Everybody seems to want to talk about the revelation of Hal Jordan's alleged menage a trois with Lady Blackhawk and the Huntress, as revealed in this week's Justice League of America: Cry For Boredom.
Well, certainly these people don't know their target audience, because there's no way comic book fans would be interested in sordid sex details. Nope, we fanboys should focus on what's really important: idiot costumed heroes throwing their secret identities around like cocained monkeys on a Twitter binge.
We start with Green Lantern and Green Arrow hanging on a Gotham rooftop, being simultaneously witty and angsty, which can be hard.
Anyway, while meeting with "Batman's private detective" Jason Baird...
Right there, out in the open, in front of a detective for Oa's sake, Ollie is dropping Hal's name like it's hot.
Now, to those of you who will say that Green Lantern's secret ID is no big deal, I reply a) he still wears a mask, and b) Geoff Johns had Hal's family make a big deal over how important keeping Hal's secret was in Blackest Night #1. You want to say Geoff Johns is wrong on anything Green Lantern, you'll have 50 kabillion hyper-ventilating fans to deal with.
But wait--it gets worse. GA and GL have taken down a dozen or so "B-grade" villains (of course, it happened off-panel, because in this Cry For Boredom mini-series we never, ever want to see heroes actually fight villains, when they could just be standing around pontificating). Anyway, with a dozen villains within earshot, flying in from off-panel:
That's Ray Palmer, professional judge of when and when not to be careful with secret identities. And hey, Ray, while we're at it, let's blow Captain Marvel (Jr)'s secret ID, too:
Yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying: so what if it's on a public street, all the villains are unconscious. Wrong...Look at the left hand side of the left panel above. Javelin is awake!!
Yes, Javelin is a doofus. But he's also a villain, and within easy earshot as these idiots are name dropping secret identities like nobody's business. And if Javelin is awake, the odds are someone else has retained/regained consciousness, right?
Ollie continues to blather on, revealing street names while Javelin is watching:
Come. On.
You know, if we're going to have a mini-series whose premise is avenging J'onn J'onzz and preventing crimes, maybe (just maybe) you shouldn't be giving criminals easy ammo to wipe out more heroes? What are the odds Javelin didn't hear, or keeps his mouth shut? One offer to sell info to Luthor, and blam, Freddy Freeman is done for before he can say his magic word. Hal Jordan's family: dead. Well played.
Look, James Robinson, I know it's all cool and everything to have your heroes palling around on a first name basis, dropping Bruce and Ray and Hal and Freddy into conversations as often as possible. It makes us feel like they're friends, and by extension our friends. Ah, such sweet and warm sentimentality. And it's nice to backlash against those Silver Age stories that often seemed to revolve around nothing BUT protecting secret identities...see, we don''t care, so we're modern and hip.
But again, in a series supposedly about how vicious and nasty and brutal villains are, it doesn't make a lick of sense to have your heroes behaving like first year Yalies who can't stop bragging that they were tapped for Skull and Bones.
Then again, maybe this series ain't anything to do about villains, because none have showed up so far. None in issue #1; in this issue Houngan shows up unconscious (he was beaten up off-panel, surprise), and the dozen B-listers are beaten off panel. And no trace of an actual plot, either. But damned if we don't have lots and lots and lots of dialogue with heroes worrying whether Bruce liked them, or who got hurt in the past, or what justice means, or...zzzzzz.
PRO-TIP: When you have a 7-issue mini-series, it's not a good sign when the second issue is entitled "The Gathering." Especially since you're heroes AREN'T all gathered at the end.
Well, certainly these people don't know their target audience, because there's no way comic book fans would be interested in sordid sex details. Nope, we fanboys should focus on what's really important: idiot costumed heroes throwing their secret identities around like cocained monkeys on a Twitter binge.
We start with Green Lantern and Green Arrow hanging on a Gotham rooftop, being simultaneously witty and angsty, which can be hard.
Anyway, while meeting with "Batman's private detective" Jason Baird...
Right there, out in the open, in front of a detective for Oa's sake, Ollie is dropping Hal's name like it's hot.Now, to those of you who will say that Green Lantern's secret ID is no big deal, I reply a) he still wears a mask, and b) Geoff Johns had Hal's family make a big deal over how important keeping Hal's secret was in Blackest Night #1. You want to say Geoff Johns is wrong on anything Green Lantern, you'll have 50 kabillion hyper-ventilating fans to deal with.
But wait--it gets worse. GA and GL have taken down a dozen or so "B-grade" villains (of course, it happened off-panel, because in this Cry For Boredom mini-series we never, ever want to see heroes actually fight villains, when they could just be standing around pontificating). Anyway, with a dozen villains within earshot, flying in from off-panel:
That's Ray Palmer, professional judge of when and when not to be careful with secret identities. And hey, Ray, while we're at it, let's blow Captain Marvel (Jr)'s secret ID, too:
Yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying: so what if it's on a public street, all the villains are unconscious. Wrong...Look at the left hand side of the left panel above. Javelin is awake!!Yes, Javelin is a doofus. But he's also a villain, and within easy earshot as these idiots are name dropping secret identities like nobody's business. And if Javelin is awake, the odds are someone else has retained/regained consciousness, right?
Ollie continues to blather on, revealing street names while Javelin is watching:
Come. On.You know, if we're going to have a mini-series whose premise is avenging J'onn J'onzz and preventing crimes, maybe (just maybe) you shouldn't be giving criminals easy ammo to wipe out more heroes? What are the odds Javelin didn't hear, or keeps his mouth shut? One offer to sell info to Luthor, and blam, Freddy Freeman is done for before he can say his magic word. Hal Jordan's family: dead. Well played.
Look, James Robinson, I know it's all cool and everything to have your heroes palling around on a first name basis, dropping Bruce and Ray and Hal and Freddy into conversations as often as possible. It makes us feel like they're friends, and by extension our friends. Ah, such sweet and warm sentimentality. And it's nice to backlash against those Silver Age stories that often seemed to revolve around nothing BUT protecting secret identities...see, we don''t care, so we're modern and hip.
But again, in a series supposedly about how vicious and nasty and brutal villains are, it doesn't make a lick of sense to have your heroes behaving like first year Yalies who can't stop bragging that they were tapped for Skull and Bones.
Then again, maybe this series ain't anything to do about villains, because none have showed up so far. None in issue #1; in this issue Houngan shows up unconscious (he was beaten up off-panel, surprise), and the dozen B-listers are beaten off panel. And no trace of an actual plot, either. But damned if we don't have lots and lots and lots of dialogue with heroes worrying whether Bruce liked them, or who got hurt in the past, or what justice means, or...zzzzzz.
PRO-TIP: When you have a 7-issue mini-series, it's not a good sign when the second issue is entitled "The Gathering." Especially since you're heroes AREN'T all gathered at the end.
So, I have a theory about why these comics and series with loose plots and sloppy elements keep getting pumped out. I call it the M. Night Shamylan (sp) syndrome. It may not be ground breaking, but I have been trying to make sense of this bad/lazy/sloppy writing that seems to sail past editors so effortlessly these days. This could be common knowledge and I am just not in the know about this new-school comic book rule. (Any adult who reads comics seems to already take it for granted that this is going to happen about every issue)
ReplyDeleteM. Night Shamylan made a few blockbusters. Once he made his money the studios just kinda let him run wild and do what he wanted. Until he made that horrible "the happening" (which was a failure) he had tons of freedom artistically. Once he started to lose money the studios pulled the reins in on him.
Is that the same thing with big name writers in comicdom? Can they lace together any kind of story they want as long as it sells? Do the editors just rubber stamp whatever they write until they fall off the best-seller wagon?
This seems to explain Brian Micheal Mind-Bendis and his enormous plot holes. He would not be able to write all the comics he does if everything had to have some "comic book plausibility" and reasonable continuity with the past. He can write, I don't argue that, but he would only be able to write 2 titles if he got challenged more on his quality (because I am sure he can put out quality over quantity)
Please feel free to tell me if and where I am wrong in this little theory I have. It could just be super-simple and I have some kinda gold standard that I hold comics up to that they haven't had to live up for many years.
As always, thanks to Snell for a great blog.
there was that Scene in an early Alan Moore Swamp Thing when Green Lantern and Superman come in and find Jason Woodrue and take him in.
ReplyDeleteHal calls Superman KAL (not Clark); I don't know recall if Kal refers to GL as Hal. I thought the "Kal" was kinda cool.
Now it's all gotten stupid. Remember when Secret IDs were gold not less than a decade ago and most of the JLA didn't know who the big two were?
Now all this is kinda nuts. I liked James Robinson's Starman a great deal but this writing is so over the top I will not buy I it. I've looked at it on the shelf briefly and have seen scans in reviews.
It's not what I am looking to read at this time.
Freddy? They're calling him Freddy? That's so bad.
Alan aka JettBlackBerryX
Marvel's got something just as good. In the "Iron Man The Incredible Hulk Nick Fury" triple threat comic, an assassin trying to kill Fury is so good at being undercover, sometimes he has a mustache and sometimes he doesn't. I think I counted a series of six panels where he loses it in each alternating panel.
ReplyDeleteHa. Ha.