J. Michael Straczynski once remarked on how he'd love to write a Superman title, and rumor has it he was offered the chance, but he cited the lack of creative control as his greatest fear and ultimately, he backed down.
In a manner of speaking, JMS is writing Superman right now. It's called Supreme Power, and as of this writing, the book is shaping up to be quite possibly the greatest "Man of Steel" story ever told. It's a brilliant tale, a modern spin on the Superman mythos, a re-imagining that is familiar yet fresh. Of course, Supreme Power is only a "homage"; A tribute to Superman and the JLA. Does that take away from the fact that it is one of the most well written and beautifully illustrated superhero epics of all-time? No, and a future "Captain's Log" will be dedicated to Supreme Power and other titles like it. We're not here today to talk about Supreme Power, but we are here to talk about comic book creators, fans, and the off chance that the two are one in the same.
In recent years several writers have come along who seem to be "fans first". They hope to shake things up and dazzle readers with their respect for a character, their knowledge of continuity and to shatter boundaries with some "bold new direction". More often than not, these experiments fail, albeit not always miserably. But a writer's good intentions can come across as weak, forced, and altogether unsatisfying. For the most part...
One could say that there's little challenge in writing the exploits of a character that you're admittedly a diehard fan of. Because in theory, any Superman fan, with enough effort, could tell a decent Superman story...in theory. One could say the true skill of a fantasy writer is to write about some new and/or long-forgotten hero. To take a character no one gives a damn about, the creator included, and make him or her interesting. This is known as the "Alan Moore approach" (see Swamp Thing).
Unfortunately, there seems to be no real indicator as to whether or not a writer's love can be good for a particular title. Once in a while, we can have beautiful pieces of work, like Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" and Joe Kelly's "What's so Funny 'Bout Truth, Justice and the American Way?" And then there's Art Spiegelman's Maus, the Paul Dini/Alex Ross DC tabloid-sized books, or just about anything by Will Eisner.
These are good. These are VERY good, and ordinarily, I love to talk more about the above mentioned individuals and their contributions to the comics industry. But I feel there have been enough threads praising their work and those stories, at least for right now. And besides, it's just more fun to talk about the bad.
On with the inquisition!
Exhibit A: Judd Winick
If a writer MEANS well, does that make it right? Judd Winick meant well on Pedro and Me, and that DID make it right. But Judd also meant well on Green Lantern, and that DID NOT make it right. Pedro was a nice little story; personal, touching and heartfelt. But was GL? No way Jack. And why not? A story like Judd's "Hate Crime" has every bit of relevance in comics. Comics have always, and will always reflect the times, so a story like this belongs in the "four color" world. But why did this fail so miserably? The reasons are many; Partly due to the inconsistencies of Judd's writing, partly due to the preachiness of it all, but mostly due to Judd's placing of the "message" above the "story". The whole ordeal was a gay rights soap opera guest-starring the Green Lantern, instead of the other way around. GL took a back seat to the topic at hand. That was mistake number one.
Could Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams have handled this story better back in the day? Could Stan Lee and Gil Kane have? Or, to use a more present-day creative team, could Paul Dini and Alex Ross have done it better? Close your eyes for a moment, and try to imagine a Dini/Ross tabloid-sized "Green Lantern: Triumph Over Hate" one-shot, dealing with the very same topics as seen with the duo's Shazam!: Power of Hope. Imagine what could have been. Judd's ideas have relevance and always will. But in this case the intentions of the creator overshadowed the importance of the story. Comic readers by and large don't like to be preached to. Stan knew this, and he knew it well. Paul Dini knows this too. Any writer worth his salt damn well better know it. As a writer, you take an idea, one that's important to you, and you construct a story around that idea. Let the story get your point across. Let Kyle react to these events as Kyle would, not how Judd would. Let your beliefs influence the character, but don't guide the characters hand. Become like Uatu. Become a "Watcher", not a puppet master.
I'm not just telling you how I feel, nor am I regurgitating what I've learned over the years, whether it be in a classroom, a writing workshop or in real-life. I'm stating simple common sense. A writer's common sense. Once the reader stops seeing Kyle Rayner, and starts seeing Judd Winick dressed up as Green Lantern, all hope is lost. Again, characters exist independently from the creator. A writer is permitted, and even encouraged to step into the character's skin, but he/she mustn't force the hero's hand. Kyle has a way about him; we know how he should have reacted to Terry's beating. Any GL fan will tell you how Kyle should have reacted. Not how they WANTED him to react, but how he should have and WOULD HAVE reacted. It's as clear as day. The important topics of hate, justice and vengeance were carelessly swept aside, and the Green Lantern oath was dragged through the mud. Kyle acted out of character, that was mistake number two. As a result, the entire storyline came to a crashing halt and Green Lantern as a title became a laughing stock. Kyle Rayner as a character suffered irreparable damage, worse than anything Judd put Terry through.
Exhibit B: Kevin Smith
Kevin Smith re-launched the struggling Daredevil several years ago, catapulting DD to Spider-man level popularity. It was a good time to be a DD fan, and Smith's "Guardian Devil" was an enjoyable romp. Smith came aboard Daredevil with no prior experience writing mainstream superhero comics, only the proclamation that he was a big Daredevil fan. Smith wanted to impress and he wanted to shock, and he achieved this by killing off not one, but two classic Marvel characters. We lost Karen Page, and that death sent massive repercussions into Matt Murdock's life, leading up to the character's present day situation. We lost Mysterio too, a second-string Spider-Man villain who has since returned with little fanfare.
On the surface, these deaths appeared to be for shock value and nothing more. Smith's a movie director, although he has stated that he got into movies so he could break into comics. Still, "Guardian Devil" smacks of a "one-time deal", a "how do you like dem apples" story; like a grade school bully, Smith punches you in the arm and then scampers away before you can strike back, seemingly never to return. He's like the "Kool-Aid" man, busting through that brick wall and he's gone before the dust settles. Furthermore, his track record for completing his work on time, or just plain completing it period, is pathetic (see Daredevil: The Target, or Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do).
Are we to feel upset for Smith killing Karen? Did he have the right to introduce such a radical change to a book? Daredevil was struggling, without a doubt, but even so. Who does he think he is, anyway? Contrary to popular belief, the death of Karen doesn't bother me. I enjoyed "Guardian Devil" from start to finish. But some may see Karen Page as the unfortunate victim, not of a vengeful Bullseye, but of Smith's "good intentions", in particular his intentions of telling a memorable Daredevil story. As with his work on Green Arrow, Smith's need to impress overshadowed the desire to tell a simple "good" story.
Of course, if Smith HADN'T killed off Karen, we never would of had Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale's wonderfully touching Daredevil: Yellow. And if Smith hadn't killed off Karen, would rereading the conclusion of Frank Miller and Dave Mazzucchelli's "Born Again" have the same emotional impact?
Exhibit C: Jeph Loeb
This leads us to a little writer's trick that I like to call "pulling a Loeb". Similar to "pulling a Homer", as fans of The Simpsons will likely acknowledge.
Look it up in a comic book dictionary;
Pulling a Loeb
definition;
1. Building upon another's past literary successes through reexamination of existing stories and events.
2. To take the best aspects from existing pieces of literature and rework them, usually for sentimental purposes. A tribute. A Homage.
See also, The Bendis Effect
Jeph Loeb is a talented writer, make no mistake. He's one of the best writers in the industry today, and his intentions are GOOD. Almost too good. As a writer he doesn't seem to have an angry bone in his body. No angst, no aggression, no depression. A writer who is content with himself. Has there ever been a more baffling conundrum?
From A Superman for All Seasons, to Batman: The Long Halloween and its sequel Dark Victory, to Hulk: Gray, all of these stories by their very construction owe everything to past creators like Frank Miller, Bill Everett, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, to name a few.
These types of stories are wonderful experiments, but they've become the norm for Loeb. He's more talented than that. He shouldn't spend all his time telling stories we've already heard before, however touching and well written they may be. The Marvel "Spectrum" books are wonderful, absolutely wonderful pieces of work. I would go so far as to call them classics. They have earned a spot on my bookshelf and they will be read and reread again and again for years to come. I can assure you of that. But truth be told, as special as they are, haven't we seen it all before? Heartbroken hero pines away for lost love, recounts past victories/defeats, and ultimately, however reluctantly makes peace with himself and his double life. It's old news. GOOD old news, but old news nevertheless.
Again, it's great stuff, I'm not knocking it, but Loeb has structured his comic writing career on it. One won't even delve into his most recent disastrous run on Superman/Batman. A departure from the norm for Loeb, but still a project that displays unyielding form and structure. It's a summer movie spectacle, everything feels carefully planned and orchestrated right down to the tiniest plot twist. It exists in a concrete world, with no room for spontaneity. Loeb is better than this. Much, much better.
Where's the anger and exaggerated violence of Commando? Where's the goofy fantasy and humor of Teen Wolf? Jeph Loeb may not have been a better writer back during his Hollywood days, but he certainly was more fun.
My advice to Loeb, AND to Winick and Smith, is to start fresh. Get away from the mainstream heroes. Create your own unique universes. Take the JMS approach, and start some sort of Rising Stars superhero epic. By creating characters that the readers have no attachment to, this eliminates all opportunity for fans to complain about the little things I've mentioned above. Readers won't know what to expect, because we haven't had a chance to expect anything in the first place. Creator-owned is the way to go, and it would be much more practical for these guys since they already have name recognition to back them up.
I'm not really a negative guy. I obsess over things, sure, and I always wonder what "could have been". What kind of music would Metallica be making nowadays if Cliff Burton were still alive? How would Ian Fleming truly feel about the current state of the James Bond franchise? What if Orson Welles agreed to perform the voice of Darth Vader instead of James Earl Jones? What if Richard Donner had been allowed to complete his vision of the live-action Superman films? Call me pathetic, but these things keep me up at night. Not every night, but they do make sure my brain keeps working. Generally speaking however, I prefer to focus on the good things, especially when it comes to stories. Bad stories don't deserve to be mentioned again, except to be ridiculed for their absurdity, or studied in an effort to learn what went wrong. I believe this was such a time.
In closing, I'd like to offer a few final thoughts on the nagging topic of characters and creators. This is a subject that seems to dominate these columns of mine, and knowing my stubbornness, it will probably continue to do so for some time to come.
We, as readers and as fans, know how these characters should act. They're like old friends. Daredevil, Green Lantern, Superman and Spider-Man, they exist as entities all their own because of the stories and histories we've shared and enjoyed over the years. They have grown beyond their boundaries, they've evolved beyond the printed page. The creator plants the seed, and everything that transpires afterwards is natural evolution. Superman exists because of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and he has continued to persevere over the years because of creators who maintain an interest in his fictional adventures both past and present. But, isn't it entirely possible that it is Superman himself who has kept the writers' imaginations alive?
We as a culture treat our fictional heroes as living breathing people. Again, that's the power of escapism. This is why we get excited or scared or sad when we go to the movies. This is what makes us repeatedly turn the page of a good book, again and again. This is what makes us return to the comic shop each and every week. These heroes are our dear friends, and we care about them. They're real and they're like family.
For example, if I may share one of my favorite quotes for the 80s cartoon series The Transformers, from the second season episode entitled "The Core":
"Hang on to your dreams Chip. The future is built on dreams. Hang on." - Optimus Prime
Notice I quote the character, Optimus Prime. Not Peter Cullen, the actor who spoke it. Not Dennis Marks, the writer who wrote it. I quote the character. I'm not alone in this behavior. We as fans quote the characters before the writers, almost every single time. We quote Yoda. We quote James Bond. We quote Vito Corleone. We quote James T. Kirk. We quote Superman and Batman. Why is that? Always the character, never the creator.
It is my opinion that the greatest compliment a writer can receive is when a fan comes up to you and says: "The hero of your story changed my life," or, "What the good guy said to his best friend at the end of Chapter 23 really moved me." Not "YOU changed my life", or "YOUR words moved me". But the character, the STORY. That's what writing is all about.
No one becomes a writer seeking fame. There are better, and easier ways to get noticed in this world. I've already made my intentions known. I've already told you what I hope to accomplish as a writer. And as a fiction writer, I don't want you to remember me for ME. I want you to remember my stories; "Marc who?...oh yeah, he was the guy who wrote that 'Superman' story a while back, you remember, the one where everyone dies. Whatever happened to him?" I'm simply speaking for myself, and I feel quite safe speaking for the majority of fiction writers (if any writers out there disagree with me, please contact me. I welcome the chance to debate).
And herein lies the beauty of creating your own original characters and fictional universes. A creator does have, and SHOULD have, a parental relationship with his/her creation. It should be the goal of every creator, just as it is the goal of any parent, for their child to be greater than they are. The sum of their parts plus one. I'm not a parent in the literal biological sense (i.e. I have no flesh and blood children to call my own). But I am a "father", and anyone that tries to tell me different is a fool. I've created lives, I've watched them grow, I've nurtured them, I've loved them, feared for them, and cheered for them. They exist as nothing more than pencil scribblings, ink lines, letters, colors and computer sprites. But they EXIST. They've taken on lives of their own. They are bigger than I am.
I've learned things from my characters. They've taught me about life and love and hope and redemption. There was a time when I questioned myself and my purpose in this world, and my characters brought me back. I've been moved and inspired by things they have said, which technically I have said, since I put the words in their mouths in the first place. THAT's the power of writing; To have your viewpoint altered in a positive way by a fictional being, even more profound is when the character is one of your own.
It's not the same as holding a real child in your arms, and I don't pretend to assume it's the same. I'm not that naive. Will I have real children of my own some day? I have no plans to, but who knows what the future brings? One thing I do know is...I really need to get out more.
