Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The Road to Hell is Paved with 52 First Issues

In Hollywood they are always looking for something new and different. That’s what they say, anyway. In actuality what they want is something old and familiar that seems new at first glance. Then by the time you realize it’s the same old shit, they’ve already got their tendrils down your pants.

DC Comics has reset the continuity of their entire universe. This hasn’t happened since the late 80s. Sure, occasionally DC or Marvel will kill their signature characters like Superman or Captain America. But it’s always just a ruse to get an article in the Times and have a sales spike at the end of the quarter. What we have here is a much bigger ruse, and one that most likely will do more harm to the DCU than good. First, it reeks of desperation. Second, it could have a diluting effect on DC’s creative assets. In a recent interview, Alan Moore was asked his thoughts on the reboot: “the last time I looked at a rack of comics, there was nothing there that I recognized. Even the titles that I recognized, they were completely different characters, or characters who had been dead. It’s the same ideas recycled endlessly, and if you’re recycling your only fuel for decades, you’re only going to run out of any energy in your product, and it sounds like that’s what’s happening with comic at the moment.”

So what’s new besides slightly different costumes? Barbara Gordon is Batgirl, no longer the paraplegic Oracle. Justice League is toying with this highly original concept: what if people were hostile towards superheroes? Oh, and Superman is a dick.

Not only is he a dick, his title is being written by comics legend George Pérez. And what has George Pérez been up to in the recent past? “The popular Sisterhood of Superheroines Combat Adventures series from the pen
 of comic legend George Pérez!” Softcore superheroine porn.

In honor of all this, I am going to lock myself in a motel room with some fine scotch and all 52 first issues. I am going to read them all. I am going to write about it. And then I am going to die.

1 comment:

  1. I should mention, my cousin, Andrew Harrison, is going to be contributing to the blog as well. His posts are marked Harrison, mine are Zach, which may be slightly confusing since we share a last name. Good job on making shit hard, Drewy.

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