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Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
Seeing Dan DiDio, Bob Wayne and many DC creators at a DC panel is a fun, almost bewildering experience. They really know how to gear fans up for new developments in the DC superhero universe. The One Year Later jump that most DC Universe books took is meant to create an exciting new status quo for the line. I've read most of what's been published so far and I haven't found anything that's lived up to the hype.
Now that all the crossover chaos has clamed down all the storylines of the books have a chance to start over. In all cases that means run-of-the-mill superhero stories with only superficial changes at best, with one exception. Some books like Birds of Prey and Outsiders change team members but I figure a continuing series, especially a team-centered book, is going to go through changes like this all the time anyway. All these books make references to developments that have happened in the past but if you pick up any superhero comic these days there will be references to all sorts of past events. The only difference is that all the books make sure to mention that all these events happened in the last year. The worst offender is Detective Comics where Commissioner Gordon outright says “Funny, you and I talking like all the events between now and the last time the Bat Signal shone in the night…like none of it even happened” (Emphasis theirs). The only thing’s that changed in most of these books are certain plot elements that will mutate more as the books continue, with even more continuity for readers to keep track of, or will be forgotten as the characters revert to a more “classic version” of themselves. It’s already happened in the Batman books with characters like Gordon and Det. Harvey Bullock returning. I felt that Superman was the best of the books I had read so far but the big event in the issue I read was the introduction of a new Kryptonite Man, complete with the dullest of super villain origins (laboratory accident). The rest of the story, such as Clark Kent not being super, felt like more of the back-story I’d be dealing with anyway with a comic book series that has reached issue #650.
If the changes aren’t anything exciting I hoped that the presentation would feel like something new. Not so. The style of the storytelling hasn’t changed either. Books like Firestorm and JSA aren’t just bland, they’re a type of bland that wouldn’t look out of place in the ‘90s or late-‘80s. I couldn’t see much differences between John Byrne’s Blood of the Demon and anything else Byrne has done in decades. Even the titles with so-called big changes haven’t updated how they read. Making the title character of Green Arrow the Mayor of his city just has the book come off as Ex Machina-lite.
The exception I mentioned before was Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis by Kurt Busiek and Butch Guice. The book felt like it was really starting over the entire Aquaman character as something that’s less of a superhero and more in line with the fantasy genre. There were still plenty of references to the previous incarnation of the character to give me pause, though. Still, it felt like a much better realized work than any of the other books I read, thanks mainly to the excellent artwork by Guice and colorist Laura Martin.
The goal of these comics shouldn’t be about “moving forward,” as if art runs on a linear path. Rather the books should be trying to achieving a new vision for the DC Universe line. I’m awaiting Hawkgirl by Walt Simonson and Howard Chaykin because while they may be of an older generation than many of the creators behind these books, they are much more visionary creators. There are other superhero titles being published now that take the bigger-than-life feel of superheroes to create really exciting work, such as Nextwave, Godland and Grant Morrison’s Seven Solders books. I felt that rush of reading something new and exciting with the excellent final issue of Mr. Miracle. It should have been what I felt reading the One Year Alter books, but I didn’t.
In more “DC Faces the Future” news, I liked my friend Graeme McMillan’s idea of DC creating a blog for its weekly series 52. More than with any other series that’s their chance to create something that feels like a new type of superhero comic but I seriously doubt that’s what will happen. Embracing the pop culture information overload like Graeme suggested would have been one way of actually “moving forward.”
I thought that 52 would actually have been a good way to see if legal downloading of comics could work. Since once you’ve missed an issue you’ve missed it forever, perhaps DC could have offered back issues on-line for a small price. I imagine it being similar to how iTunes offers episodes of Lost or The Office. Oh well, just an idea.
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