"I'm going to lay here for a while... I'm old now, and I get tired." Ray Palmer (The Atom) from the Justice League Unlimited episode "Dark Heart" written by Warren EllisIf I was the sort of person who wanted desperately to appear a certain way I'd proclaim that I was taking what will probably be a very very long hiatus from bothering with DC comics because of what DC has chosen to do with the Watchmen prequel material. But I don't care how appear. And while that whole thing is a factor it's not really the main factor.
Honestly I'm not sure if it's really any one singular thing. More a creeping dissatisfaction that has been building for a while now.
It started with Marvel, and now it appears to have spread to DC.
Now before I go any further, allow me to spare those who might read this (all two of you) from wasting your time and mine with comments about how there are other companies besides the two mentioned, and other genres besides Superheros. You can rest well assured that I know both of these facts very very well.
But here's another couple of facts. I love superheros best of all the comic book genres. That's fact one. I love superheros so much that I even love them in other media, such as movies and TV shows, and books, and songs. The second fact is this, when I was growing up excepting the funny type comic publishers (Archie, and Harvey mainly) there pretty much only was DC and Marvel. So while I'm thrilled that there are a lot more publishers out there now, to me those two companies will always be what is foremost in my mind when I think of comics. And so for me to move away from the product of not just one but both of them is a pretty significant point in the life of this particular comic book geek.
But I digress...
So it started with Marvel. In a way it started with The Incredible Hulk really. I won't go into details here, perhaps another time in another article but not here, but suffice it to say I related to the story that Peter David told over the course of more than a decade using the Hulk in a very very personal way. And when David left it just no longer felt like "my" Hulk.
So I stepped away. Oh I'd check back in from time to time, try this title or that. But it just wasn't the same. Then came the massive event that well frankly just kind of removed what little thrill the Marvel Universe still held for me.
Brand New Day.
The post Civil War storyline wherein basically Peter and MJ's marriage was made to "unhappen".
Frankly I really didn't love Civil War, nor most of the stories that came afterward. They just felt like too much all the time.
But there was something about what was done to Peter. You see most Geeks, I think see more than a bit of themselves in Peter. He's the story we all want to have, where we grow into ourselves and instead of being less geeky, figure out how to be geeky without being totally socially inept at the same time.
The story of his marriage to MJ was, well sure it was fantasy but it was good fantasy. It was the story of two people growing up and discovering how much better they were as people together.
But apparently that didn't sell well. So it was changed.
And I walked away.
For the longest time after that I pretty much paid attention only to the goings on in DC titles. I was a huge Green Lantern fan and I loved what Geoff Johns did with Rebirth. I loved the return of the Corps, and the addition of all the other rings for the other colors in the spectrum.
Even though I will admit that even fatigue was setting in somewhat I nevertheless was loving the concepts at least behind things like Blackest Night.
Then came Flashpoint, which I had assumed was going to be a kind of a self contained event and when it was over things would pick back up where they had left off.
But that wasn't the case.
Instead the next thing I know there's a whole big "soft reboot" (whatever in the hell that means exactly) being done. Now suddenly certain things in the DCU's past did happen, and others didn't, or and Lois and Clark aren't married any more, or more precisely were never married.
After the initial shock wore off I tried to read some of the new stuff. It's not bad, but it's just... more of "that".
Then came what seemed like the very epitome of the problem. DC announces prequels to Alan Moore's graphic novel Watchmen. I suddenly realized that they just don't get it. This isn't like Superman, or Batman etc. I may not fancy the latest revisions but I kind of get them, and I understand that really this is just the latest in an ongoing process of perpetual revision. But Watchmen isn't that stuff.
Watchmen is a singular work created by a singular creator. (And I mean singular not single, but while Dave Gibbons contribution is important let's face facts, if there was no Dave Gibbons there still would have been Watchmen, but if there'd been no Alan Moore I sincerely doubt that the same statement would be true.) It is meant to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Are there things hinted at but never fully explained? Yes. Because that's the way the Author of the work intended it. For a corporation to step up and decide to tell stories outside of the main narrative is about as ludicrous as Miramax deciding that they are going to get Michael Bay to direct a movie that shows us the secret of what the golden glow in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction "really" is.
Bottom line there just comes a point in all of our lives where we have to make a decision. What's more important to us? Art, or entertainment? The prerogatives of the corporation, or the integrity of the artist? Getting a story that is familiar and comfortable, or being taken someplace that we haven't been before, in a way we haven't gotten there before?
These are highly personal questions. Anyone who is going to buy the Watchman prequels, or the latest versions of DC or Marvel's core characters and enjoy them, I bear no ill will towards. But for me? I'm done for now.
I think I'm going to spend some time collecting Buffy Seasons 1-8 and maybe exploring what is out there in comic land that is a bit more proper literature. Stuff that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Stuff where if there's a prequel or a sequel it's because the author wants there to be one, not because a corporation has decided that it will sell well.
Yours In Geek Love!
