seriousfic (
seriousfic) wrote2012-02-01 12:35 pm
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What? I have to? C'mon, I haven't even--fine.
Alright, as a comics fan, I guess I'm obliged to do a post decrying Watchmen 2: Before Watchmen. I don't know, it's not that much a leap from a movie to prequels, and badmouthing the movie seems to me a little more on the "Alan Moore is a smelly hippie" side than "Alan Moore has a point." I mean, it was basically a multimillion dollar fan film.
The bigger issue is what it says about DC that they'd rather revisit Watchmen then try to make the next Watchmen. Part of it, I'm sure, is that if you want superhero deconstruction and attacks on conservative politics, that's pretty much been superhero comics for the past ten years, just with George W. in the place of Richard Nixon. And when, say, Mark Waid does a comic about expies of Superman and the Justice League, Irredeemable, the only larger message is "comic fans are mean!" So we're in a weird place where DC lacks both the ambition and the editorial support to throw its weight behind anything other than more Green Lantern shit. And that goes for Marvel as well (I have no idea what anyone was trying to do with Civil War). Even as "auteur" writers like Grant Morrison and Mark Millar gain power, they're using it to play in their sandbox. A lot of creators want to make the comics equivalent of The Rock; there's nothing wrong with that, but if you want another Watchmen, you have to try to make Drive (I was going to say something about how Drive uses nudity and violence as opposed to most comics, but that's a whole 'nother post).
In fact, the last attempt I'm really aware of was Superman: Power-Walking, which was A. Shit and B. more concerned with what the plot said about the character of Superman than what the character of Superman said about the plot, if you get my drift. There's not a lot of "oh, a thing's happening in Somalia, I can use the character of Superman to express an opinion" so much as "here's something I can say about Superman: he really hates it when people he likes die."
The bigger issue is what it says about DC that they'd rather revisit Watchmen then try to make the next Watchmen. Part of it, I'm sure, is that if you want superhero deconstruction and attacks on conservative politics, that's pretty much been superhero comics for the past ten years, just with George W. in the place of Richard Nixon. And when, say, Mark Waid does a comic about expies of Superman and the Justice League, Irredeemable, the only larger message is "comic fans are mean!" So we're in a weird place where DC lacks both the ambition and the editorial support to throw its weight behind anything other than more Green Lantern shit. And that goes for Marvel as well (I have no idea what anyone was trying to do with Civil War). Even as "auteur" writers like Grant Morrison and Mark Millar gain power, they're using it to play in their sandbox. A lot of creators want to make the comics equivalent of The Rock; there's nothing wrong with that, but if you want another Watchmen, you have to try to make Drive (I was going to say something about how Drive uses nudity and violence as opposed to most comics, but that's a whole 'nother post).
In fact, the last attempt I'm really aware of was Superman: Power-Walking, which was A. Shit and B. more concerned with what the plot said about the character of Superman than what the character of Superman said about the plot, if you get my drift. There's not a lot of "oh, a thing's happening in Somalia, I can use the character of Superman to express an opinion" so much as "here's something I can say about Superman: he really hates it when people he likes die."
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The other thing they lack being the TALENT, given what we've seen any time that anyone not named Alan Moore tries to tackle real-world politics in superhero comics, with the best efforts including overrated, painfully dated Earnest White Liberal tripe like the "Hard Traveling Heroes" era of Green Arrow/Green Lantern, which basically cast Oliver Queen as the proto-Kevin Costner and Hal Jordan as an even bigger strawman than the Scarerow, and the worst efforts including both Civil War — a.k.a. what happens when writers who are actually autocrats in real life fool themselves into thinking they're fair and progressive, given that self-styled "anti-authoritarian" Mark Millar flatly stated that the blatant neo-fascism of Tony Stark, which made George W. Bush look like an ACLU lawyer by comparison, was "proven right" — and "Superman: Grounded," a.k.a. what happens when multimillionaire Hollywood screenwriters try to empathize with the common man and, for all their leftist pretensions, make Mitt Romney look like Johnny Cash by comparison.
On a completely unrelated note ...
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Really, the only matter of concern here is creative burnout in the industry. When we’re revisiting a story that was good and finished almost 30 years ago, that’s a sign that we have no where to go. Same as the movie industry, same as television. We should be worried about THAT.
I’m less than concerned about a millionaire writer who killed all of his good will with me when he said that “hey, comics suck” a few years ago even though he’s been cashing the checks from the lunch money I forked over the counter from 1990 until today.
It sucks that they’re making new Watchmen and in principle I agree with Alan. But Moore, despite still being a genius, doesn’t get to complain about people fiddling with his stuff when he’s spent most of his career mining the public library for other people’s characters to play with. Tell me Alan Moore, how would Lewis Carroll, Frank L. Baum, and J.M. Barrie feel about Lost Girls?
Really, I liked the Blackest Night story line (Except for the ACTUAL Blackest Night event. That was shit.) and I think it's cool that they went back and took a throw away line and turned it into 3 years of story, but again I'm forced to agree that the mainstream industry sees the real world and struggles to make an actual statement about anything anymore. Like the movie industry that mines comics for gold, the bullpens at the Big two are awash in big event stories that feel...empty at times. DC is taking the high road this time by at least promising to stop doing that for a while. The one good thing about the reboot is a return to trying to find good stories without a crossover (meanwhile the BAD parts of the reboot are numerous).
I blame the need to raise profits really. This sudden push to grab every customer they can find by trying to make everything appeal to everybody. That's stupid and hurts story.
I fear for the art form really.