One of my coworkers got up and left during Event Horizon because watching all the characters die was making her sad, which is a new one on me when it comes to horror films, but I can't disagree. I do wonder if the ship (which was supposedly alive after its return from wherever) began to reconsider its selection of Sam Neill as part of the crew after he shot out the glass on the bridge and nearly killed the remainder of the crew to be.
That's not what I wanted to discuss today, but I thought I'd update you, since I mentioned it yesterday.
You may have heard Stephanie Brown is finally off the bench in the new 52. I'm. . . cautiously optimistic. There's a part of me that doesn't put it past the higher-ups at DC (who apparently regarded Steph, and still regard Cassandra Cain, as "toxic") to bring her back just to kill her off horribly, as either a joke for their amusement, or a middle finger to the audience. Even if that isn't the case, there's always the chance she lands in the hands of a creative team that doesn't know what to do with her. Bad stories are just one of the risks in any form of entertainment. I can hope James Tynion (who I believe is going to be writing the first issue she appears in, though I can't say I'll be lining up for a weekly Batman comics) can do some good work with her. As long as her use was prohibited, she couldn't appear in any good stories. At least now there's a possibility, assuming of course, the editors don't meddle too much. One thing the relaunch has consistently demonstrated is DC's editors can't keep from interfering. Even if the writers have great ideas, it won't matter if editorial has other plans.
I don't have a problem with her going back to being Spoiler. I know it raises the question of whether she was Robin or Batgirl in the new 52, but I don't mind if she wasn't. I liked her as Batgirl - and don't understand why 4 Earth Green Lanterns or 4 young boy Bat-sidekicks were OK, but there could only be one Flash and one Batgirl - but she was Spoiler the longest. (War Games was crap, and I do my best to ignore it and all that led up to it, so I ignore her being Robin since the writers and editors did it simply to kill her). Spoiler was her own identity. It wasn't bestowed upon her by Batman as proof she gained his acceptance, or handed off to her by Cass and Barbara. She made herself Spoiler, often in direct opposition to Grumpy Bat's wishes, first to stop her father, then because she enjoyed it. If we get a Stephanie Brown who's a little new at crimefighting, but takes to it with enthusiasm and isn't going to stop no matter who tries to make her, I'll be pretty happy with that.
One other thing, does her return strike anyone else as a sign of desperation? A character that was absolutely off-limits for 2 years, even in books not set in the new 52, but just now, it's OK to use her? I suppose it's possible someone in charge realized the stupidity of not letting writers and artists use characters they had good ideas for. Or this could have been some strategy to get people excited for her return. Remember when Thor hadn't appeared in Marvel comics for 2 or 3 years? He died in his own book near the end of Avengers Disassembled, and was gone until after World War Hulk. They even had the fakeout in Civil War with the Clone Thor. Then he reappeared in his own book, and it was a big deal for a while, sales were pretty good (I'm sure JMS' name had something to do with that, since he hadn't completely developed a rep for bailing on projects halfway through at that point), maybe in part because Thor'd been away long enough there was real anticipation for his return. It felt like a big deal. Maybe DC's trying that. It's more likely they've brought her out because they're getting desperate, and they're willing to try anything at this stage. "Anything" meaning any Bat-character they can throw out there to help fill all those Bat-books they publish each month.
We give it a little more time and we might get Cass Cain and the Dibnys back in play. Sure, Ralph and Sue aren't Bat-characters, but they are a detective couple, so I'm sure DC can reconfigure that in some way.
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4 comments:
Desperation seems to be a pretty good theory. The whole new 52 Universe is stalling, and while there have been a few ratings and sales boosts...it is still pretty flat.
Also I still don't see why most of these stories couldn't have been told in the REAL continuity.
But I'm getting bitter.
I am glad to see Stephanie, and I'm even slightly intrigued by the hints of Ted Kord. But yes, bring back the Dibneys and Cass, and Wally and all of those really GREAT characters!
I could understand benching a character if the response was overwhelmingly negative from fans, or just because no one had a good idea for them at the moment. marvel did that for about 15 years with everything associated with the Clone Saga, which was probably a very good idea.
But setting aside popular characters writers want to use for some arbitrary reason is just DC handcuffing themselves.
Exactly! Killing off a popular character will get a few ratings boosts...and then what? Really popular characters always come back anyway.
It is the B-level and C-level characters that get killed off that really annoys me, because those are most of my favorites. And a lot of people just LIKE some of those characters. Breaking all the toys so that nobody else can use them is bad policy.
sallyp: And because some of the people who like them work in comics, they bring them back eventually, and they wind up dead again.
Take Black Bolt at Marvel. he died at the tail end of War of Kings in late '09. He came back somehow in the next three years (I think Hickman did it, but I don't know). The solicitations for stuff after Infinity reveal he did again. what's the point of bringing him back just to kill him again a year later? Who is gonna be impressed with that at this point, knowing he'll probably be back in another 2 years?
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