Shadowgirls

Superman: Proving that sometimes, it is indeed okay to wear your underwear on the outside.

D.Rey here. Okay folks, this is going to be a long one, split into two parts, but bear with me. I know a few of you have heard by now DC comics’ plans for September. For those in the dark, DC plans to relaunch all their books, in September, with issues #1s and a same time release for digital distribution, meaning those with an iPad or some similar kind of tablet can actually buy them on the Apple store for the regular cover price, or wait a month and buy them at half price. This is considered by them to be a perfect jumping on point for many new readers. This might be the ballsiest move a comic book company has ever done. And it’s gotten some people up in arms. And I was one of them at first, but I’m not anymore. In fact, I’m kinda excited. You see, this Digital Launch is something that quite frankly, something that was inevitable. The median age for comic book readers are 30-40 now, and well… The industry is not getting new readers. Everyone likes to come up with their own reasons, but I believe, and I always will believe that it is the 800 pound gorilla in the room that no one likes to talk about.

…

Um, wrong gorilla. The proverbial one.

The simple fact is that comics are expensive. They’re no longer the cheap and affordable hobby they were when we were younger. (Gawd, I’m old.) And comic stores are becoming more and more rare, as many close up shop. In addition , comics are also becoming inaccessible. You have no idea where to start. And this is a problem that even affects long time comic readers like me. A month ago, my friend and I traveled to the comic store, and we walked around for like a half hour, having trouble finding stuff to buy. It had been so long since we made it to the comic store, we didn’t know where to start. (And not to mention, what was going on didn’t appeal to us, which I’ll get to in a moment.) You need a jumping on point for readers, and if life long comic book readers like myself were having problems finding something to read… What the hell chance does an average customer off the streets have? It’s hard to guide the new readers in the right direction, and everyone’s tastes are different. So it’s hard for the potential new buyers, it’s hard for the publishers, and it’s hard for the poor comic shops that have to struggle to make ends meet. What comics did I end up buying? Well, I bought that Captain America comic I ranted about last time, a beautifully drawn trade paperback called Sky-Doll by a pair of Italian creators, and an awful Batman comic, with beautiful art but the story was so horrible, I ended up taking a white out pen to the word balloons so I can look at it without getting angry.

Believe it or not, this isn't even the worst thing that happened to Roy Harper.

Which brings me to what I think is the biggest problem that comics have… A lot of them are just written horribly. For every Gail Simone, there’s at least six or more writers who put out such preachy, condescending dreck that makes the worst episodes of Law and Order look like brilliance-incarnate. The industry likes to talk about how wonderful that writer is, but when you read the work, it’s preachy misogynist nihilistic navel gazing in spandex costumes. I’m not going to get into this too much, but it needs to be said that this is a big problem with comics that a lot of fans talk about, but the publishers do not. They assume that ‘pissing off long time readers = sales’ and it does in the short term, but in the long term… Well, ask a typical former Spider-Man fan what they think of Carlie Cooper. There’s a good reason Linkara is so popular. He has a lot work with.

Now, I’m a long time DC fan and I’ve always been one, since I saw that a man could fly when I was four. This digital downloading plan they got? It’s been coming for a long time. DC isn’t even breaking new grounds here, but they’re the biggest people to do this. Hell, webcomics have been garnering larger audiences than some printed books for some time now. Every unique page view is a reader. Now I know, you’re saying “That’s different,. You’re giving away content for free. They’re trying to sell it.” You’re right, it is different… But in the end, a reader is STILL a reader. If I was to ask you about the recent events in webcomic Menage a 3, and then ask you about recent events in X-Men… I’m willing to bet the majority of you would be able to tell me what’s going with Gary and Zii than you could tell me with whatever the hell is up with vampire Jubilee. (Or the very least, you can find out faster.) And that’s what it comes down to… If you don’t have readers, then you don’t have customers and that’s because a lot of their comics are inaccessible, due to price, availability or content.

No seriously. Jubilee is a vampire now. I can't make this shit up.

See, digital comics are not going away and neither are printed books. People need to get that fear out of their heads. Print is not dying, but it might be de-prioritized. This new digital plan eliminates the printing costs and the distribution issues. What we have to remember is that this is new territory. It’s risky, but also an exciting game changer. Much like how MP3s weren’t the end of music, but it did indeed change things. (Whether for better or for worse, depends on your point of view.)

But plan is far from flawless and I’ll get into that next time, as we talk about Barbara Gordon, Superman’s underwear, and why I learned to stop worrying and learned to love Gail Simone.

D.Rey here. To start, the answer the immediate questions that’s been on people’s minds, is:

- I have heard from several people who ordered the books that they have started to ship.
- And the Robert short story is being worked on, and you’ll see it in a couple weeks. I was hoping for this week, but some stuff came up, and it got postponed a bit. So right now, I’m aiming for the 17th, maybe even next week, if luck is with me. It’s usually not, so plan for the 17th. (A teaser can be seen in yesterday’s blog post.)

Now, I figured since we got a little time, I figured I’d spend this time talking about recent events, that’s mostly in comics this past week. Particularly about my favorite superhero, Superman. I’m sure most of you have heard this past week about the events that happened in Action Comics 900. (Yeah man, 900! I think only the Australian’s Phantom comic has topped that!) For those that don’t know Superman, after some incident with the Iranian government during a conflict, he renounces his United States citizenship. Now I’ve kept my mouth shut for almost all of it, because as much as I would love to rant off on how stupid and out of character this is, it’s:

1. Not unprecedented. In the Pre-Crisis Superman (Earth-Two), Superman was an honorary citizen of every country in the world, given to him by the United Nations. (Probably the only thing useful the U.N. has ever done… And it’s in 40 year old fiction.) So it’s not like it hasn’t been done before. Which brings us to…

2. It’s just a dumb story. It’s just a gimmick and it’s easily forgotten. Seriously, this is no different than any other stupid story told in comics. If it’s not popular enough, it’s easily and quickly forgotten. This is just a story gimmick, no different than the following dumb stories which were touted that “their lives will never be the same again!!”:

- Wolverine losing his adamantium, healing factor and nose. (Resolved with an image inducer and forgotten about.)
- Gwen Stacy sleeps with Normal Osborn, giving her age-accelerated kids. (Resolved with One More Day and forgotten about.)
- Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) is corrupted by Deathstroke and becomes the murderous leader of the Society of Shadows. (Resolved with making Cassie go away for a while and forgotten about.)
- Superman becomes a blue electric powered hero. And later, splits into a red and blue version. (Resolved with having something fix it and forgotten about.)
- Nightcrawler is really a demon, which his mother Mystique boinks a demon, who will bring about the end of the world by getting elected Pope. (Resolved with just forgetting about it.)
- The Punisher is killed by Wolverine’s bastard son, dismembered and becomes FrankenCastle. (Resolved with the Bloodstone and forgotten about.)

No, I wasn't joking. It really did happen.

- The Punisher gets plastic surgery and becomes a black man. (Resolved with it wearing off and forgotten about.)
- The Punisher kills himself, comes back as an avenging angel with glowing green guns. (Resolved with ‘he got better’ and forgotten about.)
- Tony Stark’s alcoholism overtakes him, and so teenage Tony Stark from the past comes to the present and replaces him. (Resolved with Franklin Richards and forgotten about.)
- Spider-Man becomes the avatar of the Spider-God. (Resolved with J. Michael Straczynski leaving the book and thankfully forgotten about.)
- Xorn. (Resolved with “it wasn’t really Magneto” and forgotten about.)
- Batman dies, but didn’t die, as he was sent back in time, and was a hobo living in a cave. (It’s confusing.)

- The implication that Superman’s villain, Metallo shot Bruce Wayne’s parents, as opposed to Joe Chill. (Resolved with Infinite Crisis and New Earth.)

- Tony Stark is a rich Republican, therefore he must be evil and willing to create an extra dimensional prison camp to throw people who disagree with him in there. (QUICKLY resolved because the movie turned Iron Man into an A-Lister. Thank you Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr.)

Great Rao, I wish this was photoshopped.

- Captain America is un-American because he doesn’t have a MySpace account and doesn’t watch American Idol. He’s later killed by the Red Skull. (Resolved with him returning back from the dead, due to him being phased in and out of time and forgotten about. Though we’re all still waiting on Steve to go up to Sally Floyd and punch her right in the fucking face.)

And of course the big one…

- Captain America is disenchanted with America after Nixon’s Watergate, renounces his citizenship, and becomes Nomad. Oh yeah, and like Nixon killed himself during that storyline too. (Resolved by putting back on the costume and forgotten about.)

And that's not even touching what Susan Richards was sporting during the 90's.

I could keep going, but I’m hoping you get the point. And every single one of those “character shattering” story lines was glazed over and quickly forgotten in under a year’s time. Two tops. When a story is dumb enough, it’s forgotten quickly enough, like Batman getting his back broken. And in my three decades of reading comic books, the only exception to this has been the still horrible “One More Day”.

And remember… It’s Superman that renounced his citizenship. Not Clark Kent. Clark has a social security number and a birth certificate. (Forged, yes. But he has them.) This is no different if Elwood Blues renounces his citizenship. Does that mean that Dan Aykroyd does too? Superman’s just an identity. It’s a role he plays. Just one he does secretly. The thing is, Superman really shouldn’t be used to tell political stories. (Superman IV learned that.) Some characters should be beyond that. Yes, it makes sense that Iron Man and Captain America get to be somewhat political. They deal with terrorists and threats to the peace of the world. Superman deals with alien invasions, mischievous imps from the 5th dimension and Lex Luthor. This is not a Superman story. It’s just something that was written to get people talking, and it worked. It’s still a young story and we need to see where it goes from here. And if it is a bad story (and it looks like it is) it’ll quickly go away.

In fact… I’d say in time for the movie next year. Superman’s bigger than any one story.

About a week before the C2E2 convention, a neat little trailer promoting the hardcover went live. People who’s part of our Facebook group got to see it, but for those that didn’t, go ahead and give it a look HERE. It’s pretty neat.

Now, prepare yourself for some real ‘dork talk’ here. To no surprise to any of you, I’m one of those old school nerd types and I love universes. I personally believe it’s the greatest literary invention. In fact, we might not admit, it, but we all love the notion of our favorite characters living in a bigger more exciting universe filled with other interesting characters. But this isn’t just a comic thing, as it goes into many other mediums as well. I mean, I’ve lost track how many times Richard Belzer guest starred on other shows as Detective John Munch, and deeply suspect this is one of the reasons Kingdom Hearts was so popular a game. In comics, it’s become so commonplace of a deal that quite frankly it’s a non-event now. Superman and Batman are so intertwined with each other, that not only are they’re on a first-name basis, their sidekicks and partners are on a first-name basis as well. I’m under the old belief that if there’s no contradictions between two properties, then there’s no reason they cannot co-exist in the same universe. The recent batch of DC Animated movies are a perfect example of this. Other than All-Star Superman and New Frontier, there’s nothing in those movies that says they couldn’t exist in the same universes with each other, even though officially, only the two Superman/Batman are related to each other. We usually term this ‘personal canon’, because official or not, we like the idea. It’s like Starkweather and Shadowgirls. The issue #7 cameo aside, they’re actually not in the same universe. But there’s nothing to contradict them from being so. It’s like ALL stories written are in their own universes. It’s just what we personally choose to accept as canon. Are both series in their own universes? Yes. But could they co-exist in each other’s universes as well? Yes. It’s like Schrödinger’s Canon. Until events in one story dictate that a shared universe is not occurring, then they are occurring. (This works the other way too, if you don’t want them to be shared.) And crossovers are the proof of it. I mean, you can have cameos, but really, it’s not much more than a simple shout out. (Which while cool, it’s about the same effect of Chip’s car being the Autobot Hot Shot. It‘s just a visual treat, and nothing more to think about.)

Crossovers has always been one of those subjects in comics that excite a reader and at the same time, fill them with dread. But when it comes to crossovers, there has to be a certain amount of logic with it. It makes sense why Batman would meet up with the Punisher. They’re both dark urban vigilantes, and in the 90’s they were both written by Chuck Dixon. (God, I miss him on those books.) It makes sense for Ghost to meet up with Hellboy. One’s a ghost and one’s a paranormal investigator. Things go hand in hand. But when you get a little more out there, you got to get more creative with crossover. Batman vs. Predator makes perfect sense, as the Predator wants to hunt the most dangerous prey, and in this case, that would be the Dark Knight. But Batman vs. Aliens makes no sense, as in order to make it work, you got to put Batman in the jungle with a crashed spaceship or something. And while that makes sense for the Aliens, it doesn’t really make too much sense for Batman, being that whole fore mentioned urban vigilante.

And that’s something that’s the most important thing about crossovers… It has to make sense. Especially if the concepts are different enough. That’s another thing we love about crossovers and universes is playing the ‘six degrees of comic characters’ game, linking them to each other through various crossovers. (For example, Sabrina the Teenage Witch has meet Archie, who’s met the Punisher, who’s met Spider-Man, who’s met Batman who’s been romantically involved with Zatanna. Thus is it logical in our heads that Sabrina the Teenage Witch and her cat Salem can understudy underneath Zatanna.) But you have to give real thought to how it works out.

The big obstacle to overcome is to make sure your crossover is compatible. (You also got to be a fan of the comic and creator as well, but that’s a given.) Now you would think that’s the easier part, but it’s actually the hardest. Because you have to apply that Schrödinger’s Canon to every possible candidate. Now some might say “Is that really all that important” to which I say ‘YES, it’s important!’ It’s the most important factor, because without that Schrödinger’s Canon lining up, then it’s not really that character. It’s just someone who looks like it. It’s like in the DC cartoons. You got Robin from the Batman: The Animated Series, and then you have the Teen Titans’ version of Robin, and then you have The Batman’s Robin, and then you have Young Justice’s Robin… And they’re ALL same Robin, but they’re not. Schrödinger’s Canon had declared them alternate versions of the same guy. Which really, if you stop and think about it… Is really a strange concept.

Now is a shared universe really all that vital? It’s not important at all. It’s just a fun nerd concept we all love. But it’s the same reason we hung around after the credits in Iron Man 2 to see Thor’s hammer. We’re nerds and we like universes. Sometimes we get our panties in a bundle, and complain a bit too much that shit doesn’t line up with each other. And people make fun of us for it, and we do need to lighten up sometimes about it. But we shouldn’t discard it. Shared Universes is comics’ gift to the literary world. Comics and the fans are usually put down by others medias, but the literary tool of the shared universe was created by the comics creators and it’s fans, and it IS something we should embrace whenever possible and be proud of.

So… Looking at the picture up top. Is Shadowgirls in the same universe with Rival Angels? Well, until Becka and Sabrina are fighting a squid monster in the middle of a ring, then why the hell not?