There is nothing sacred or original in DC Comics anymore.
I’d like to use this post as an opportunity to announce my formal decision to cease all future purchases of DC Comics mainstream titles and stories. I’ve been turned off by a lot of the poor writing in Flash and JLA the last few years anyway, but this is the clincher that has turned me from apathy to a definite “anti-DC” stance.
Ever since Superman died and resurrected, this card has been played far too often in comic bookdom, especially in DC continuity. It was okay when Supes did it. I even thought Hal’s death (as Parallax) and resurrection (as Spectre) was really clever. But now it’s Steel. And then it’s Hal back as Green Lantern. For a while, the only sacred deaths that meant anything anymore, that were to remain untouched, were Jason Todd and Barry Allen. Eventually even Jason came back by “punching through time,” a gimmick that, I’m convinced, only existed as a means to boost sales — because it was too lame to come off as any notion of a good idea for a story.
Only Barry remained. The man who risked everything to save a thousand worlds. The man whose death was almost as magnificent as his well-written “life” was. But they just couldn’t leave him be.
Damn you, DC. Damn you, Grant Morrison, for taking one of my all-time favorite stories and cheapening it by undoing it. This silly gimmick is causing death to mean nothing anymore — for who is afraid of dying when they can inevitably come back to life? Don’t even get me started on the reintroduction of the multiverse. What was that whole “Crisis” for, anyway?
No more. I will no more spend my money and invest my interest in stories that simply recycle themselves and don’t go anywhere anymore. If DC’s writers and executives don’t know how to take a character and actually DEVELOP him rather than hitting the reset button over and over again, then they don’t know how to make me pull out my wallet. How can I be true to a character whose writers aren’t true to him?
Elseworlds-type one-shots and minis are still potential purchases as they are untouchable by the bastardized mainstream of DC continuity, but if I ever get back into regular comics reading, I’m afraid you’ll only find me picking up Marvel titles (not that they haven’t played the resurrection card at all, but it has been much less frequent).
DC Comics, you have officially lost a customer.
3 responses to “The Last Straw”
Seriously?
Like Marvel is better. The only character that hasn’t truly come back to this point is Uncle Ben. I mean, damn, they even brought back Bucky! (And Captain Marvel, sort of)
I’m not wild about the return of Barry Allen either, in part because I thought his death in Crisis #8 (was it 8?) was some terrific storytelling and a quintissential heroic death. And beyond that, I have no idea what they plan to do with him. But I’m not going to write it off out of hand. It could be good. And it might not invalidate the Crisis story at all. Barry’s “death” is no less heroic because he somehow managed to survive it, because he thought his act would kill him and he did it anyways. Barry’s still the hero, and Final Crisis won’t change that.
here’s the other thing that baffles me: you say you won’t invest in stories that go nowhere…but you will buy Elseworlds? Which are the very definition of stories that go nowhere!
I suggest you ease up a bit as see how this plays out. It might be excellent. “The Legion of Three Worlds” and “Blackest Night” are both shaping up nicely, so don’t dump DC out of hand. they’re like every publisher: capable of genius and crap, sometimes in the same issue.
Another choir member here, my brother.
IMHO, I think one reason DC (abd Marvel) have an enormous lack of originality is because most of the writers, editors, editors’ assistants, etc., are liberals, and basically all we’ve heard from them for the past seven + years is how much they hate Dubya. I can’t tell you how many times since 2000 I’ve read a book written by one of these liberal clowns and thought, “Okay, I get it. You hate the president. Go on to something else. I got tired of hearing the same diatribes from the same bunch of idiots and of waiting for something new and interesting to come from DC, so I’ve pretty much given up on Disposable Comics. They seem to only be interested in writing for the DC Deadheads these days, and no one else. Which is sad, because I spent over half my life reading DC stuff, but no more.
Steve Haag
You are preaching to the choir my friend. As for elseworlds, they are the ‘definition’ of stories that go nowhere, because thats what the readers EXPECT of them! They EXPECT to have their favorite characters in unorthodox circumstances, while at the same time, having them unaffected in the mainstream DCU, which I must add, is what is happening with the countdown, and Final Crisis nonsense.