, given the chance, they can also be anti-birthrate as well.)

Some way to go and ruin one of comicdom's most beloved ladies. I can only wonder, is DC going to try anything similar with the regular comic books anytime soon? I'd advise against, mainly because, as I've concluded in recent years, personalities and development are not something I should be too demanding of, certainly not if it's going to lead to this.

Newsbusters wrote about this earlier, and said that:

If filmmakers are going to keep insisting that Superman must continue to change in order to reflect the times in which we live, one wonders how many more decades will pass until a version is released where Luthor is the hero and Superman the villain if the Man of Tomorrow continues to insist upon imposing his standards upon common criminals and would be galactic conquerors.

Well, DC Comics, and by extension, the mainstream media, have already been excusing Dr. Light for his own crimes against Sue Dibny, so I guess that dark day when the roles in the Superworld are reversed might not be too far off.

It's high time already for a televised debate on the state of today's comic books. Yes, I mean it.

Update: Debbie's also discussed her review on Billy Cunningham's radio show, WLW-AM 700 in Cincinatti, and also on Fred Honsberger's, KDKA-AM 1020, Pittsburgh, on New York's WABC Radio on The Curtis & Cuby Show, and even MSNBC's Scarborough Country.

Update 2: Michelle Malkin's taken a look, and isn't pleased with how the filmmakers wouldn't include The American Way in the movie. The American Thinker also weighs in.

The blogmaster of The Stupid Shall be Punished was bored.

Outside the Beltway is very dismayed.

What Would Tyler Durden Do is much less forgiving.

Update 3: I found a letter to the editor in the Medina County Gazette of Ohio that says:

Past Clevelanders Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster — the creators of Superman — must be turning in their graves at the farce Warner Bros. Entertainment has made out of their character in the movie "Superman Returns."

During the movie, the Daily Planet's editor, Perry White, speaks of Superman's defense of "Truth, Justice …," but leaves out the wholesome, freedom-fighting exclamation point of "The American Way!" Of course, this makes anyone with any minimal comic book knowledge furious — that is, until you really get upset once you see what they made this so-called "Superman" actually stand for.

The "hero" in this movie is so gutless, he leaves Earth for five years without being able to face saying goodbye to those he loved; he creeps around people's houses so he can eavesdrop and peep in the windows; he apparently doesn't show up for a scheduled parole board hearing (weak plot point!); and he fathers a child out of wedlock! The movie also has a not-so-subtle "the world doesn't need a savior" bash at Christians.

DC Comics should be ashamed for allowing an icon like Superman to be presented in this fashion. It was totally unnecessary to make the movie a blockbuster. Warner Bros. should have taken a script from the old Siegel and Shuster days and made a movie about the real Superman — the one with American ideals.

Amen.

Update 4: just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, the UK Guardian, bastion of moonbattery that they are, went and wrote a truly disgusting "interview" with the director (Hat tip: No Pasaran). Beginning with the top subtitling:

Why did Bryan Singer want to swap the X-Men for America's favourite illegal alien? Lesley O'Toole looks up, up in the sky

More like down, down at the ground. A needlessly politicized article, this really scrapes bottom with its dishonesty and bias.

Update 5: not so super box office. Given the cynicism involved in both the movie and the press coverage of it, not so surprising either.

Truth, justice, and the Am-*SQUICK*

David Ansen, Newsweek's movie critic, just can't bring himself to say the American way in his review of Superman Returns, which is coming out this week:

In "Superman Returns" (written by Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris from a story they cooked up with Singer), the caped crusader for truth, justice, etc. (Brandon Routh) returns to crime-ridden Earth after a five-year detour amid the remains of his home planet.

Poor Mr. Ansen. He clearly does not appreciate what the Man of Steel was meant to represent when he first began. Let's be clear, Supes stands for truth, justice, and the American way, plus, if we could add some extra examples, the democratic and the free market way.

Hat tip: Pete Puma and Newsbusters.

Computer software for comic creating

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette talks about a computer program that can teach how to design comic books, including such examples as word balloons:

In order to make any content useful in the creation of a comic book, the program itself comes with a built-in frame grabber. This is a utility that allows you to freeze and save anything you see on the computer screen. Once you have the pictures you want, you can move them into the ready-made comic book templates and add text balloons. The balloons are blank; you fill in the text.

At first this seems like an exercise for kids. Kids can do it — the program is easy to use — but it turns out that businesses and schools have already shown interest. A business can easily make a clever product promotion comic book, and at least one has already begun a training manual in comic book style. A schoolteacher has started using it to make comic books to teach science.

If so, that's good, since it helps to introduce comics in schools where needed!

How is being bright and optimistic a problem for today's writers?

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, here's another article telling the readers what to think or believe, something that comics companies today seem to be arguing ad nauseum, and which is simply exaggerated:

Superman smiles a lot, but writer Geoff Johns is working through that.

“It’s easier to write a character like Batman who’s tough and gritty than someone like Superman who’s happy with himself,” says Johns, who recently took over the reins of the character’s self-titled comic book.

Over nearly 70 years, writers have had the same problem with the Man of Steel: How do you write adventures about a do-gooder?

“It’s corny, but Superman is so good that (writing him) is difficult,” Johns says.

Still, Superman smiles on – in comics, on TV (“Smallville”) and, again, in movies, with “Superman Returns.” Getting a handle on the character is so hard that it’s legendary in comics to fail at pinning him down.

When DC Comics wanted to revitalize Superman this year, the publishing company turned to Johns, who has had success reworking such time-tested franchises as the Flash and the Teen Titans for DC.

“I took the job because I love the character,” he says.

No kidding. After the way that Johns began to toe the line with DC on its jamming the Identity Crisis outgrowth down the audience's collective throats, I had to question that.

And the part about 70 years worth of writers having a problem in getting a handle on Superman because he's "so good," raises many questions on just what are they talking about. How strange. Didn't Siegal and Shuster do well enough on their part, ditto E. Nelson Bridwell, Cary Bates, Elliot Maggin, Jim Shooter, and even Bob Rozakis? What this whole argument obscures and misses the point almost completely on is that, as the Silver Age can certainly tell, the Man of Steel went through some of the most absurd slapstick adventures you could think of, including getting his head turned into that of a lion's head, and, perhaps even more telling, he wasn't quite as "good" as one might think: he sometimes played unkind tricks on Lois Lane, and vice versa, and whenever I think of it, the Superman-Lois relations at the time were probably the least believable of all the superheroes and their spouses. Barry Allen and Iris West, Adam and Alanna Strange, Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris, Ray Palmer and Jean Loring, Hawkman and Hawkwoman, they were much more "down to earth" than Superman and Lois ever were in their own relations together, which could include rivalry.

Now, here's where the article descends into favoratism for the darkness:

Though Superman’s popularity has gone up and down over the years, he remains one of the most recognized and profitable franchises in comics.

Keeping readers coming back to the racks every month is more than a good idea. It’s essential.

The bright-and-shiny Superman is now facing something deadlier to him than kryptonite – competition. Darker characters such as the X-Men’s Wolverine and even Gotham City’s Batman appeal to younger readers seeking accessible characters.

Haven't we seen this kind of argument before? Time once wrote a puff piece for grittiness and darkness, and I wasn't very impressed with that one either. In fact, if the Man of Steel is facing competition now, surely he wasn't before as well? Very little here is clear, not even just who these "younger" readers are.

And I should note that, while I've got nothing against reading about "dark/gritty" characters, I never read Marvel Comics solely or even squarely for darkness, and difficult as it is to find anything readable from Marvel now, I don't read their comics for darkness even now. Spider-Man's origin may have stemmed from a personal tragedy, but darkness was not what Peter Parker's own world was about, nor was ever built solely on darkness either. But that's what the press would doubtless like for people to think, which makes no sense, and is insulting to no end. Heck, in this cruel world of ours, a bright and enjoyable adventure can do a lot of good for people. I've got a feeling that hospital patients would confirm that brightness does them a lot of good too.

Johns began his career as a movie supervisor for Richard Donner, whose credentials include ultra-violent movies like Lethal Weapon, and most likely that the former was influenced considerably by the latter. That's one of the reasons why I don't see it as a very good idea to hire people from the movie biz to write comic books, since they take it to such an extreme level, far too much for comics to handle.

Topic linked with: Blue Star Chronicles, Cigar Intelligence Agency, Free Constitution, Gribbit's Word, Is it Just Me, The Mudville Gazette, Point Five,

Spin mag interviews Sean Ryan

Spin magazine interviews one of Marvel's assistant editors, Sean Ryan, who's one of the staff members in charge of the X-Men books.

Image produces Task Force 1

Image Comics is publishing a new comic series called Task Force 1 that deals with a counterterrorist team going to war with terrorists in the post-9-11 era. One of the writers even took a look at some army websites for research:

Newsarama: There are a lot of super hero teams, what makes TASK FORCE 1 unique?

Jeffery Stevenson: This team has Jim, Carlos, Joel, Jason, Kris, and me making them look good.

The team for TASK FORCE 1 is a actually a team of military soldiers. BDUs, combat boots, armored vests, that work!, guns, and all that fun military gear. Volunteers wanting to defend their country, family, and friends.

They're also a look at what the military soldier could become. I took Jim Valentino's initial concepts and went through notes and press releases from the various military research centers, scientific journals and news sites, and the archives of the great DefenseTech.org blog to see if there were any patterns that could actually lead to the technology TASK FORCE 1 uses. There are.

It's still a work of fiction, minus encounters with mutants, the supernatural, aliens, magic, or super-genius time-travelling were-octopi pygmies, but there's a hint of possibility for practically all the tech seen in TASK FORCE 1, including the stuff used by the terrorists. At any moment, you might get hit with the thought, "damn, that really could happen."

I certainly hope that, even if this is only allegorical, that it'll give the reader something to think about, and so, I'll look forward to seeing what it's like.

Topic linked with: bRight & Early, Gribbit's Word, Mark My Words, Stop the ACLU.

Is this the worst publicity stunt of all?

In all their efforts to antagonize the audience, I think Marvel may have really done it this time, no matter what comes later. For, as the awful AFP (via Outside the Beltway) reports, Peter Parker takes off his Spidey mask in Civil War for everyone to see:

NEW YORK (AFP) - For a comic book hero, it's the ultimate taboo.

"I'm proud of who I am, and I'm here right now to prove it," the legendary webslinger tells a press conference called in New York's Times Square, before pulling off his mask and standing before the massed ranks of reporters as newspaper photographer Peter Parker.

"Any questions?" Parker asks in the final panel of the issue, amid a barrage of camera flashes.

In a statement, Marvel trumpeted the revelation as "arguably the most shocking event in comic book history."

Not really. By now, this is what anybody can come to expect from such awful, exploitive hooligans who've hijacked the House of Ideas. But despite what the AFP says, I wouldn't say it's that taboo. There have been some Marvel and DC superheroes alike who've dropped their secret IDs in past years, but the difference is that they all did it much more quietly, and it wasn't done for the purpose of getting media attention.

The seven-issue "Civil War" series, launched in May, sees Marvel's writers taking on the topical issue of civil liberties.

Following a showdown between a group of superheroes and supervillains in which hundreds of innocent civilians are killed, the government passes the Super-Hero Registration Act, requiring all superheroes to reveal their identities and register as "living weapons of mass destruction."

Marvel's roster of invincible crime fighters is split into two bitterly opposed factions, with one camp -- championed by the likes of Spiderman -- in favour of the new law and the other, including Captain America and his ilk, refusing to relinquish anonymity.

"It's about which side you are on and why you think you are right," said Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada.

No, it's why you think you're right, Quesada! But as it so happens, you're wrong. I am bored by seeing this, and depressed as well. It's thanks to things like this that I'm finding it almost impossible to read anything Spidey-related these days, if at all.

And if Peter's in favor of unmasking, that's pretty much out of character, because, simply put, a character like him, with a wife and an aunt and various good friends, has always felt it best to keep his ID secret.

On Comic Boards, one of the writers argues that since this is just the 2nd issue, we shouldn't rush to judgement. Fair enough. But that's not really why I'm irked here. What does irk me is that it's all being done solely for media publicity, and not because it serves the story from an artistic angle.

One really distasteful puff of toxic gas

The awful AP Wire wrote a puff piece, as one of my blogging acquaintences, Elder of Zion, puts it, on an anti-Israel, anti-American comic published in Egypt that first came out last year, but is still getting some coverage. But what doesn't the AP mention? As Elder says:

The part that the AP decides isn't relevant to this story is that the major female superhero, Jalila - a female scientist who at the age of 16 survived an explosion at the Dimodona nuclear plant (a reference to Israel's Dimona nuclear research reactor), and gained super-powers from the radiation. She protects the City of All Faiths (Jerusalem) from the warring Zios Army (guess who) and the United Liberation Force (guess who again.)

This story came out over a year ago. To be fair, from looking at the synopses of the comic books themselves it looks more like standard superhero fare than explicit hatemongering against Israel, but the subtext is there and it is crystal clear. The fact that the AP decides not to mention it is just another in a long string of whitewashing we've come to expect from the MSM.

Yes, I know just what those two movements are. Zios is really Zion, and United Liberation Force is the United States Army, a hint of the publisher's opinion on the war in Iraq.

And as a resident of Jerusalem, I'm certainly insulted. And that the AP downplays everything, making it look as innocuous as possible, is just one more offense. There are many ways for hatemongers and jihadists to indoctrinate their subjects. And one of those ways, from what I can tell, is to mimic de-facto the US approach to publishing comics.

I think this is also starting to make me hate allegorical storytelling, too.

Topic linked to: The Dumb Ox, Is it Just Me, TMH's Bacon Bits.

Dixon comes back to DC, and Connor Hawke gets a lead role again

I'm guessing that some noise was made about the big two's attempt to ostracize Chuck Dixon, and so now, it looks like DC, at least, has patched up relations with him, and he's writing a Green Arrow-related book that puts Connor Hawke back in the spotlight again (and good to see that he wasn't a sacrifice in Infinite Crisis. I expect we'll have assurances soon that Jenny-Lynn Hayden won't be a sacrifice either?)

The article from Newsarama also reveals that bias was a factor in the cancellation of the first GA volume when Connor was the lead, when Dixon says that:

“I think Connor has the potential to carry his own monthly again,” said Dixon. “He did it for more than forty issues not so long ago and his sales were strong right up to the time it was decided to cancel the book to make way for the re-launch of the title under Kevin Smith.”

I see. It was something like 2 and a half years until the 2nd volume was launched, but isn't that nice, they were being favoratists to Kevin Smith, no doubt because of his movie-related status. Hardy har har.

They owe an apology now.

So THAT'S why the Silver Age Atom's getting shafted!

It's kind of a surprise that a journalist as PC as Bill Radford of the Colorado Gazette would have a blog of his own, knowing how most MSM reporters like him would surely despise the blogosphere, because of its ability to compete with the newspapers, and to counter the propaganda espoused by knee-jerkers like him. In any case, the news I found here, first posted in April, does give a bit of understanding about why Dan DiDio, the one who said he only got "a greater sense of dread" decided to go and replace Ray Palmer with a new protagonist:

DC Comics this afternoon posted its solicitations for July. There are exciting new teams on “Batman” and “Detective Comics” and some new series, including “Omac,” “Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters” and “The All-New Atom.”

That last, as the title indicates, features someone other than Ray Palmer as the Atom. I asked DC executive editor Dan DiDio about the change a month or two ago. DC tried to replace Oliver Queen as Green Arrow and Hal Jordan as Green Lantern, and neither change stuck, so why replace Ray, the Atom many of us grew up with? His answer: “Ray Palmer as a character never really supported his own series for an extended period of time, and if any character seemed like we could make some changes and do something new, this seemed to be the character.”

Dan, I gotta congratulate for telling us all this. You've just summed up why I may not be able to buy the All-New, Multicultural, Because it's the only Politically Correct thing to do, Atom. I think I can tell what he's saying here too. Translation: "because the World's Smallest Superhero allegedly couldn't support his own title, so it makes very little difference who's using the size-and-weight control belt, we'll just throw out Ray Palmer into the wilderness like the little piece of trash he is and nobody'll notice because he's just too little to matter to anyone, whether they buy the new series or not."

Yeah, that's it, right? Ray Palmer is just an expendable character, just like, come to think of it, Al Pratt, the Golden Age Atom was when DC went and killed him off during Zero Hour, another crossover that looked like little more than an excuse to kill off various characters as well, and to villify at least one.

ZH was probably also a leading precedant for artistic disasters like Identity Crisis as well, as the editors also chose to ignore any argument against pointlessly doing in characters for shock's sake. As long as they're unwilling to discuss that part of it, it'll be difficult to clean up the mess they're constantly making.

And getting back to the All-New Atom, let's be clear here. I have nothing against making him a minority group member, knowing that he may be Asian-American (I do have to wonder though why not a European immigrant, which the new Dr. Mid-Nite actually is), but to do it at the expense of the Everyman star who began the role in the first place is ludicrous, and that's where it all descends into political correctness.

Now of course it's possible that DC does intend to give Ray Palmer a good, respectable ending, but, why should we have to wait for it for so long a time, when it could all have been done without resorting to crossover-related monstrosities, and with just a miniseries instead within the past two years? I'm sorry, but, DiDio's logic is faulty as usual, and it shows that he just doesn't get comics.

On the subject of who's writing the new series, that being Gail Simone, let me also be clear that, she's a very talented writer, and she's got much more rationale than most other writers today, but, considering that this seems to be done under a mandate imposed by DiDio, that's what could end up blocking me from buying this, even in trades. If I buy it, do I end up legitimizing DiDio's whole scam as a result? Maybe, maybe not. If he were more honest and willing to tell what's going on, which is certainly not illegal, then maybe he could have a better impact upon me and others in the audience, but so far, I'm not seeing that.

Oh, and as for his loyal suckup, Radford, what did he have to say about Brad Meltzer writing the Justice League relaunch?

I’m most jazzed in July about the return of “Justice League of America,” with Brad Meltzer writing. Meltzer basically tore apart the Justice League with his “Identity Crisis” miniseries. Now he gets the chance to build the JLA back up.

Firstly, when was it ever a good thing that Meltzer tore the League apart? Secondly, how do we know that he'll build them back up properly? Radford isn't making any discernment, and knowing what his standings on IC were, having studied the column he wrote in 2004 a week ago, and even earlier, the one he wrote a year afterwards, that's why his statement here falls flat on its face.

Topic linked with: 7 Deadly Sins, bRight & Early, Cao's Blog, Free Constitution, The Mudville Gazette, Stop the ACLU, Third World County, Wizbang.

Dublin's Captain America-dedicated resturant

A French blogger took a trip to Ireland recently, and found that they've got a bar-resturant in Dublin dedicated to Captain America!

Jack Kirby would be very proud to know that the Star-Spangled Avenger's got fans in Ireland.

A far cry from the Kapitalist Kouriers

Ace of Spades finds that DC appears to be joining Google in appeasing the Chinese Communists by conceiving a team called the Socialist Red Guardsmen:

I am less bothered by the multi-culti crap than I am by the multinationalist stuff. The Chinese government can be described in different ways -- strategic competitor, rival, enemy biding its time -- but it cannot be described as an ally. And yet DC Comics has decided, it seems, to propagandize on their behalf.

Liberals often criticize corporations for not having the interests of the American people in mind... and they are, often, right. They have their own interests in mind, which is the way of the world.

But I'm becoming a bit more liberal in my view of corporations, as I see DC Comics attempting to help the Chinese government by giving them their own super-team, and Google censoring on behalf of the Chinese government, etc.

What makes me uncomfortable here is the name this team is being given - Socialist. It does little more than to whitewash the fact that socialism isn't exactly favorable to free market trade, and in the case of communists, it's degrading. Just what exactly is DC trying to prove by pandering to a bunch of anti-democratic kooks whose leading offenses include their limit on reproduction? This is certainly far removed from when the Flash featured three Russian defect speedsters, Red Trinity, who also called themselves the Kapitalist Kouriers, and made their living doing speedy delivery jobs.

China may not be anywhere near Saudi Arabia's level of human rights violations, but whitewashing communism, as this seems to be bound to do, is still a serious wrong.

And speaking of the House of Saud, here's the best line from Ace:

I can't wait until DC unveils the "New Jihadis," a super-team of radicalized Muslims who gain their powers from an unshakable belief in Allah and who have all sorts of neat powers, like being able to blow up civilians without remorse. Hey, it's an underserved segment of the market; might as well try to make a buck
there too, huh?

Yeah, I figure. And the New Jihadis will even go around gang-raping defenseless women because, if Mohammed could do it to the 9-year old Ayisha, and, as told in Sura 4:23-24, rape is fully allowed, they feel it's totally within their right to commit similar crimes. Yep, wouldn't that be a perfect role model. Ick.

And one more note on the Socialist Red Guardsmen: this is probably a joke on Ace's part, but oddly enough, what do their members have for powers?

PS, DC is kind of tone-deaf as regards its Chinese super-team. One character, "Mother of Champions," gives birth to a "litter" of 25 super-warriors every three days. Another character, "Seven Deadly Brothers," can split into seven different fighters.

Odd, isn't it, that two of the Chinese teams' members have the power of superpopulating, eh? Why no character named "One in a Billion"?

Might as well call the team "The Yellow Hordes" and be done with it.

Hmm. Maybe. That aside, as insulted as I am by how they're naming the super-team Socialist, it's funny how one of them seemingly does something that goes against current beliefs by those one-child-policy advocates in Communist China. Although the second one's power comes fairly close to reflecting how some couples in China fell under the belief that having a son instead of a daughter* is the way to go. I know it's a takeoff on that old short story, "Seven Chinese Brothers", but still, it succeeds in evoking that Commie notion from the past decade all the same.

(Eerily enough though, "Deadly" comes close to describing the sibling in the original short story who could swallow the sea: the young boy who was helping him mop up the fish in the sea stayed out in the open too long, and the one-in-seven couldn't keep holding the water inside, so it all poured out and the younger one drowned. The versions I read of it though, didn't seem to raise the issues of if that one-in-seven was to blame for causing the youngster's death or not. He was just taken to be executed, and was replaced by another brother and another one until the court decided to just let him go! So much for a real court case there, eh?)

* According to CBS's 60 Minutes, that's something they're trying to change now. Well at least that's good.

Deconstruction, not innovation

Outside the Beltway's James Joyner comments on DC's turning Batwoman, Kathy Kane, into a lesbian protagonist, a step that all too obviously has shock value and sales-via-controversy written all over it, and makes some good points that I have to agree with:

I haven’t been a regular comic book reader in a decade and stopped collecting seriously almost twenty years ago. Still, I find this kind of thing annoying.

I enjoyed the post-Crisis revamping of the D.C. universe in the late 1980s, where Superman, Batman, Green Arrow, and other characters who had been around since the late 1930s/early 1940s were updated. In that case, though, they all remained true to their original conception.

Conversely, I hate radical redesigns of established characters. For example, I almost invariably dislike movie adaptations of television series because they tend to tarnish the originals. While it was a good action flick, “Mission Impossible’s” turning Jim Phelps into a villain for shock effect was an insult to fans of the series. They even do it with comedies. The “Beverly Hillbillies” and “Dukes of Hazzard” movies turned the Clampetts and Dukes into caricatures.

If DC thinks they need more gay superheroes, then invent some. Don’t take a 60-year-old character and reinvent her as something she wasn’t.

And that pretty much sums up what the problem is with the big two, DC and Marvel, today: they've been tampering with an alarming lack of shame with long established characters, apparently because it's easier than to just create some new ones who can fill the roles of those who get the tinker-treatment. It's easier to turn Doctor Light into a rapist and ruin him in retrospect than it is to just come up with a new villain who can fill that role, even from a more realistic viewpoint. When Denny O'Neil wrote Green Lantern/Green Arrow in the early 1970s, what made it work well was that he refrained from using costumed villains in human interest stories where they didn't belong, and instead used more rank-and-file street villains, which made the stories more believable.

There's also the problem with trying much too hard to appeal to a more "diverse" audience. From the AP story:

The “52″ series is a collaboration of four acclaimed writers, with one episode per week for one year. The comics will introduce other diverse characters as the story plays out. “This is not just about having a gay character,” DiDio said. “We’re trying for overall diversity in the DC universe. We have strong African-American, Hispanic and Asian characters. We’re trying to get a better cross-section of our readership and the world.”

Yep, I figured as much. Since they cannot or will not bring in writers who can conjure up an appealing, well-written story, they choose instead to resort to coming up with minority group characters, in hopes that that alone will get them an audience. But minority group characters does not equal good storytelling, and few are actually calling out for more minorities to be intro'd in comics, a gimmick that's grown old by now, and that's also become an excercise in PC lunacy. It's not story-driven, it's, ideology-driven.

As for the tampering that's been done with Kathy Kane by turning her lesbian, close attention should also be paid to the fact that a]this is probably the third or fourth time DC's been pulling a ridiculous stunt like this, and b]it's a story like this that's getting the MSM's attention. I'm guessing that, if Kathy Kane were reintroduced as a Maronite Lebanese Christian, that the AP, CNN and the NYT wouldn't say anything, because, you know, religious backgrounds like that just aren't worth promoting. So DC, in all their desperate attempts to go the low denominator route, felt that they had to put out something this panderingly dumb, because, you know, any publicity can sell comics en masse. At least, that's what it seems like.

That said, I'm glad to see that more bloggers of Joyner's standing are paying attention to this. If they can keep it up, then hopefully, that could bring more public awareness to how comics have been forced into the gutter of sleaze these days, and maybe some debate about it could be brought up on TV!

Update: A Canadian radio website writes a disgusting puff piece about Superman "emerging as a gay icon." Absolute filth.

Update 2: some more reax to this news from various other sources. For example, here's what Media Research Center's Brent Bozell had to say:

Today’s comic books have undergone a Starbucks transformation. They are now called “graphic novels” and are bound on fancier paper, selling at Borders or Barnes & Noble for $2.50. Even more striking is the business formula: the comic book industry is making the big bucks not on paper, but on the silver screen. Marvel Comics has had an amazing run at the movies, with massive box-office results for the “Spider-Man” films and now a monster third sequel in the “X-Men” movie series. On the other hand, Marvel isn’t making much money in the old-fashioned publishing way. One recent estimate had them making only 22 percent of their revenues on the printed page.

Why is this important? Because by branching itself into the movie business, the comic book industry is no longer focusing solely on the freckle-faced ten-year-old. It’s now big, big business, aiming to reach the 30-year-old audience with more adult messages, even though children will also be exposed to them.

So here we go with another delivery vehicle for children sacrificing innocence at the altar of controversy, in the hopes of gaining notoriety – and press attention. In 2003, Marvel went homosexual, trying to draw attention to itself by creating a gay superhero, the Rawhide Kid, but the “Rawhide Kid: Slap Leather” comic books never sold well, despite the initial raft of publicity.

Now DC Comics is trying to create its own gay shockwave by transforming Batwoman, a character killed off in 1979, into a lesbian socialite-turned-superhero in black and red latex. Spokesman Dan DiDio claims DC wants to strike a “more contemporary tone” and an openly lesbian character that still keeps her sexual preference hidden from certain family members has a lot of “strong emotional layers.”

That isn’t the only blow DC Comics is striking for diversity – and its search for a bigger audience. Others include the Blue Beetle, Firestorm, and The Atom -- now reinvented as Mexican, black, and Asian heroes, respectively. Then there’s the Great Ten, a government-sponsored team of Chinese superheroes. Some have joked that DC could really be groundbreaking by creating a superhero that’s ugly or fat, which would add quite a dash of diversity.

While there may be a few shortcomings here, Bozell does nail some points here perfectly. DC and Marvel are going out of their way to strike a blow for their own idea of "diversity". But really, what diversity is there, not just if what they're doing here's been done before, but also if that's all they're going to do? Why not some European immigrants to America, who're trying to adjust to their new residential locale, and even trying to do their bit for justice? Superheroes of Bulgarian, French, Swedish and Armenian descent? If they think they're breaking any ground, forget it.

There’s nothing wrong with heroes that appeal to a broader youth audience. But a lesbian superhero? There are two ways this Batwoman idea rankles. First, that DC Comics is earnestly trying to indoctrinate today’s young people and delight the homosexual lobby. After all, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation loves this new character, and has previously awarded DC Comics seven awards for “Outstanding Comic Book” for pro-gay themes.

Second, and perhaps more commercially plausible, DC Comics knows that about 90 percent of its audience are young men, who are likely to find a 5-foot-ten lipstick lesbian in a tight latex suit worth a voyeuristic peek at the other side of the tracks. Some of today’s comics-obsessed men find an online thrill in “hentai,” or cartoon-character pornography based on the Japanese manga comic strips, and there are certainly lesbians in that genre.

[...]

Gay activists and journalists are now trying to push the idea of an intersection between homosexuals and superheroes in tights. The new cover story in the gay The Advocate magazine asks “How Gay Is Superman?” and salutes what it sees as summer movies flaunting “a bold queer spirit.” In addition to digging deeply for hidden metaphors in the forthcoming “Superman Returns,” gay activists are finding parallels in the new “X-Men” movie -- that someone wants to cure the freakish mutant heroes, just like conservatives want to convert the homosexuals. As a gay activist, cast member Ian McKellen was very quick to emphasize this “cure” was the villain of the movie, as offensive as trying to change someone’s “inferior” race.

Children as young as age six or seven are still reading these comic books, and I suspect most parents haven’t a clue about the new messages emerging. Who would have predicted, ten years ago, that the comics would become a red-light neighborhood where sexually perverted superheroes would be packaged to elicit from children fascination and sympathy?

There may not be that many children reading comics today as in the yesteryear, but there are still some. And Bozell's got a point when you think about the situation this way: if a child can pick up a copy of Playboy that's been left lying around...yep. You can tell what else is possible.

And that gay and lesbian activists are trying to push and promote an intersection between themselves and superheroes in tights is absolutely insulting and sick. Let's not let them take advantage of some of the best literature and corrupt it as badly as they'd very much want to.

AgapePress reports that the director of the Culture and Family Institute has said that DC should be ashamed of themselves (Hat tip: WorshipingChristian.Org).

Yorkie Lady doesn't sound very happy either.