This morning I came to the realization that maybe I was a tad harsh on DC in yesterday’s post. To prove that I am an unbiased and fair critic, I will call a truce with DC for this once and shower praise upon it while throwing Marvel into the mud. I hope that makes you viewers out there happy, and I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Now, if you haven’t read part one and two, do so now and then come back here for the finale.
About a month ago I finished the Blackest Night crossover event and I was rather impressed. After checking to make sure blood was not boiling from the Earth’s surface and the clouds were still made from water and not Satan’s piss, I turned back to the comic and let out a sigh of relief. Finally, something worth a damn, my whole day had changed in a matter of seconds. No longer was I a bitter, self-loathing, misanthrope, I now had the urge to hug my fellow man and pet kittens with my hands rather than a pizza cutter
To clarify, the reason I enjoyed Blackest Night so much was that it was everything a crossover event should be. For the most part, even though the story dealt with an enormous catastrophe that required the assistance of most the DCU, it still focused on the Green Lantern characters and revolved almost entirely around their history - for the most part. This was a huge relief, because it meant that anyone who had been reading Geoff Johns Green Lantern run was able to keep it together and understand exactly what was going on. The story was self-contained, it wrapped up neatly while simultaneously opening the path for a new adventure for these characters, and it didn’t demand too much outside reading. However, there was something wrong with the last page. The same thing that is wrong with any comic that ends before the beginning of a new crossover event, the checklist.
Suddenly, I was having a nightmare. I was back in school and taking a test. Surely I had time to prepare for this, right? Oh yeah, that mound of homework they assigned for me. Well sorry, but I was far too busy playing video games to give a flying Frenchman about all that research. Yes, this had to be a dream that would at least explain why I was naked.
*sigh* To explain, a checklist is a detailed listing of all comics the company suggests you read to understand the full story of the next crossover; or as I see it, a full list of where to spend your disposable income for the next few months. Oh lovely, remember getting that pamphlet the last time you went into a movie, remember that pamphlet having a crossword puzzle on it that helped to explain the middle act? The Evil Dead movies did not require you to read “expanded universe” material and they were excellent films. Did the Phantom Menace leave plot holes and mysteries unanswered that could only be explained in outside material? Oh wait – scratch that last one. In fact, that’s my point right there! Crossover events like any other story need to be self contained.
Let’s use our imaginations for a bit, children. Reed Richards uses the awesome power of science to coat the earth in a thin layer of chocolate pudding. Galactus having just returned from burning man smells this delicious experimentation and once again goes for a late night fourth meal of Earth accented with a side of moon. Sensing the danger that Galactus might pose, Reed Richard and the rest of the Fantastic 4 summon all of Marvel’s superheroes to fight. This is exciting! This could be really fun in an IQ 60 drooling on your bib sort of way. But before you go on, you really need to read The Vision #876578678….
Why? Why should the audience have to suffer through this? Is it really necessary to force your readers to tolerate 25 pages about a green android they know very little about just to find out why the character is in this crossover event and spreading radioactive chocolate jimmies on the Earth? No, its not. The checklist is just a way to ensure that people are buying as many issues from the publisher as possible.
Oh, but of course if you REALLY wanted to know everything that was going on, you could always buy the compendiums for $50-$100, or go to the Marvel website and do some research on the characters to familiarize yourself with their backgrounds, or just go to Wikipedia and waste the next 6 hours of your life probing away for the answer to why The Hulk’s pants manage to stay intact when he goes berserk. Keep it simple! If you are going to make a crossover event, have the audience focus on only a select group of characters and have the rest for window dressing. And while you’re at it, be sure it tells a complete story that can be completed in 6-10 issues.
Ugh, you know what? I give up. Just take it, take it all. You can have your stupid comic crossovers, I’ll just go on pretending like they don’t happen. I’ll go on pretending that mutants do not exist in the regular Marvel universe. I’ll pretend that Gotham city resides in some parallel world where flying space men can’t steal all of our designer red underoos. But how? You know what? I’ve got an idea for a crossover, how about a pillow case and a collection of hammers do battle with my head!
Showing posts with label marvel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marvel. Show all posts
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Crossover Events. Part 1
Put enough socially inept and awkward teenagers in a room together and sometime before the largest of the children begins picking off the weaker ones for sustenance once the Captain Crunch is all gone, you’ll probably hear a “Vs” debate.
Versus debates are not difficult to pick up on, they usually begin with, “Who would win in a fight, blank or *missing value*” or “Dude, you are so stupid. Everyone knows so-and-so would trounce all over Captain Warble Nuts”. Once you’ve heard something along these lines, it’s best to walk slowly away being sure not to make eye contact with anyone involved in the conversation unless you want to be mistaken for someone who gives two rips about this masturbatory nonsense and accidentally get roped in.
In my youth even I have engaged in these arguments but quickly dodged out as an adult once I realized how silly it all is. Don’t for a second let some burger flipping youth convince you that either logic or science can be applied to these things. Despite not having laser vision there are a handful of people in this world who will try to make the claim that Genghis Khan could actually take Abraham Lincoln in a fair fight. Pashaw, I say!
A long time ago the editors over at Marvel and DC discovered just how feverish these feuds are and calculated a plan to make money out of it; and not the “let’s do good deeds for the people and turn a profit as an unforeseen byproduct” sort of way, but the “holy shit, can you believe these people are that brick faced retarded” art of asshole business. While spurious company rivalries are pretty good at keeping faces glued to newspaper print, crossover events are even better. Nothing gets a comic geek’s nethers wetter than the thought of having Batman and Superman team up, except for maybe authentic Aquaman Speedo tighties.
This is a rather clever marketing technique and it seems to have worked well for the two major corporate juggernauts over the years. Even my most cerebral studies get kicked to the curb like some poor misfortunate MIT graduate going through an Urban street gang hazing, when I see the prospects of Namor and Hawkeye teaming up to battle shape-shifting alien Skrulls. On a personal level, these “professional grade fan fictions” will get me reading them just to see if I can’t decipher on what page and panel number the lobotomy began.
But as I said before (and if not, I’m sorry), crossover events to me are just stupid. Sure there are a few that are good (key word good, not GREAT), but most of them are a complete waste of time. You might as well just go out to the forest and burn down the trees rather than having to go through this whole dog and pony show just to slim them down, dress them up in cheap prostitute inks, and wrap them in Mylar bags to protect them from Cheetos powder. Although explaining my hatred on a more technical level might help illustrate what I find so bewildering.
The writer of Superman is usually a different person from the man at DC comics who is writing Batman; in fact most of the superhero books are being made by so many different teams of artists/writers/letterers/inkers/colorists/editors that its befuddling to even imagine how any one person can pin this all down and draw a narrative thread connecting them all. Usually there is some fancy pants talking head at the top of this chain of command referred to as “editor and chief” which is another fine way of saying “man who sucked his way to the top”. Those who don’t believe me need only look in the direction of Joe Quesada.
What complicates this whole matter even more is within the single Superman story line you have a character that has been written by dozens upon dozens of writers spanning several decades. The madness steps a few inches deeper into lunacy when you have to whip out the Texas-instruments calculator to add up all the tangent universes, multiply by what-ifs, and divide by “oops we’re sorry, have a lollipop” retcons to even write a bare bones Superman plot. Then all of a sudden some whore at the top office in your corporate building comes down wearing a suit of money and says, “Yeah this is great and all, but I want all of you writers to go ahead and cram all of your ideas into one clown car and drive it right up the ass of all the fanboys. And if they don’t believe us, add in some editorials at the end of each comic we publish a few months before the crossover begins and be sure to reference minute details from old comics to build the illusion that we had this planned all along.” Surprise, surprise, this gamble usually pays off.
Now the key word I just used in that last paragraph was retcon, because retcon is the magical word that makes everything all right. No matter how shit for brains upside down all of the storytelling can get, comic companies can always press the reset button and see if they can’t find Princess Peach’s tasty golden locks in another castle of experimentation. So long as they get their money the companies will do their best to weed out the bad, cement the good, and leave all the fans so confused that they may end up getting their wires crossed and go off cosplaying as the Green Goblin wearing the Iron Man suit painted up in Captain America colors – no, that would just be stupid.
Versus debates are not difficult to pick up on, they usually begin with, “Who would win in a fight, blank or *missing value*” or “Dude, you are so stupid. Everyone knows so-and-so would trounce all over Captain Warble Nuts”. Once you’ve heard something along these lines, it’s best to walk slowly away being sure not to make eye contact with anyone involved in the conversation unless you want to be mistaken for someone who gives two rips about this masturbatory nonsense and accidentally get roped in.
In my youth even I have engaged in these arguments but quickly dodged out as an adult once I realized how silly it all is. Don’t for a second let some burger flipping youth convince you that either logic or science can be applied to these things. Despite not having laser vision there are a handful of people in this world who will try to make the claim that Genghis Khan could actually take Abraham Lincoln in a fair fight. Pashaw, I say!
A long time ago the editors over at Marvel and DC discovered just how feverish these feuds are and calculated a plan to make money out of it; and not the “let’s do good deeds for the people and turn a profit as an unforeseen byproduct” sort of way, but the “holy shit, can you believe these people are that brick faced retarded” art of asshole business. While spurious company rivalries are pretty good at keeping faces glued to newspaper print, crossover events are even better. Nothing gets a comic geek’s nethers wetter than the thought of having Batman and Superman team up, except for maybe authentic Aquaman Speedo tighties.
This is a rather clever marketing technique and it seems to have worked well for the two major corporate juggernauts over the years. Even my most cerebral studies get kicked to the curb like some poor misfortunate MIT graduate going through an Urban street gang hazing, when I see the prospects of Namor and Hawkeye teaming up to battle shape-shifting alien Skrulls. On a personal level, these “professional grade fan fictions” will get me reading them just to see if I can’t decipher on what page and panel number the lobotomy began.
But as I said before (and if not, I’m sorry), crossover events to me are just stupid. Sure there are a few that are good (key word good, not GREAT), but most of them are a complete waste of time. You might as well just go out to the forest and burn down the trees rather than having to go through this whole dog and pony show just to slim them down, dress them up in cheap prostitute inks, and wrap them in Mylar bags to protect them from Cheetos powder. Although explaining my hatred on a more technical level might help illustrate what I find so bewildering.
The writer of Superman is usually a different person from the man at DC comics who is writing Batman; in fact most of the superhero books are being made by so many different teams of artists/writers/letterers/inkers/colorists/editors that its befuddling to even imagine how any one person can pin this all down and draw a narrative thread connecting them all. Usually there is some fancy pants talking head at the top of this chain of command referred to as “editor and chief” which is another fine way of saying “man who sucked his way to the top”. Those who don’t believe me need only look in the direction of Joe Quesada.
What complicates this whole matter even more is within the single Superman story line you have a character that has been written by dozens upon dozens of writers spanning several decades. The madness steps a few inches deeper into lunacy when you have to whip out the Texas-instruments calculator to add up all the tangent universes, multiply by what-ifs, and divide by “oops we’re sorry, have a lollipop” retcons to even write a bare bones Superman plot. Then all of a sudden some whore at the top office in your corporate building comes down wearing a suit of money and says, “Yeah this is great and all, but I want all of you writers to go ahead and cram all of your ideas into one clown car and drive it right up the ass of all the fanboys. And if they don’t believe us, add in some editorials at the end of each comic we publish a few months before the crossover begins and be sure to reference minute details from old comics to build the illusion that we had this planned all along.” Surprise, surprise, this gamble usually pays off.
Now the key word I just used in that last paragraph was retcon, because retcon is the magical word that makes everything all right. No matter how shit for brains upside down all of the storytelling can get, comic companies can always press the reset button and see if they can’t find Princess Peach’s tasty golden locks in another castle of experimentation. So long as they get their money the companies will do their best to weed out the bad, cement the good, and leave all the fans so confused that they may end up getting their wires crossed and go off cosplaying as the Green Goblin wearing the Iron Man suit painted up in Captain America colors – no, that would just be stupid.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
