Quote:
2: POWERLESS
I remember the day I bought the last issue of WANTED…
I remember eagerly taking it home and my disappointment when I realized the story I bought into was not the end result. I thought I was reading about heroism reborn in a world where heroes were killed off, not a demented father and son story.
Nothing could have prepared me for the ending.
I remember the last page, the last statement inside the last panel. I remember going into shock, being speechless, amazed, and in denial of what I comprehended. I read it repeatedly to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Anger grew inside me, matched by a sense of righteous glee. "Finally," I thought, "The time had come. The revolution is here."
I sat in my living room, the television less than ten feet in front of me, my laptop carefully balanced on the arm of the couch where I sat in the same spot I always do (any resistance in the cushion is destroyed). My spot. I love it. I sank, waiting for the news I was sure would come.
I envisioned comic stores riots by disgruntled consumers, fans up in arms against this conclusion. An act of destruction against the remnants of childhood we keep alive, dosed by the fantastic. What member of comic fandom, professional, creator, child, or adult, would do nothing about this?
That last panel and page, I could hear the voices change from character to writer.
The last statement that came, not from Wesley Gibson, but Mark Millar…
"This is my face while I’m ******** you in the a**."
I waited.
Nothing happened.
No noise, news reports, columns, commentaries, or anything that registered as anger. No voice of a people rising up to defend what was given by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Siegel, and Kane; an American mythology, gods and demigods to worship and define the line between good and evil in this increasingly gray world. The more nothing happened, the more I changed the direction of my anger to comic fans, because, to quote Batman, we are a "weak and cowardly lot."
No fan is like the comic book geek. No consumer is as weak and hopeless as us. Is it any wonder we’re not respected? After years of movie adaptations, television shows, video games, actors, producers, novelists, scientists, even a Pulitzer Prize winner (Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman in 1992) all promoting comics, but we’re still considered nerds and outsiders.
Since the Hollywood invasion, a line has been drawn. There are comic book fans, and those who like comics. Those who like comics demand quality, willing to ignore or walk away when dissatisfied. Comic book fans succumb to the will of publishers, editors, writers, and retailers. We take what we’re given, and like it. We don’t think we have a choice. Like it, or lump it, right? Not true. A choice exists, we just lack the balls to make it.
It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when we mattered. When our opinions were heard and our voices shaped this industry. No doubt if H.S.T. (Hunter S. Thompson, R.I.P.) was still shooting, be they guns or drugs, he would make a connection to the sixties. A vision of what could be when men and women, tempered by moral right and a child’s simple, but firm, distinction between good and evil, chart the course of this, albeit fictional, world and beyond.
When did publishers stop listening to us? When did the last letters page appear? Overnight, internet message boards replaced letter pages and our voices fell silent. We became deaf and dumb while superheroes are being destroyed, stripped of their core ideas to make them contemporary when they’re already timeless. Our world is going to hell and so must our heroes. Pure ideas, left over from a better time, are having their heads chopped off, slowly, to our roaring applause.
I want to scream out against those publishers, editors, and writers acting as executioners, but I can’t blame them. They’re just doing what comes naturally when there’s no supervision. They run rampant, drunk on the freedom with no consequence. Like Lord of the Flies, kids left alone and abandoned. Some mimic adults, but others will seek chaos, power, and destruction.
We condone the latter, continuing to buy their books at inflated prices. We scream and yell in our homes, but money talks volumes and makes us hypocrites. I’ve never understood why we are so afraid to stop buying comics when they’re bad. If we’re not happy with a book, walk away. Boycott the title, the publisher, the writer, and send the message we are unhappy and demand satisfaction. Right now, there are writers walking a picket line, fighting for their rights while we give ours away week after week.
Millar is ******** us in the a**, but we’re letting him, from Wanted to Ultimates, Civil War, and now Fantastic Four. He’s killed every superhero in his universe, turned Captain America into a violent right-wing zealot (the kind that still think we’re in Iraq for the right reasons) in one universe, pussify and kills him in another, had a black superhero killed by a Germanic pagan god, and now he’s writing comics’ "First Family." To him, and those like him, we are weak. To them, we are losers who believe in alien farm boys, amazons who aren’t lesbians and billionaires who’d rather spend non-sexual time with little boys and risk their lives instead of nailing Kate Beckinsale post-Pearl Harbor, pre-Len Wiseman, and directly following her Pepsi commercial.
Publishers are killing characters to get out of paying royalties to the creators or their families and we do nothing. Superboy is gone. Captain America, gone. Now, the New Gods are on the chopping block and sales are projected to soar. We have no loyalty. We have no honor. We buy out of habit and routine. We go to the same retailer to talk to the same people about the same things. We do it every week, on the same day, at the same time. We buy the same books, make the same complaints, and continuously do nothing, but wait for them to get better on their own.
No wonder we’re getting off on seeing superheroes get beat, jailed, and emotionally smashed, their loved ones raped and killed. We wanted to be them, once, before we got stuck in the middle of our lives with high cholesterol, diabetes, threat of prostate cancer, and hamburger bellies made it clear we would never be Robin. We killed him. Now he’s back as a psychopath, and we couldn’t be happier. If we can’t live as gods, kill the gods that live.
After this twilight, what will be left? Cold corporate properties reflecting us, "spineless, soulless, sons of bitches, suckers of Satan’s c**k, each and every one." (Bill Hicks, R.I.P.)
Millar is ******** us, but he’s not enjoying it. Can’t be…
We’re a dead lay.
JPG.
I remember the day I bought the last issue of WANTED…
I remember eagerly taking it home and my disappointment when I realized the story I bought into was not the end result. I thought I was reading about heroism reborn in a world where heroes were killed off, not a demented father and son story.
Nothing could have prepared me for the ending.
I remember the last page, the last statement inside the last panel. I remember going into shock, being speechless, amazed, and in denial of what I comprehended. I read it repeatedly to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Anger grew inside me, matched by a sense of righteous glee. "Finally," I thought, "The time had come. The revolution is here."
I sat in my living room, the television less than ten feet in front of me, my laptop carefully balanced on the arm of the couch where I sat in the same spot I always do (any resistance in the cushion is destroyed). My spot. I love it. I sank, waiting for the news I was sure would come.
I envisioned comic stores riots by disgruntled consumers, fans up in arms against this conclusion. An act of destruction against the remnants of childhood we keep alive, dosed by the fantastic. What member of comic fandom, professional, creator, child, or adult, would do nothing about this?
That last panel and page, I could hear the voices change from character to writer.
The last statement that came, not from Wesley Gibson, but Mark Millar…
"This is my face while I’m ******** you in the a**."
I waited.
Nothing happened.
No noise, news reports, columns, commentaries, or anything that registered as anger. No voice of a people rising up to defend what was given by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Siegel, and Kane; an American mythology, gods and demigods to worship and define the line between good and evil in this increasingly gray world. The more nothing happened, the more I changed the direction of my anger to comic fans, because, to quote Batman, we are a "weak and cowardly lot."
No fan is like the comic book geek. No consumer is as weak and hopeless as us. Is it any wonder we’re not respected? After years of movie adaptations, television shows, video games, actors, producers, novelists, scientists, even a Pulitzer Prize winner (Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman in 1992) all promoting comics, but we’re still considered nerds and outsiders.
Since the Hollywood invasion, a line has been drawn. There are comic book fans, and those who like comics. Those who like comics demand quality, willing to ignore or walk away when dissatisfied. Comic book fans succumb to the will of publishers, editors, writers, and retailers. We take what we’re given, and like it. We don’t think we have a choice. Like it, or lump it, right? Not true. A choice exists, we just lack the balls to make it.
It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when we mattered. When our opinions were heard and our voices shaped this industry. No doubt if H.S.T. (Hunter S. Thompson, R.I.P.) was still shooting, be they guns or drugs, he would make a connection to the sixties. A vision of what could be when men and women, tempered by moral right and a child’s simple, but firm, distinction between good and evil, chart the course of this, albeit fictional, world and beyond.
When did publishers stop listening to us? When did the last letters page appear? Overnight, internet message boards replaced letter pages and our voices fell silent. We became deaf and dumb while superheroes are being destroyed, stripped of their core ideas to make them contemporary when they’re already timeless. Our world is going to hell and so must our heroes. Pure ideas, left over from a better time, are having their heads chopped off, slowly, to our roaring applause.
I want to scream out against those publishers, editors, and writers acting as executioners, but I can’t blame them. They’re just doing what comes naturally when there’s no supervision. They run rampant, drunk on the freedom with no consequence. Like Lord of the Flies, kids left alone and abandoned. Some mimic adults, but others will seek chaos, power, and destruction.
We condone the latter, continuing to buy their books at inflated prices. We scream and yell in our homes, but money talks volumes and makes us hypocrites. I’ve never understood why we are so afraid to stop buying comics when they’re bad. If we’re not happy with a book, walk away. Boycott the title, the publisher, the writer, and send the message we are unhappy and demand satisfaction. Right now, there are writers walking a picket line, fighting for their rights while we give ours away week after week.
Millar is ******** us in the a**, but we’re letting him, from Wanted to Ultimates, Civil War, and now Fantastic Four. He’s killed every superhero in his universe, turned Captain America into a violent right-wing zealot (the kind that still think we’re in Iraq for the right reasons) in one universe, pussify and kills him in another, had a black superhero killed by a Germanic pagan god, and now he’s writing comics’ "First Family." To him, and those like him, we are weak. To them, we are losers who believe in alien farm boys, amazons who aren’t lesbians and billionaires who’d rather spend non-sexual time with little boys and risk their lives instead of nailing Kate Beckinsale post-Pearl Harbor, pre-Len Wiseman, and directly following her Pepsi commercial.
Publishers are killing characters to get out of paying royalties to the creators or their families and we do nothing. Superboy is gone. Captain America, gone. Now, the New Gods are on the chopping block and sales are projected to soar. We have no loyalty. We have no honor. We buy out of habit and routine. We go to the same retailer to talk to the same people about the same things. We do it every week, on the same day, at the same time. We buy the same books, make the same complaints, and continuously do nothing, but wait for them to get better on their own.
No wonder we’re getting off on seeing superheroes get beat, jailed, and emotionally smashed, their loved ones raped and killed. We wanted to be them, once, before we got stuck in the middle of our lives with high cholesterol, diabetes, threat of prostate cancer, and hamburger bellies made it clear we would never be Robin. We killed him. Now he’s back as a psychopath, and we couldn’t be happier. If we can’t live as gods, kill the gods that live.
After this twilight, what will be left? Cold corporate properties reflecting us, "spineless, soulless, sons of bitches, suckers of Satan’s c**k, each and every one." (Bill Hicks, R.I.P.)
Millar is ******** us, but he’s not enjoying it. Can’t be…
We’re a dead lay.
JPG.
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