I'm tired of woke crap, I'm tired of stories serving the writer's need to work out his own issues, I'm tired of no one allowing anyone to be a fucking hero.
Adam Strange #10 has the big reveal that Adam in fact sold out Earth, lied to his wife to save Rann and I guess his daughter. It is a horrible scar to put on a character that was the thinking man's hero. Adam was always a hero that would do the right thing and he would have done right thing no matter the personal cost. This has cast him as a traitor and really someone who has no chance to be redeemed as his crime is about as horrific as it could be given the cost to Earth.
So what is the purposes of this story to show that some people given horrible choices make bad ones? That's fine but now you have taken a character that stood for 60 years as a cool hero and someone that I always loved and pissed on him and destroyed him to the nth degree. He is basically making him radioactive and irredeemable. Remember when Watchmen was being done DC stated to not use the Charlton characters as was the original intent because DC was smart enough then to not to want to ruin characters forever that were fun and interesting.
King has insinuated Batman had suicide issues, that Mister Miracle committed suicide and has worked out I'm sure many of his own issues using characters from comic books. The problem I have is that the story needs to be front and center first. Instead the story is subservient to the message, which totally goes against good storytelling in my opinion.
I see way too many current TV shows that want to preach about some social injustice or woke political viewpoint. I have no qualms with making your political views knows in the context of the story. The problem is that character development and story telling take second place destroys the entertainment value. I buy your product to enjoy your story, see how a character reacts or grows and if a political point is made during the course of the story fine. Just preaching to me leads me to other forms of entertainment. Add to writers' preaching and you have many artists drawing books for the after market sales of the artwork. Way too many beauty shots and not enough story telling.
Finally I read a quote from James Tynion - who said "I like taking things I am afraid of and turning them into monsters for my characters to deal with. Batman and Joker deal with a lot of the things that scare me right now about society." For me this is a smoking gun. It is not I have a good Batman story to tell; it is I have some social issue I want to address and I will use the characters to make my point. No concern of it's consistency with a character; it is simply the writer inserting his point into what ever character he is writing.
It is a tougher search to find material I like from DC anymore, but I find plenty of stuff with books, independent comics and old collections to keep me amused.
For me woke has broke the big two.
Man, I would save so much money if this were true for me about the big two. But even though I'm not completely there . . . yet, I certainly see the trend often enough that it keeps me from rarely sticking with a title long term or quickly listing it on ebay, knowing I'll never read it again. Strange Adventures is such a beautiful book on so many levels, but I've been dreading from the beginning that something bad about the character would come out. (Alanna has been portrayed so coldly, is it possible Terrific is wrong about Adam? I guess it's too late in the story to believe that anymore. Bummer.) After a brilliant story of bringing back Wally West in Rebirth, King ruins the character in Heroes in Crisis (that was a pretty book too - but know one even wants to buy it second-hand, because it STUNK!). Why? At least you give a good explanation that I hadn't considered - it's more about the writers than the characters. Why do publishers let writers do this? Why did Marvel let Gwen and Norman get together in his office?! There are some things you shouldn't do even if you're given permission to do so. But writers have always been inserting their trauma and experiences in their work, whether it is a divorce, or problems with companies, etc. So many stories were affected by Watergate! It's really sick how companies prey on their readership. Tom King's work with Lee Weeks has been stellar on Batman. So I'm excited to hear he's working on favorite characters like Mister Miracle, Flash, and Adam Strange. DC knows that there is a fanbase that will jump on these series, but then they kick us in the gut (or somewhere lower)?! It is amazing that they found a way to redeem Hal Jordan, and they created a cool replacement GL in the interim. But I don't see them being able to do that with Adam. Still two more issues, before I solidify my opinion. Glad to have your voice back!
ReplyDeleteThanks Matthew. Takes a lot to make me comment anymore but Adam Strange has always been a favorite character.
ReplyDeleteWell, your beloved pre-Crisis Adam is long dead . . . but everything still matters!
ReplyDeleteLast time I saw him he was still a hero until now. Don't get me wrong some of Tom King's stuff has been great - but he almost ruined Wally West forever and looks like Adam is ruined forever.
DeleteJust saying, technically it's not the same Adam, but then again it sort of is . . .
ReplyDeleteI'm at a loss as to what "woke" is supposed to be in this context. While it's most often a pejorative used to belittle awareness of historical wrongs that have long been hidden or undiscussed, that doesn't seem to be the case here. Strange isn't somehow an offensive character in this story because he's revealed something about historical injustices but because his character has been entirely changed from a paragon of virtue to a betrayer of Earth. Seems a lot like when Captain America had the big Hydra moment, which later got explained away in long-standing comic book tradition as not really Steve Rogers. These things aren't written for long time fans but to draw new fans who may not have been interested in the character, particularly with a more ancillary character like Strange. The Big Two are less wedded to protecting the status quo of their "universes" after decades of successfully drawing new purchasers via event driven sales. When The Dark Knight and Watchmen came out they were afraid of damaging their property. After they didn't damage it by Crisis, Last Laugh, and ever more frequent events, they're willing to take those leaps, especially with a lesser known character that could be the next X-Men or Teen Titans or Doom Patrol or Animal Man if something "radical" hits. Isn't any of it "woke" in any political sense.
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