The Mix : What are people talking about today?

Michael Davis: Am I a Liar or a Dick or What?

“Now, You Can’t Leave.” – Chazz Palminteri, A Bronx Tale

Seven months ago I contacted the people at Variant Comics. They put a wonderful piece on Static Shock together so I sent them what I thought was a satire filled message that pointed out that they were wrong in regards to whom created Static and to please fix it. Before they answered I’d written a respectful piece on Bleeding Cool, which again pointed out how great their work was.

Check it out right here: <a href=”

When my email was answered the person did not see any humor in what I wrote and thought I was being heavy handed and said the piece would be changed. I felt in his response he was addressing me as if I were a 10-year old. I thought it best to let him know I meant no ill will so, I sent another message.

He has every right not to respond to me and has every right to think I’m a dick but my intention was to make nice:

Really, dude, take a chill pill.

I bare you NO ill will. I was being sarcastic and if you read my Bleeding Cool piece you will see I underscored time and time again how much I admire what you are doing.

My goal was to show how a great piece with wrong information could do some injustice but in no way did I ever think you guys would take to heart my FB email. I ‘liked’ your page, I took every chancre I got to say just how good your stuff and site is.

Clearly you don’t remember we met some time ago and as such I thought you would get the joke.

My bad.

Really. MY BAD.

On the real-I meant to do nothing but poke fun and draw attention to the credits it was never my intention to insult (except in jest) you or your people. 

Please accept MY apology. It pains me (really) to think my attempt at satire fell short. If need be I will say what I just said to you privately in public.

I have NO problem with that.

Again, I’m sorry, try as I might sometimes I just don’t see what others do. Truth be told most times I care not, this time I do.

In seven months I’ve heard nothing, but that’s his right. Some people just don’t get me, like how I come off or whatever, nothing I can do about that.

Let’s recap, I go out of my way to let Variant know I like what they did and I’m sorry if they mistook my intentions as anything but good-natured fun. Like I said, they have every right not to give a fuck about me.

It’s been seven months and, frankly I’ve been a bit busy with people dying, floods and the like to give any more thought to this.  Also, I took those guys at their word so I was confident it would be changed.

It wasn’t.

Let me be very clear. This piece is so good it reeks of truth and it’s the sort of thing that people will think is a credible source.

Why even mess with it?  If it’s so good why not just let the credits ride and give thanks to those who put it together? I’ll tell you why in a bit. First I’d like to address the people at the site and this time I’m not being sarcastic, silly, or attempting to be funny.

Over two hundred thousand people have seen, what is an impressive piece of work to be sure. Last week I was in a meeting with some people who also saw it. In that meeting it was pointed out I was not a creator of Static Shock.

Guess who looked like an idiot?

No big deal, I’ve looked like an idiot before.

Guess who had to spend a few minutes proving that I had indeed created Static Shock?

I don’t know what circles you people roll in but in mine looking like you’re a liar is not a good look.  Due diligence on my level is a serious undertaking by serious people. You say it, it better ring true. You write it down, it better be true. So when someone cites what appears a sanctioned and legitimate representation of what I claimed part of my resume to doubt that which is so, that’s problematic to put it very, very lightly.

I take my business seriously and the people I’m in business with take me seriously even if some don’t. Trust me when I say I’m operating at a level where due diligence is not a fucking phone call to some guy who knew me “back in the day.”

Derek Dingle, Denys Cowan, Christopher Priest, Dwayne McDuffie and myself created Static Shock. You don’t have to change a thing in the film; John Paul and Robert Washington were the soul of that book – and still are if you ask me.

I like your site, I respect you and your right to operate anyway you choose. That said, I’d ask you again to show some respect to those who created Milestone and Static and get the credits right as you said, and I believed, you would.

Lastly, I said seven months ago it was important to make sure credits on something as grand as your Static piece is right. This is not about ego, fuck ego, this is about business, real business not comic book business where shit like this is ignored.

You guys are smarter and your work is better than 90% of what’s out there and for the umpteenth time I admire what you do. However my admiration was pretty much spent when I found myself having to convince a room full of people I wasn’t a liar.

I’m done having to do that and like I said, I’m not liar.

 

The Law Is A Ass

BOB INGERSOLL: THE LAW IS A ASS #326: BATMAN’S RIDDLED WITH GUILT

Batman_Vol_2-23.2_Cover-1_TeaserWell, there’s no putting it off any longer. I might as well get the unpleasant business out of the way right up front.

SPOILER WARNING!

 I want to discuss the legal aspects of Detective Comics: Futures End # 1 and there is literally no way I can proceed without discussing its ending. So if you haven’t read Detective Comics: Futures End # 1 and you don’t want to know how it ends, stop reading now. Come back after you have read it. If, on the other hand, you have read the comic in question or you simply don’t care that I’m about to give away the ending, then continue reading.

This has been a test of the Emergency SPOILER WARNING! System. We now return you to your regularly scheduled column already in progress.

The story opened five years from now – remember, the DC books coming out in September this year all tie into the weekly Future’s End http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Futures_End series and take place five years in the future – with a scene of The Batman flying through Gotham City. Now it’s not unusual that a Detective Comics story should open with the Batman. Many of them do. What is unusual is that Batman was flying toward a large skyscraper with a huge question mark insignia on the top floor.

Clearly, it was the headquarters of The Riddler. But why would a master criminal have such an obvious and ostentatious headquarters?

It seems that sometime in the five years between now and five years from now when some futures are going to end, Batman helped broker a full pardon for the Riddler. How? I don’t know. Why? I still don’t know. (Seriously, did you think that between writing those two sentences, I went back to re-read the story, and saw something I missed the first time?) The story didn’t reveal either how or why the Riddler was pardoned. It’s one of those great mysteries we may find the answer to in the next five years. Like which came first, the chicken or the egg? Or who’s on first?

Batman needed Riddler’s help. Seven days earlier, Julian (the Calendar Man) Day broke free of his cell on Arkham Island, the new asylum of the criminally insane that was – Will be? – built in Gotham Harbor. Julian was holding several of the Arkham staff hostage.

Julian had one demand and if it wasn’t met, he was going to duplicate the city-wide blackout that the Riddler had cast over Gotham City back in the “Batman: Zero Year” story arc. Excuse me but what? When they built this new asylum for the criminally insane, did they build it over Gotham City’s main fuse box?

Because Calendar Man had hostages, Gotham City couldn’t bomb Arkham Island. And the police couldn’t storm the island because they couldn’t get past the security devices that Riddler built into it. (Yes, sometime in those event-filled five years, the Riddler, a former inmate in Arkham Asylum, designed the new version of Arkham Asylum and all of its security measures. I hope it was good therapy for Riddler, because it sure don’t make much sense otherwise.) So Batman came to Riddler so that Riddler could help Batman get past Arkham Island’s security.

While Batman and Riddler had fun stormin’ da castle, Batman told Riddler what Calendar Man’s one demand was. Several years ago, before he became Calendar Man and was still just Julian Day, Julian’s wife died. Julian started drinking, lost his job, and became muscle for the Gotham crime boss The Squid. He also physically abused his son when he got drunk. So in Detective Comics Annual v. 2 # 3, the Batman defeated all the bad guys Julian was working with, foiled their plans, and placed Julian’s son in a shelter for battered women and children. Now Julian demanded that the man who destroyed his family be brought to him or he would black out Gotham. Riddler expressed some regret at what Batman is doing. After all, Calendar Man and his thugs were going to kill Batman and Batman was the only worthy adversary Riddler ever encountered.

So, cutting to the chase – of whatever it is I’m cutting to, as this story didn’t actually have a chase scene – Batman and Riddler got past the security devices. Then Batman had an obligatory fight scene with Calendar Man’s henchmen, because there hadn’t been a fight scene yet and it was obligatory.

When Calendar Man appeared, Batman explained that Riddler helped Batman get past the security devices, so that they could deliver to Calendar Man the man responsible for destroying his family. Then Calendar Man ordered his men to take Riddler away.

Riddler asked why they were taking him, it was Batman who destroyed his family. Calendar Man said he was a rotten single parent and deserved to have his son taken away. His wife held his family together and it fell apart after her death. His wife’s death is what destroyed his family and she died in Riddler’s Zero Year blackout. Riddler was the man who destroyed his family.

As Calendar Man and his goons dragged the Riddler off to Crom knows what, Batman smiled a smug and oh-so–pleased-with-himself smile and said, “Riddle me this. How do you trap the untrappable? You get them to trap themselves.”

The end of the story and the beginning of the meat of this column, so I guess I should have included a Vegetarian Warning, too. I don’t know what Calendar Man and his goons plan to do with Riddler. Riddler thought they were going to kill and they probably are. But kill Riddler, cut him, or force him to watch Gigli; any way you slice it – or the Riddler – it’s going to be bad for the Riddler. And the Batman delivered Riddler to these men knowing something what was going to happen.

Which makes the Batman a murderer, or assaulter, or a torturer depending on what Calendar Man and his goons do to the Riddler. Let’s go with murder, because I don’t want to keep typing all the possibilities.

How so? Well the New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice, which defines the crimes for that state, has a statute – N.J.S.A. 2C:2-6 – which defines the crime of Complicity. In New Jersey a person is an accomplice to a crime, and is as guilty as the principal offender, when he or she has the intention of facilitating the offense and aids the principal offender commit the offense. You may know this crime better as name aiding and abetting, which is what it’s called in some other states. But a crime by any other name is still illegal.

If the Batman helped Calendar Man murder the Riddler and if the Batman intended to help Calendar commit that crime, then he’s as guilty of the murder as Calendar Man is. The getaway driver who takes bank robbers away from a bank robbery – or to a bank robbery – is as guilty as the actual people who actually rob the bank, because he helped them commit it. In the same way, the person who brings the victim to some murderers and who knows that they will murder the victim once they get him is as guilty of the murder as the murderers who actually commit the murder. Why? Because he helped them commit the murder by bringing the victim to them, that’s why.

Now I know that this story takes place some five years in the future, but if you think in those intervening five years someone repealed the complicity statute, you’re delusional. They may have been dumb enough to let an ex-inmate of an asylum for the criminally insane design the new asylum for the criminally insane, They may even have been dumb enough to build the new asylum for the criminal insane over the main fuse box of a major city. But repeal the complicity law at a time when the prevailing attitude on crime is you’ve got to be tougher than utility beef? No one’s that dumb.

Martha Thomases: Subversive Family Reading

Over the weekend, while all the cool kids were in <a href=”

for the Harvey Awards and the convention, I was at a family wedding. As such occasions are wont to do, I ruminated over my life and times.

On Friday night, at the rehearsal dinner, I was talking with a cousin who remembered that visiting our house as a child was fun because we had comic books, which her mother didn’t allow. At that time (late 1950s to early 1960s), comic books were still accused of causing juvenile delinquency, disrespect for authority and Communism.

Certainly, they did that to me.

My cousin’s life is about as different from mine as I can imagine, given our demographic similarities (over 60, female, college educated, Jewish). I live in an apartment in Manhattan; she lives in a rural part of western New York State. Until recently she worked as a carpenter; I expect it to be front-page news when I successfully change a light bulb. I know more about the Democratic candidate for Congress in her district than she does.

We both have fond memories of sitting on the porch, a pile of comics between us.

Another guest, who was not a relative, had never seen a graphic novel. He didn’t know what the term meant, thinking perhaps it was a more polite way to say pornography. We talked about the kinds of books and movies he liked, and I recommended some titles that I thought would fit with his tastes.

Why does this still happen? It’s been more than forty years since Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams were written up in the New York Times Magazine for bringing a grown-up sensibility to comics with story lines “ripped from the headlines” (and much more nuanced than your average episode of Law & Order). Major bookstores at the mall have graphic novel sections. It’s one of the few growth sectors of the publishing business.

But random people still only know comics from their childhood, if at all.

They know about “comic book movies” as a genre, but think it means Batman, Iron Man, The Avengers and, maybe, Guardians of the Galaxy. They don’t know that it includes films as diverse as Scott Pilgrim and Road to Perdition and A History of Violence and Two Guns.

Why should we fix this?

Self-interest, at the least. We enjoy the medium. Some of us support our families by working in it. Because it increases the amount of interaction between the two hemispheres of our brains.

The world is better when there are lots of different kinds of comics, appealing to lots of different kinds of readers. We shouldn’t have to raise money for the people who made the medium more diverse and appealing. We shouldn’t need a movie to justify our enjoyment of the source material. We shouldn’t need to have to keep explaining that comics aren’t just for kids anymore.

How do we fix this?

I think most of the responsibility falls to us, the people who love comics, who write about comics, who create comics. We need to show that we are as varied as the people who love any other popular entertainments. We are old and young, conservative and progressive, queer, straight male, female and other. Some of us like to wear costumes for occasions other than Halloween, and some of us don’t even like to wear them then.

There is no more a typical comic book reader than there is a typical movie-goer.

(Note: I’m aware that there exist statistics that show younger people are more likely to go to the movies, but first, those statistics vary widely, and second, my point still stands. Nyaah nyaah nyaah.)

It’s a big task, and we won’t accomplish it overnight. However, it’s the kind of challenge that is most successful when a lot of people do simple, easy things, rather than a few people dedicating their every waking moment to the cause. For example, I often refer to a graphic novel I’ve read in conversation, as if reading graphic novels is something that educated people do (because it is). When I give out candy and money for UNICEF at Halloween, I include comic books as one of the treats.

Not difficult. Not earth-shattering. Way more effective if we all do it.

The wedding was lovely, by the way. The party afterwards was big fun, too. I only had to sneak away a few times to see if my pal was winning any Harvey Awards.

 

Tweeks: Review Tomboy by Liz Prince

Liz-Prince-Tomboy-coverBeing a kid is hard.  You don’t know who you are exactly, but it’s really important that you find out where you fit in.  So, we imagine it was especially hard for Liz Prince when she was growing up because she wasn’t a girly girl who wanted to play dolls and wear dresses and yet she also wasn’t a boy.  In her new graphic memoir, Tomboy, she takes us on her journey to find a happy medium between gender norm stereotypes.   It’s funny and frustrating and in the end offers hope that eventually we will all find our niche.  It’s also a great reminder that you don’t have to be girly to be a girl.

Dennis O’Neil: Consuming Mass Quantities

It was late in the evening before we found a place where a pair of oldsters with a nodding acquaintance with heart attacks and strokes might find nourishment. A pizza joint, it was. A pizza joint with few customers but a pretty high decibel level. I ordered penne with roasted vegetables. Yummy? We’ll see. The service was, to be charitable, unhurried, but eventually the stuff arrived. A lot of it. I could have gotten four or five home meals from what the wait-person presented. I finished about half.

The next morning, as is my on-the-road custom, I ordered room service pancakes. No complaint about service this time – the meal arrived before it was promised. But again… this was a single serving? Five pancakes, wide and thick: at home – three or four meals. But I ate the lot of them, maybe because I like pancakes more than I like penne with roasted vegetables and afterward, feeling a bit bloated and bottom-heavy, I experienced a guilt pang. Had I been gluttonous? Not that gluttony is a hanging offense. (Is it even a mortal sin? I bow to my school teachers and Others Who Know.)

And here, we begin to slip into murky regions. How do we define gluttony? How much is too much? When does a pile become a heap? A hill become a mountain? Maybe my pig-out is your satisfying snack.

Maybe you can judge when something is too much by the results it produces. I did not feel awfully chipper after that penne dish and maybe millions of my fellow citizens experience similar discomfort after a meal and here we might be tempted to launch into a diatribe about national health crises and such. But let’s not. Instead, let’s go to the movies.

We should have no trouble finding seats. It’s been kind of lonely in the multiplexes lately. Ticket sales have been dismal. The summer’s receipts are 22.2 percent lower than last year’s. And still, the entertainment we get in those holy darknesses is long and, like the pizzeria, very, very loud. Why defeat one villain when we can vanquish a dozen? Just one explosion? What are we, pikers? One hero? Okay, but doesn’t the budget allow us to hire five? More? Same with bad guys. Let’s have our protagonist(s) mow down a battalion.

And as you leave he theater, do you feel that all that sound and fury left you feeling satisfied, or just bloated? Or did you even go to the theater? There’s the hassle with parking and it’ll cost you a twenty to get you and a mate past the ticket taker and so… you may decide to become a member of that 22.2 percent of moviegoers who became ex-moviegoers. I mean, if you’ve seen a hundred explosions you’ve pretty much seen explosions and they’ll look the same when you see them on your television screen, only smaller.

The day after I had the pancakes, I ordered the same breakfast. I expect we’ll get to the movies sometime soon.

 

Box Office Democracy: Summer Box Office Report

This past weekend was the worst total box office of any weekend in ten years.  If you consider how much more expensive a movie ticket is now than it was ten years ago you can get a picture of how catastrophic this weekend was for the film industry.  It was so sparse this weekend that rather than have me review the one meager offering this week (a Christian-themed unlicensed Elvis biopic) I’m here to give you a run down on Hollywood’s disaster summer and try looking ahead to determine if film is in an inescapable death spiral.

This summer was off 15% from last year’s take, and I assure you it was not because our nation’s exhibitors decided to slash ticket prices across the board.  Guardians of the Galaxy was the only big hit this summer and not for lack of trying on the part of every other movie.  We had big name sequels like Transformers: Age of Extinction, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes fail to connect with an audience.  All of those movies made $200 million dollars, which used to be a barometer of big success but you have to remember that’s now what The Avengers did in one weekend.  There isn’t a movie released in 2014 that has out-grossed the first 10 days of The Avengers.

The poor results this year may have more to do with the movies that didn’t come out than the ones that did.  Pixar moved The Good Dinosaur from this summer allegedly to fix “story problems” and while that doesn’t sound like the strongest movie in the world Pixar is usually good for some good money, this summer felt particularly starved for kids movies so the latent demand was probably there.  The unexpected death of Paul Walker pushed Fast & Furious 7 to next year and it’s not unreasonable to suspect that it would have been the highest grossing movie of the year had it released.  Those movies wouldn’t have just added dollars to the ecosystem, they also would have likely drawn some money from other films but there’s no question losing a big franchise and the most successful studio in animation was a serious blow.

Hollywood loves to think the movie business is coming to an end.  It happened when the television was introduced, when the VCR came out, when movies on VHS got cheaper, when DVDs were popularized, when high-definition TV became cheap, and now we’re in the doom saying cycle with streaming services.  None of the other things killed movies so I seriously doubt this one will either.  Nothing you do in your house is the same as the experience of going to the movies and it seems as if people from all walks of life around the world simply like going to the movies.  Give people movies they want to see and they will go to the theater no matter what is in their living room.

Luckily, next year Hollywood seems much more prepared to give people what they want.  We have The Avengers: Age Of Ultron, which will almost certainly break every box office record we have.  We have Finding Dory, the sequel to one of the most successful movies ever made and a likely box office titan.  We have the delayed Fast & Furious  sequel primed to do good business.  People say they hate sequels but they really don’t; they hate bad sequels and this year that’s all they got.  Next year will be the biggest year ever and such a substantial boost over this year that industry pundits will be writing long pieces about how movies have never been better and no one will remember how soft things were this year when they note that sales are up 25% or whatever they are.  It is only in this last paragraph that I realized that I am now also an entertainment industry pundit and if you’ll excuse me I need to take a long shower.

Tumblr’s Hilarious Net Neutrality Statement!

  • News
  • September 10, 2014

If you log onto your tumblr dashboard today, you might notice what looks like a bit of a problem.  All the graphics on the page are replaced by those “please wait” spinny things, giving the impression you’re stuck with a slow connection.   But it’s just the latest in a series of events, pranks and publicity stunts designed to make people aware of the looming threat to what’s known as Net Neutrality.

Right now, all Internet data are transmitted at the same speed. You get articles and graphics for this site at the same speed you’d get them for Time.com, Amazon, or ElbowsDeepInAsianGirls.tv (Calm down, Michael Davis, I made that one up… I hope)  But if Net Neutrality is shot down, ISPs will gain the ability to offer data “fast lanes” on the information superhighway to companies, on which their data will sail at great speed to the user, while sites who do not pay such premium will see their sites lag at slower “normal” speeds.

The problem is, we won’t actually see the “fast lane” be any faster, it’ll be more a case of the “normal” lane being throttled. just as, oh, let’s say “certain companies” doing that to sites like Netflix.

The FCC is currently mulling over the idea of making this premium bandwidth an official thing, and tech-savvy Internet users have been doing everything they can to show the average users why this would be a calamity.  <a href=”

target=”_blank”>John Oliver’s recent monologue on the issue created such a response it actually brought the FCC’s website down.

The tumblr site offers a link to BattleForTheNet.com, which offers users the option to either have an email sent in their name to their congressperson, or will automatically connect you via phone to your representative’s office.  The response on this issue has been strong, but millions people shouting is not always as loud as the sound of wallets opening.

The verbiage on this issue has gotten quite dramatic, and yr. obt. svt. tries to refrain from hyperbole unless I’m sure I can a laugh out of it.  But it is very fair to say that if ISPs gain the right to charge companies for the right to get their data delivered, it will absolutely make it harder to get a new website into the eyes of new viewers, and make creating a new site so much more expensive.  Part of the wonder of the Web is it makes everybody equally capable of building a site that can reach the world, at the same speed as any other.  The loss of Net Neutrality will take that away.

This is quite important.

Batman: The Brave & The Bold Season 2 Out Now

Batman The Brave and the Bold-S2 BlurayBigger, bolder, blu-er! Warner Archive Collection is proud to present Batman: The Brave and the Bold – The Complete Second Season in Blu-ray™ — available now at www.wbshop.com and your favorite online retailers.

The fearsome fan-addict forces behind The Batman: The Brave and the Bold fired on all bat-cylinders for this fantastic sophomore season that skillfully blends super-heroics, sly satire, and a leviathan scope for an animated concoction embracing the fun of the past with the pow! of the present. Thanks to the series’ first season, Batman: The Brave and the Bold – The Complete Second Season goes even farther beyond the expected grim and grit of the Dark Knight in both its narrative approach AND in the fun.

Across the 26-episode second season – presented in HD and widescreen as it was meant to be seen – you’ll find a vacationing Aquaman, a requiem for a Scarlet Speedster, the legendary Justice Society, the celebrated Justice League International, the Super Batman of Planet X (voiced by Kevin Conroy), Batman’s Strangest Cases featuring a team-up with one snack-loving, mystery solving mutt, and an overarching story arc that climaxes in a stunning battle against Starro the Conqueror!

Joining Diedrich Bader (Batman) in this epic second season are some very special guest voices, including Adam West, Julie Newmar, Paul Reubens, Mark Hamill, Tom Kenny, John DiMaggio, Tara Strong, Stephen Root and many more!

And making this collection even more fab is the fact that the episodes are presented in the producer’s preferred order for the first time anywhere – including the “The Mask of Matches Malone!” in the correct aspect ratio!

Batman: The Brave and the Bold – The Complete Second Season is the latest Blu-ray offering from Warner Archive Collection. The ever-growing roster of animated super hero Blu-ray animation includes Young Justice, Beware the Batman and Green Lantern: The Animated Series.

The two-disc set of Batman: The Brave and the Bold – The Complete Second Season includes the following episodes:

DISC #1

1 Death Race to Oblivion
2 Long Arm of the Law!
3 Revenge of the Reach!
4 Aquaman’s Outrageous Adventure!
5 The Golden Age of Justice!
6 Sidekicks Assemble!
7 Clash of the Metal Men!
8 A Bat Divided!
9 Super-Batman of Planet X!
10 The Power of Shazam!
11 Chill of the Night!
12 Gorillas In Our Midst!
13 The Siege of Starro! Part 1

DISC #2

14 The Siege of Starro! Part 2
15 Requiem for a Scarlet Speedster!
16 The Last Patrol!
17 The Mask of Matches Malone!
18 Menace of the Madniks!
19 Emperor Joker!
20 The Criss Cross Conspiracy
21 Plague of the Prototypes!
22 Cry Freedom Fighters!
23 The Knights of Tomorrow!
24 Darkseid Descending!
25 Bat-Mite Presents: Batman’s Strangest Cases!
26 The Malicious Mr. Mind!

Mike Gold: What Goes Around Inevitably Comes Around

DC Entertainment Co-Publisher and Editorial Big Kahuna Dan DiDio let the cat out of the bag on Facebook last week. In referring to Countdown To Infinite Crisis, he said “Definitely one of the highlights of my time at DC, but it gets me thinking, has it really been almost ten years since then, and maybe its time to do it one better.”

Dan, I’m sorry to say this, but your average seven year old could do it one better; two if you gave him a bigger box of Crayolas.

Look, we haven’t even finished Future’s End, a.k.a. Crisis on Infinite Angst. That means we haven’t even seen its trans-universe gangbang follow-up (pictured above, WordPress willing), Blood Moon. And now you’re “teasing” us with still another Crisis?

No, you are not. I know the difference between a tease and threat. A tease involves taking off almost all of your clothes. A threat is Vladimir Putin taking on Darkseid.

I really liked the original Crisis On Infinite Earths. It was a great series in and of itself. But immediately thereafter DC relaunched Superman and Wonder Woman, which sort of pulled the rug out from under the linear reboot. Then DC launched into a whole mess of predictable game-changers: The Death of Superman, followed by The Death or Disappearance of Almost Everybody Else One At A Time. It wasn’t too long before all the cool stuff in Crisis On Infinite Earths was invalidated or contradicted or ret-conned into oblivion. I can’t count the number of Crisis sequels that followed the one that set the DC Universe straight for the first and still-only time.

Indeed, over the past 30 years the DC fans have learned one and only one thing: we cannot trust DC to sustain a thought.

Like most of your readers and ostensibly many of your staff (hard to tell with the big move to Los Angeles), we all love and revere the DC characters. I know you share these feelings because you’ve said so yourself many times. Some of us were inspired to read because of DC’s output. Some of us got a nice slice of our morality from the doings of these characters. They may be entertainment, but entertainment can be enlightening and DC has spent the best part of 79 years doing just that.

Dan, I am not picking on you, nor am I picking on the talented writers and artists you employ, many of whom I count among my friends. If you want to do a sequel of something, base it upon one of the most innovative, daring and worthy projects in American comic book history. Maybe you can call it Thursday Comics.

You wanna do another Crisis? Do another Crisis. I can’t stop you. But, please do one thing: do not call it “Crisis.” Show some originality.

Besides, Marv Wolfman and George Pérez deserve better.

 

The Point Radio: The Revamped Mythology of GOTHAM

Of all the comic book based shows headed to television this fall, the one facing the biggest hurdle might be GOTHAM. After all, how can you do a Batman TV show without Batman? Show runner Bruno Heller and star Ben McKenzie shed some light on this and more , plus August was another good month for comic sales, but only two titles crack the 100K mark.

THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE on ANY mobile device (Apple or Android). Just  get the free app, iNet Radio in The  iTunes App store – and it’s FREE!  The Point Radio  – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE  – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

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