Michael Paciocco's Mind

[jessebaker]

TECHNICALLY Ellis did Captain Orgasm already. Sumo of Stormwatch, under Ellis's pen, was revealed to be in a constant state of orgasm due to his status as an energy being.

Also, Morrison had Emma Frost play the orgasm power card, having her make a bunch of anti-mutant bigots collapse via forced orgasm caused by her teep powers.

[michaelpaciocco]

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/06/time-to-kill.html

OK, let's get one thing clear right away so we aren't fooling ourselves. The only reason, and I mean the ONLY reason superheroes don't kill the big name villains is because those are the money making villains. You can't kill the Joker not because he's some freaking genius immortal badass - you can't kill him because he makes it much easier to sell toys and video games (I would say lunchboxes, but do they even have lunchboxes anymore?) and the odds of anyone coming up with a villain that could match or surpass the Joker are remote. Even if you could, why would you give that idea to DC for a song given their shitty shitty record on creator's rights?

Alright, now let's move on to the other stuff.

I'm not a fan of superheroes killing except in extreme circumstances usually involving self-defense or the "no other choice" to defend the lives of bystanders or some other justifiable excuse. I've also noted in the past the extreme difficulties a superhero would likely face in engaging in non-lethal combat given the high level of power many of them wield. So I think it's safe to say that lethal results would be more common in superpowered combat, but that it's neglected for larger storytelling and economic reasons.

However, we do have to acknowledge the flip side of this coin, and that's what is being increasingly ignored in comic book writing. If you're not going to have the heroes kill the villains, you should either give them a rationale that doesn't make them look irredeemably stupid nor make the villains so grotesque that any rational human being would kill them.

It's one thing not to kill a supervillain if he's a bank robber, even if he's a career criminal with a long list of largely non-lethal crimes. However, as the years have gone on, writers have expanded and increased the body count of big name villains in order to establish their status as alpha-primate bad guys you should not fuck with, the suspension of disbelief that no one has killed them yet snaps. It's one thing to say that Superman won't kill Lex Luthor if Lex hasn't deliberately killed anyone (except for one or two people he's offed in such a way that can't possibly be connected to him), but it's absolutely insane to think that Kal-El wouldn't give Lex a heat-vision lobotomy (if not him, than certainly Kara) after he clearly instigated a genocide. The Silver Age "no-kill" rule does have a logical limit - and it's safe to say it does end at mass murder.

(As a complete sidebar - Cry for Justice? While there are many valid points on which to attack that completely terrible book, one that doesn't work for me is Green Arrow's actions. A Bow and Arrow have always been considered lethal weapons - consult history if you feel at all differently).

So maybe, and this is a crazy thought I know - but maybe it's time to cut down on the mass murdering supervillains? Because in order for them to still be alive involves the hero (and the justice system - how the Joker hasn't been given the death penalty is frankly beyond me) behaving with a moral code that is indefensible and makes them look not only weak but ineffective.

And if there's one thing a superhero should never be, it's ineffective.

[jensaltmann]

From which comic did you take those pages? I think I might break my "I no longer buy Marvel or DC unless it has Spider-Girl in it" rule for that.

It reminds me why I used to want to write Atom.

[michaelpaciocco]

Brave and the Bold (current series) #31, written by JMS.

Fair warning, I did not like the book very much.

[Anders]

That's something I hadn't thought of, but it's a very good point.

[michaelpaciocco]

Which point is that?

[jessebaker]

As horrifically flawed as Cry for Justice was, KILLING PROMETHEUS was the one thing that redeemed the whole fucking thing in my humble opinion. ABSOLUTELY SAVED what would have been a SUPER-SHIT storyline.

Had they let Prometheus get away scott free, it would have ranked up there with Mark Millar's bullshit of "Evil wins, good sucks and deserves to be shitted on" notions of writing and worse. ESPECIALLY given the notions of the themes of the book: IE proactive super-heroism versus waiting around for shit to happen.

Prometheus was a monster who had killed hundreds of thousands of people, maimed and killed a large number of super-heroes AND villains and his actions. AND his actions killed the grand-daughter of one of DC's top super-heroes; a girl who had NEVER, EVER DONE ANYTHING TO ANYONE IN THE SUPER-VILLAIN COMMUNITY.

Bitch had to die.

Did they fuck up the fall-out? For Green Arrow, yeah. They blew it. But I like what they are doing with Arsenal as far as showing him completely coming undone over what was done to him.

[jessebaker]

That said; I would LOVE to see DC once again enact their "Joker can NEVER be portrayed as a mass murder" edict that they had from the 1950s and 1960s for about a decade. Make Joker be like the Batman the Animated Series version, where he's more about the grand caper and who only kills rarely if ever.

[jensaltmann]

Jun 3, 2010 19:30:18 GMT -8 jessebaker said:

That said; I would LOVE to see DC once again enact their "Joker can NEVER be portrayed as a mass murder" edict that they had from the 1950s and 1960s for about a decade. Make Joker be like the Batman the Animated Series version, where he's more about the grand caper and who only kills rarely if ever.

Easy to set up: have one story where the punchline is that Joker has decided "You know, killing's not as funny as it used to be. Matter of fact, it's gotten downright boring. Outthinking that Buttman, though, now that should be worth a few chuckles."

Kind of the reverse of what Alan Moore did with Mxyzptlk in Whatever Happened to the Man of Steel.

[michaelpaciocco]

Huh, clever idea Jens.

[michaelpaciocco]

Everything I ever wanted to say about Wolverine.

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/06/best-he-was.html

When I was a kid, Wolverine was hands-down my favorit comic book character. He was Canadian, had a temper, took zero crap, and was one of the heavyweights of the X-Men, the biggest team in comics.

So, what happened? Was it just that I grew up?

Well I'm still blogging about comics, so....not sure that fits.

I think it's more that Wolverine moved to a place I had no interest in.

To me, Wolverine was a guy who was, to put it mildly, a bad guy. A justifiable one, but still a bad guy. Even he knew it, and hated it. So he constantly fought against his lesser nature - he wanted to be a samurai, no matter how impossible the goal was. He wanted to improve himself by being a better X-Man and someone that Kitty Pryde or Jubilation Lee could look up.

They don't really do that anymore. The Wolverine stories I've seen over the last 15 years have focused more on Wolverine doing awful things to people who incidentally were much more awful than him. So instead of him being a bad guy looking to improve himself, he's just a bad guy.

And I'm not interested in that.

[Anders]

Jun 3, 2010 15:02:59 GMT -8 michaelpaciocco said:

Which point is that?

Re: killing bad guys when they get too bad.

[jensaltmann]

Jun 4, 2010 5:20:33 GMT -8 michaelpaciocco said:

Huh, clever idea Jens.

Thanks, but... that was easy. When you deal with someone who is as crazy as the Joker, you can rationalize any major re-characterization. Just apply crazy-logic.

[michaelpaciocco]

Kind of dovetails nicely with the current retailer concerns re: Marvel's offering the Invincible Iron Man Annual at the same time on the Ipad as in the stores.

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/06/brave-new-world.html

You know what game I'm sick and tired of?

"Let's save the Comics Industry!"

I've seen a lot of blog posts, editorials, articles, and heard a lot of podcasts on the subject. And personally? I'm not sure any of it works. I'll just go through some of the shorthand arguments, and my thoughts on them. Follow along!

1) COMICS NEED TO BE MORE FUN!

This is actually two statements - one of them is the surface argument that comics should focus on more lighthearted adventure, and the stealth statement - "Comics need to be more like they were when I started reading them!" Interestingly we've got a couple of samples of both philosophies in action.

In so far as "Lighthearted Fun" comics, we've got the Marvel Adventures line, we've got Incredible Hercules, we've got Agents of Atlas, we've got Tiny Titans, and a few other titles. None of them huge sellers in any market.

As for trying to set things back to the way they were when an earlier generation started reading comics, you've got everything Geoff Johns has done with DC, and the current state of the Spider-Man books, which is steadfastly dedicated to bring back the Spider-Man comics of 1982 or so. Again, no real success here.

In both cases, the same root problem is evident - there are no kids reading comics because the cost is so high per unit of entertainment relative to every other medium out there. $20 US for a trade paperback that will provide 1 hour of entertainment (tops) is nothing vs. a $10 DVD for 3 hours vs. $40 for a video game with over a dozen hours. Comics are always going to lose in that regard - simple as that. Bringing down the cost of a comic is a huge battle, primarily because at the end of the day, paper is expensive.

So sorry, but that line of reasoning holds no water with me.



2) WE NEED TO FREE OURSELVES FROM THE DIRECT MARKET, GET SMARTER RETAILERS, AND GET A LARGER PRESENCE IN THE BOOKSTORE MARKET!
I like this one a little better, but it's hardly a simple matter. Most informed commenters agree on this.
First, there's getting away from a purely direct market model, which in most cases means something other than Diamond Distributing. Thankfully, some publishers are already experimenting with alternative methods and I wish them luck. Of course, there are couple of significant obstacles. The lack of any successful model for a publisher outside the traditional direct market is hard to come by, and getting of the Diamond train requires retailers to be that much smarter and harder working to get your product unless such a large chunk of their market switches over that they feel they have no other choice.
Secondly, really smart and hard-working retailers are a rare beast. Consider that to be a successful retailer (in the truest sense of the term), you have to not only navigate the Diamond Distribution system and get the comics to your shop in some timely and cost-effective way, you have to plan, months in advance, for what your customers want. You have to figure out your market and audience, and find ways to reach them in your community with regularity to keep a rock solid customer base. Sadly, such advanced business skills are rare amongst shop owners, especially those in cities with smaller populations where the market for comic books is already small. This results in comics (at least in their singles format) becoming more and more of an urban feature - restricted to cities with sufficiently large populations (well over 100,000) to sustain a reliable market base. For the trades, it's the bookstores, and that creates a new set of issues.
Bookstores are already facing troubles as it is reaching to people in this digital age where people read less and less (there's a reason I'm not even addressing the issue of newstands - because even the NEWS can't make it on the newstands, never mind comics). To compound that, American comics suffer in comparison to their competition in the manga section. The Manga sections in a bookstore are very clear - there are separate sections for "young readers", "young adults", and "Adults". The series are clearly marked by volume so customers know where in the series they are, and all the books are uniform on a clear shelf. American comics are big clunky things, many of them in slightly different sizes and variations, with a byzantine continuity, multiple different versions, and no clear age distinctions. This makes them a problem for casual buyers that won't be resolved until these companies get a more disciplined act together.



3) GO DIGITAL
Again, the problems are format and price. Sure, you could make a $0.99 download for the iPad, but first you'd have to drop $200 for an iPad to begin with (assuming the price drops down that low at some point). Publishers also feel that making comics in a format that is easy to download onto regular computers carries a risk of piracy, which is a valid feeling. Still doesn't solve the problem.




Now, despite all I just said, I'm not that bummed out about any of this. I do think that we now have a lot of options to keep comics alive. But I'll be quite happy if they aren't going to be a continuation of the system we've had for the last 30 years, because that system has been a failure that has crushed creativity and creators rights.

Here's hoping that the new system provides a few more options. Of course, the only way that'll happen is if people start talking now about the system they want, and one that can work.
Welcome to a whole new world.

[Anders]

If you want to bring in younger readers, reducing the cost may be step one but step two is kicking the continuity habit. You can't keep making stories with direct or indirect references to obscure stories and characters from 20+ years ago. When you pick up a comic that says "Spider-Man" or "Superman" on the cover you need to know that it's a self-contained story about Spider-Man or Superman doing their cool stuff and not a tie-in to a ten-title cross-over event focusing on an unresolved plot-point from a cross-over event in 1986 or part 3 in a 6-part story.

Short, self-contained stories. That's all.

However, the way mainstream comics have gone they're practically designed to exclude younger readers at the cost of keeping the older readers who have kept up with the titles for decades - us. We know enough to find a good jumping on point for a title (if we don't just buy the TPBs), we like stories that reference other stories we've read or at least know about, we like longer, more complex story-lines that build on what's gone before, we don't care if the story in a single issue can stand on its own as long as it keeps up the pace of the six-issue story-arc and as-many-issues-as-possible myth arc of the comic. (Yes, I'm generalizing somewhat, but not that much.)

As long as we keep buying the mainstream titles they will stay the way they are and new readers will be shut out.