Batman Drinking Game

   So...if you're ever bored, and have a copy of Batman Begins lying around, try taking a drink every time a character uses the word "fear" or some synonym of fear. You won't last very long.

In Defense of Dan DiDio Part 2 of 2

   Another problem DiDio has encountered with DC fans is when he lets two mandates merge: his desire to revitalize characters by creating new identities for them and his goal to increase the number of characters who represent visible minorities.   

 

   I think that the first mandate is a necessity of publishing. I may not like it when my preferred version of Flash, Green Lantern, Firestorm, Blue Beetle, or the Question gets replaced, but I don't like it when my favorite TV shows get cancelled, either. Capitalism isn't without its drawbacks (he says as his life savings dry up).

 

  It sucks when, say, Firestorm: the Nuclear Man doesn't sell enough

copies to warrant continued publication. But, too often, disappointment with a market that won't support a favorite character manifests as hatred for new iterations of that character. I agree that Ronnie Raymond, the original Firestorm, had a pretty nonsensical death (loss of nuclear containment due to magic sword), and so the manner in which the new Firestorm, Jason Rusch, appeared was frustrating to many fans. Those fans had a strong emotional attachment to Ronnie, and are upset that he's not around anymore. Some of those fans HATE Jason Rusch. Why? (Oh yeah...and Jason Rusch is kinda black.)

   Because some people are stupid. The argument I've read a few times is that diversity in comics is "reverse racism," which should not be confused for the opposite of racism (something like, I dunno, universal compassion for the other). Racism, as we can probably all agree, is the discrimination against a person or group based on race or visual markers of difference. Reverse racism, I think, is a coded term for affirmative action - "racism," in this formulation, is limited to discrimination against visible minorities and, therefore, "reverse racism" is discrimination against white people in favor of visible minorities. The argument that Jason Rusch is the product of a "reverse racist" company suggests that DC Comics hates white people. 

   Really?

   To be a fit fairer, the argument is rarely that explicitly distasteful. The more common line of reasoning is that it's not discriminatory to want a character who was originally white to remain so. To replace such a character with a visible minority is wrong because it is tokenism and a disservice to both the original (white) character and the (non-white) replacement.

   

   In defense of tokenism, and DiDio's desire to broaden the racial diversity of his characters, the DCU is pretty monochromatic. At least melanin-wise. Look at the Big Seven version of the Justice League [pictured way above]: the only non-white member they have is green...and his secret identity is a white guy (they also only have one female member). Look at the Sattelite Era, which has powerfully influenced the current incarnation of the League. Fourteen members [fifteen if you count Hawkgirl, not illustrated above], and only two members aren't white. There the green guy again, and a red guy...but his secret identity is white, too (a few more girls, though, which is nice).

    Now, I know that diversity isn't simply a matter of race. But only the Detroit Era of the Justice League [above] even approached a membership that could be considered anything other than middle class Americans. DC has a long history of publishing some good stuff, but they have a definite weakness when it comes to publishing super-heroes who aren't white men. I think that Dan DiDio and the DC folks should be applauded for trying to increase the diversity represented by their characters.

  

   Sure, replacing a white male nuclear reactor with a black male nuclear reactor, or a rich white industrialist who dresses up like a bug with a lower-middle-class Latino high schooler who dresses up like a bug,

 

or Steve Ditko with a lesbian Latina alcoholic is the product of an overt diversity mandate. But since lower-middle-class Latino high schoolers read comics (I don't know about my other examples), why shouldn't there be at least one character for them to identify with? Or, perhaps more importantly, why shouldn't there be characters to represent otherwise unrepresented facets of the lived human experience?

In Defense of Dan DiDio Part 1 of 2

   One thing that Dan DiDio, Executive Editor of DC Comics, gets a lot of flack for is his inability to explain the discrepancy between so-called "legacy heroes" and "iconic heroes." He's had to deal with a fair amount of criticism by people who don't understand where he draws the line between the two. It's a fair complaint. He has been wildly unsuccessful in explaining himself, despite years of trying. It's pretty endearing, actually.

   But I don't think that his inability to put forward a compelling case means that he doesn't have one. DiDio seems to be trying to attach some in-story logic to the dictates of publishing and management. Barry Allen became the Flash not because he was inheriting the legacy of Jay Garrick, but because DC decided to relaunch The Flash with a new lead in a new costume and new villains. Hal Jordan became Green Lantern for the same reasons.

   

   I think he's right to describe these two particular identities as having legacies. There have been six Flashes (Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, Wally West, John Fox, Jesse Chambers, and Bart Allen) and six Green Lanterns on Earth (Alan Scott, Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner, and Jennifer-Lynn Hayden). And most of those characters weren't gimmicks. Just the girls, basically, which tells you something... Anyway, given the sheer number of stories about people other than the originals (Jay Garrick and Alan Scott), I think it's a reasonable statement to call Flash and Green Lantern "legacy heroes."

   Where DiDio has been less clear is his case to take this storytelling technique and apply it to other DC super-heroes. He has argued that legacy is a key theme of the DCU. I think many fans disagree with this.

DiDio's reading, I think, is based mostly on the characters from the Justice Society, whose increasing prominence has been one of DiDio's notable achievements. Nevertheless, there are far more DC super-heroes who haven't had multiple iterations than those who have. Bruce Wayne has always been Batman, Clark Kent has always been Superman...and we'll leave Wonder Woman out of this. There have been stories, even long-term arcs, where those characters have been replaced, but they have always returned sooner than later. And their return was always built into those stories. Just because Dick Grayson is going to become Batman in June doesn't mean that Batman is a legacy character. Bruce Wayne will be back, and everyone knows it. Grant Morisson has told us as much.

   Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent are, obviously, iconic heroes. Their marketability and presence in the DCU are significant enough that it would be difficult to permanently (or as permanent as anything ever gets in super-hero comics) alter them to any substantial degree. DiDio has made the case that Barry Allen and Hal Jordan are the most iconic versions of those super-heroes as well. He has a pretty good case, I think. Whether or not you agree with bringing these characters back from the dead is an unrelated matter.

   And this gets to the problem with DiDio's distinction between "legacy" and "iconic" heroes: it comes down to extra-textual factors. The distinctions between which characters are "legacy"

and which characters are "iconic" heroes (except Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) have little in-story logic. DiDio is trying to create some. Fair enough, though there are few themes that emerge as clearly as DiDio suggests from millions of comics published by thousands of writers and artists. The simpler reason, though, that DiDio has replaced the people under the masks of certain identities (Blue Beetle, Firestorm, the Question, the Atom) is the same reason Barry Allen became the Flash: DiDio wants to increase interest and demand for the characters his company publishes. They are not thematically determined legacy characters. They are legacy characters in that they are participating in DC's long-time strategy of replacing under-performing characters in order to try to increase their profitability. 

The Emotional Spectrum

   It's not that I hate Geoff John's Green Lantern run, it's more that I don't get how he deploys his imagery. With the whole upcoming War of Light storyline, and all these new rings, I get a bit confused.

   Correct me if I'm wrong, but the yellow Sinestro rings work by feeding off fear caused to others. That's different than the Green Lantern rings, which are fueled by the willpower of the individual wearer. The violet rings are fueled by the bearer's remembered feelings of love. The red rings...make people throw up napalm because they're angry all the time? The blue rings are like the green rings, and are fueled by the hope of the individual wearer, but they can only work if they siphon power from the green rings while simultaneously increasing the power of the green rings? Not sure I get that one. Haven't seen orange or indigo yet, but I'm wondering how greed and compassion will work into this framework.

   My inference is that Johns wants to write a super-huge, and very colorful, fight scene. Fine and dandy. I just wish that he hadn't tried to give it a mythological underpinning, because I can't make much sense of it. How is death the antithesis of willpower? Wouldn't that imply that willpower alone could overcome death? And how is willpower analogous to rage or fear? Rage, hope, love, and fear are emotions. To a certain extent, they appear unbidden and, often, unwanted. Willpower isn't an emotion. It's not desire - it's an expression of self-control. Compassion is, maybe, the closest to willpower, but they're still pretty disparate concepts. Death isn't an emotion either, but the waters are pretty muddy at this point. 

 

  So, does anyone understand this better than I do? Want to share?

An Off-Topic Geek Moment

   Not comics, but still. Oh yeah, and spoilers abound.

   I've noticed that, when discussing the finale of Battlestar Galactica, many fans have been complaining that the payoffs were disappointing because the writers didn't figure out the resolutions until the break between the 3rd and 4th seasons.

 

  This bugs me for a couple of reasons. First, it gets at the question of where ideas come from and attributes validity to ideas that are born complete - fully formed, like Athena from Zeus's head. Second, it's a displacement of a different complaint. If the idea that Starbuck was an angel is your problem, then explain why that idea is so dissatisfying. It can't be that the idea is disappointing because Ron Moore came up with it well after bringing her back from the dead. 

   Now, much of this lamenting results from Ron Moore's ubiquity, and the incredible access he's given to fans of the show (podcasts, blogs, seemingly endless interviews). His presence as the mind behind this iteration of Battlestar Galactica has made his creative process part of the discussion of the show. Fair enough. Complaints about the writers' lack of planning are made available when the writers admit that they didn't have a plan. 

   But the show is the show. The show is what they put on screen (or on the extended DVD cuts). As we were so frequently reminded, the Cylons had a plan. Not the writers. Whether or not the writers knew what the plan was it all along is another matter. Whether or not the plan is interesting or compelling is something else again, and the question that I think is much more worthy of discussion.

Who Needs Another Batgirl?

   So Oracle: The Cure is coming out today, with the veiled implications that Barbara Gordon will be walking again (and the strange semantic shifting that implies that being shot through the spine is an illness). The assumption is that the moment she's free of her wheelchair Barbara will be back in the tights as Batgirl. Kind of a dumb assumption, given that she can still operate as the world's best computer hacker/digital resource/deus ex machina when ambulatory. Angelina Jolie could walk in Hackers. Bill Gates can walk, as can Steves Jobs and Wozniak (even though Woz does use that Segway).

   The implication of the title, especially the use of the word "cure," is that Barbara Gordon will be restored. To what, though?

She's done more as Oracle than she did as Batgirl. She's been a member of the Suicide Squad, the JLA, and the Birds of Prey. She's been Oracle (1988-2009) about as long as she was Batgirl (1966-1988), longer if we add up published appearances. Though it is not intrinsically heroic to be disabled, it is inspiringly so to overcome tragedy and redefine one's self in the wake of loss and trauma (like that kid, the one who saw his parents die and vowed to fight crime...I'm blanking on the name just now...). Even those who want Barbara back in tights would agree. Their main problem with the Oracle persona isn't that she is in a wheelchair, it's that Barbara should still be in a wheelchair in a universe where Batman can have his spine severed and fully recover.

   So, why is Barbara Gordon still in a wheelchair (at least for now)? The most obvious answer is that it's because she's a fictional character and the writers/editors charged with her published appearances have decided it. But that's not the answer that most people want to hear.

   Denny O'Neil has stated publicly that Barbara is still Oracle because she is a good role model - and other than that bald mutant guy, she's about the only 

mainstream super-hero who with a visible physical disability (there's Niles Calder, but he's a dick with really messed up continuity). But, that bald mutant guy has had his injured body replaced with an undamaged clone, had that body injured, fake healed, restored to injury, and then healed again. Why can't Barbara get some of that recursive plotting? A lot of fans get mad, saying that Barbara has access to a Lazarus Pit (Paul Dini's suggestion, I believe), a Purple Ray, Nth metal, cool cyborg stuff, and magic. It makes no sense that she wouldn't have had her spine healed by now.

   It's a good point, no question. There is no internal DCU logic preventing her from walking again. It's a fictional universe, so it would only be as hard to write that story as it is to write any story: Zatanna says "niaga klaw" and everything's fine. I sympathize with this desire to create order out of the often-paralyzing mess of the DCU. There hasn't ever been internal consistency in the application of magic and technology, and that's complicated further by the charming self-deception of the Batman editors who contend that their comics are grounded in more realistic shenanigans. 

   

The more important question is what purpose would it serve to restore Barbara to her Batgirl identity. Just because she needn't have been in a wheelchair all this time isn't a good reason. Picking too hard at any thread of the DCU unravels the fragile logic of 70 years of continuous publishing. The DCU has always needed to balance its "anything can happen" sci-fi/fantasy storytelling with real stakes. If Barbara, an athletic but normal woman whose spine was damaged by a bullet, can be healed, why not every single other victim of a spinal injury? Again, you could write something to answer that question, but it would only address the superficialities of Barbara's role in the DCU.

 

  For me,  she's more heroic as a person who found a way to continue to function as a super-hero despite living daily with a disability than as another masked vigilante. How many Bat-people do we need? We have Batman, Robin, Red Robin, Batgirl II, Batwoman, Huntress, Spoiler, that whole Club of Heroes, and whatever Jason Todd is going to be up to (Nightwing? Catwoman?) If Barbara became Batgirl again, who would be Oracle?

   She is a good role model, as silly as that may sound. What's so wrong with having a character who serves the extra-textual function of being a point of identification?

Why You Shouldn't Read Superhero Comics

   So you hate Brand New Day. You think Dan Didio is on a religious crusade to kill off or pervert every character you love. You think Jeph Loeb should exile himself to an arctic wasteland that metaphorically represents his writing ability, that Denny O'Neil should be the only person ever allowed to write Batman, and that by writing and directing three very flawed films George Lucas somehow managed to invent time travel for the express purpose of finding and physically abusing your childhood self.

   Granted, "you" don't exist. But still, imaginary fanboy/girl: chill out. You probably shouldn't read super-hero comics anymore. Or at least some of them. You appear to be in a deeply unsatisfying relationship.

 

  Now, I know what you're thinking, imaginary fan (because I made you up): "But I love Spider-Man/the X-Men/the Teen Titans/Pre-Crisis Earth II Huntress! I've known the character(s) better than Joe Quesada/Dan DiDio/Random TV Writer Looking for Extra Work! Why should I stop reading my favorite comics just because some hack writer/Mark Millar has ruined every identifiable characteristic about him/her/it/them?"

   You have a good point, but not in any meaningful sense. I'm afraid to tell you that if a comic doesn't make you happy anymore, if you can't stand the torment of knowing Brian Bendis

doesn't feel the same way about The Wasp as you do, then get out. It's a waste of time getting angry. Break up with Brian Bendis and his overly wordy comics, his inability to write distinctive character voices, his man-crush on Luke Cage, his male-pattern baldness. It's not your fault he killed Hawkeye (even if he did, you know, bring him back). It's not your fault things went bad. It isn't. Really. You didn't do anything wrong. When Mephisto, who everyone knows is a stand-in for the devil, made a deal with Mary-Jane Watson Parker to make Spider-Man forget their marriage, it wasn't your fault. You didn't force Maxwell Lord IV to kill his long-time friend Ted Kord. You didn't make Grant Morrison write Final Crisis as if it were an opera. "I know," you say. "That's why I'm so angry!"

   

   The problem as I see it is that you act as if you have no power in this relationship. If you're getting mixed signals, if you don't understand where Power Girl comes from now (Atlantis? Krypton? Earth II Krypton? Pre-Crisis Earth II Krypton or Post-52 Earth II Krypton?), and it makes you angry every time you see her incredibly disproportionate, and often frightening, bust...don't buy her comic. If you hate that Hawkeye uses nunchucks instead of a bow and arrow...don't buy his comic. If you hate that mask Mr. Terrific wears, that weird "T" thing that covers only the parts of his face that he would actually use, if you hate that Beast is a cat now, if you hate that Wolverine is on three different teams, and will regularly be featured in six monthly books, if you hate that Damian is going to be Robin...then don't buy their comics.

   Because you deserve better than to be angry every Wednesday/Thursday in Canada. You can always read the old stuff again. You can try Scott Pilgrim or American Flagg!, something by Matt Kindt or Joe Saco. If you want, you can wait to see if someone you like starts writing Justice League Whatever. Don't buy comics that you hate. For any reason. At all. If you get physically sick at the thought of Bendis's Avengers, Dark or New, don't buy them.

   Of course, if you really do like Bendis's Avengers, and are just the complaining sort...then try complaining about something else. Like Dollhouse.