Friday, August 31, 2012

Superman Dating Wonder Woman…*BLEECH*

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Nu and allegedly improved DC Universe DC Comics announces that Superman and Wonder Woman are a Supercouple.

*FACEPALM*

It’s clear to me Goeff Johns is out of ideas. So is DC Comics.

Are these professionally crafted stories or is it just glorified fanfiction getting published these days? Does anyone know how to tell a STORY at DC Comics these days?

Superman dating Wonder Woman? Seriously?

Just 12 issues into the new DC Universe. With no buildup, no storylines. No organic progression. It just happens out of the blue. A random shock event to get people talking about comics because the shine has worn off DCnU and the sales have plummeted back to the old numbers.

A random shock event to get people talking about comics they’ll NEVER BUY because….

*Wait for Shawn’s broken record….*

THEY CAN’T FIND THE DAMN THINGS AT RETAIL OUTSIDE OF A COMIC SHOP.

Flash over substance. Complete and utter bullshit.

Because the four stooges Goeff Johns, Dan Didio, Bob Harras, and Jim Lee want it, not because it has anything to do with a long-term over-reaching story arc.

These days comic books seem to be written and drawn with no sense of storytelling craft or business planning. But this is par for the course with DC Comics. Ever since Dan Didio took charge of that publishing division it has gone straight to Hell. DC comics are now just a circle jerk for over 35 White male fanboys who project themselves into the roles of the characters, not a place where quality commercial product is produced for readers of all ages.

Superman getting with Wonder woman is just them jizzing one of their wet dreams all over the pages of a DC Comic.

Now here’s the problem with Superman dating Wonder Woman: It’s all payoff with no set-up. Shock writing and shock marketing at its finest. The audience has no reason to actively invest in the story.

Any good writer worth their salt knows you don’t payoff a story too soon. It’s bad showmanship.

A good writer teases. They leave something to the reader’s imagination. They whet their appetite for more.

In this Superman/Wonder Woman romance where’s the build-up? Where’s the HEAT? Any good soap writer or romance writer will tell you that to create a supercouple the story needs to be BUILT UP over a LONG period of time. You have to develop up the characters and their interpersonal relationships. A smile. A look. A little Flirting here. A little conversation there. You have to give the audience a REASON to BUY IN. You have to give them obstacles to overcome that allow the audience to get to know them. To relate to them. To identify with them. You have to give them a reason TO CARE.

That can’t be done in just 12 issues. Look at the great comic couples. Superman and Lois Lane. Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor. Mr. Fantastic and the Invisble Woman. Ant-Man and Wasp. Ben Grimm and Alicia Masters Johnny Storm and Crystal. Dick Grayson and Starfire. Batman and Catwoman. Batman and Talia. Cyclops and Jean Grey. Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy. Spider-Man and Black Cat. Spider-Man and Mary Jane. Tony Stark and Whitney Frost. Bruce Banner and Betty Ross. Cyclops and Emma Frost. It took YEARS to build up the romance, the chemistry and the attraction between these characters. To emotionally invest the reader in their stories. To make them CARE enough to keep buying until the story PAID OFF with that DEFINING MOMENT where they professed their love for each other.

As the writers built up the readers’ anticipation of will they/won’t they get together it got people talking. Telling their friends how great these comics were. That’s what sold comics.

Not another poorly planned event with some shock marketing wrapped around it.

And this event just makes Shawn roll his eyes.

Because it shows him that the people running DC Comics just don’t get it. Wrap the iconic characters up in new costumes and place them in a new universe, but the writing and art still is just as poorly planned and executed as Identity Crisis was in 2004.

The way Superman and Wonder Woman become a couple in DCnU isn’t something special. It’s just business as usual. Throwing shit on a wall and hoping something sticks. A desperate attempt to get people excited about comics without giving them a reason to care about them. Attention whoring masquerading as marketing.

Didio Fiddles as DC Burns. Johns is on Bass. Harras is on drums and Jim Lee is on the tambourine.

Shawn feels sorry for the next editor in chief/publisher/whoever who has to come in and clean up the shitpile at DC Comics when the four stooges finally get their walking papers. The long-term systemic damage these four idiots are doing to the DC Comics brand may be irreparable. Thanks to these guys and their mismanagement of DC Comics a generation of kids may never discover how great DC Comics and DC Comics characters are.

2 comments:

  1. Maybe that might be the same reason why some Flash readers have come to dislike the pairing of Barry Allen with another, albeit less prominent, character almost out of the blue. If I am not mistaken, there is this character whom Barry dated in the stories for a long time known as Iris West (and both of them came to be grandparents of Bart Allen).
    But in more recent stories, Iris West got written out of the relationship as soon as a substitute was quickly put in a relationship with Barry without much development into how and why they are dating. (To make matters worse, this put Bart's relation to Barry in doubt as he was initially Barry's grandson or at least a blood relative).
    Here's a link to this:

    It's not necessarily PC in nature but it makes you wonder why would DC automatically replace one character in that pairing for another without much planning or development. It's basically the Rodimus Effect (as you have described) in action because a substitute gets quickly shoved it without much planning and how it effects the readers who are trying to understand the story or have known that story for years but don't want changes that come inorganically.

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  2. I am sort of glad this dumpster fire romance failed and Superman and Lois Lane got reestablished. maybe it could have worked if they actually planned the thing out properly but the truth be told is that this idea was terrible from the beginning any way. Since it would have been seen as yet another failed attempt to make it work. Quite frankly this would have just been a better used as opportunity to fix WOnder Woman and Steve Trevor's romance that got written out by DC in the 80's and Steve's been even under George Perez was shunted sides ways.

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