News: Dwayne McDuffie Off JLA

On his blog, Dwayne Mc Duffie confirmed that he has been fired from JLA.

This probably isn’t surprising given the frank comments McDuffie has been making about his frustating experiences writing the book.  McDuffie confirmed that is the reason he was fired:

“Nope, it was my own doing. I was fired when “Lying in the Gutters” ran a compilation of two years or so of my answers to fans’ questions on the DC Comics discussion boards. I’m told my removal had nothing to with either the quality of my work or the level of sales, rather with my revelation of behind-the-scenes creative discussions.”

McDuffie went on to explain where things were headed before he was fired. 

“I have to say I’m a bit disappointed, because next summer was planned to feature a JLA-driven crossover, where my book’s story line would have been the driving force. I’m distressed by where I left Black Canary, as my intention was to use the current subplot to strengthen her character and relationships with the new membership, and instead I’m leaving her at the bottom of a hole I’d intended to rebuild her from. I was also just about to get a regular artist for the first time since I’ve been on the book, which would have been nice. That said, I’m sure DC’s going to put together a creative team that will generate major excitement around JLA, which is as it should be.”

It’s definitely a shame he left Black Canary where he did.  I hated seeing the character portrayed as that weak and ineffective of a leader.  I would have liked to have seen McDuffie get a chance to rectify that.  But, oh well.

Interestingly enough, Rich Johnston of Lying in the Gutters fame posted the following response:

“I am gutted.

Obviously not as much as you.

I’m so so sorry. I certainly thought that since comments had been published by, you know, DC’s Message Board, without being removed or edited… well, I don’t know what I expected but I didn’t expect that.

I know many people found your forthrightness enlightening, interesting and thought provoking, which is why I wanted to share them.

Indeed, I didn’t get any kind bitterness or anger from you. Just an valuable, insightful, explanation of the way things work in commercial art. Compared to, say, Mark Waid’s comments on working on 52 and about Countdown, they hardly seemed as offensive or critical. Just accepting.

Damn.”

Okay, I’ll grant you that McDuffie’s comments were unusually honest.  And DC didn’t come across especially well.  But it was obvious reading Justice League that this sort of thing was going on.  Maybe not to this extent, but you could tell that McDuffie was working under extreme editorial control.

Should he have been fired?  It’s hard to say.  In my line of work, I’d definitely be fired for making negative public comments about my employer.  But as a creative field, comic books are different.  I will say that DC is giving itself even more of a black eye.  First they came across badly for not letting McDuffie write his own book.  Now they come across as petty for firing him for speaking up about it.

McDuffie really strikes me as a class act.  (Dan Didio, not so much.)  And I’m glad for him in the sense that he has plenty of other projects to work on.  And I doubt any of them will be as frustrating as working on Justice League under Didio.

My review of the McDuffie’s last issue of JLA can be read here.

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Dan DiDio Answers Mark Waid’s Remarks About “52″

Things got interesting over at Newsarama!  Check out the full article here.

Not long ago, Mark Waid gave an interview in which he said Dan DiDio hated “52″ as it was coming out.  He said DiDio called Countdown “52 done right.”  Now, if this is true, it goes a long way towards explaining why so many of DC’s books are crap.  Because Countdown wasn’t even crap done right.

Anyway, Dan answers 20 question from time to time over at Newsarama.  And to my utter amazement, they asked him about Mark Waid’s comments.  More amazing still, DiDio answered the question!  Here’s an exerpt:

In terms if rumors and folks talking about DC from a not very complementary side of things, this hasn’t been a good couple of weeks for DC. In an interview with Ain’t It Cool News, Mark Waid said some very specific things about your editorial approach and your editing of Countdown and 52 and other such projects…

DD: Let’s just discuss the role of the editor for one second. One expression that I find humorous is “editorial mandate.” I feel that expression gets thrown around a great deal. The role of the editor is to assemble and be responsible for whatever project they are in charge of. Whatever talent they hire, that is an editorial mandate. They choose to hire that talent. The amount of control they put on that talent, whether they allow them to work completely free of any editorial notes, or not, is an editorial mandate, because that’s what the editor chooses to do. If the editor decides to give notes, that’s an editorial mandate, because that’s what the editor chooses to do, because he or she, at the end of the day, is responsible for that position.

So anything that winds up on a page, whether a note is given, when a phone call is made – anything that is assembled on from any member of the talent – from the person that writes it, to the art team, to the colorist, to the letterer, to the people working on final production – it’s all editorially controlled. That is our job.

So when you say “editorial mandate,” please understand that whatever book you hold in your hand, at the end of the day, is there because of an editorial mandate to create that book. End of story.

I find it humorous because it gives the impression that no one is doing anything, other than trafficking paper. We are not in our positions to traffic paper. We are here to put out the best product possible, and everyone works very hard to do that. To say that we don’t do anything is an insult to every one of the members of my staff, and I prefer that everyone realize that, if a fan is holding a product in their hands, there is an editor in charge whose job it was to make sure that product reached them. That’s what our job is.

And how it’s assembled is the choice of the individuals who are working to the best of their ability as they are assembling that book.

NRAMA: So was Countdown “52 done right” as Mark Waid alleges that you said?

DD: The concept that I am not proud of 52 is ridiculous. Anybody here who knows me knows that the minute issue #52 of 52 hit my hands was one of my proudest moments at DC Comics. It’s something that I was involved in from the very inception of the project, and made sure that everything worked perfectly in order to achieve that. It was a project and process that we all worked for. It was the editors, the sales department, the marketing department, the production department. Every single person who worked on 52 is intensely proud of their work on that production. When we started it, we were not sure if we were going to be able to achieve our goals, and we exceeded them.

So again, any statement being said about me not being proud of 52 is erroneous.

I’m impressed Dan answered the question.  It’s not exactly a denial of what Mark Waid said though.  He could have hated 52 and said Countdown was “52 done right” and still be proud of 52.  Anyway, I thought the comments about “editorial mandate” were interesting.  I’ve bitched about “editorial mandate” before, but the man makes a point.

At the risk of posting the entire Newsarama article here, here’s a few other select exerpts that I think will be interesting to the read/RANT gang:

1. To start off with Dan, Grant Morrison has been talking about Multiversity, a project that returns him to the DC Multiverse. You’ve been mum about this, saying that nothing was ready to be talked about, but is there anything else you can add in? % sure he even existed in the first place, or is it something different?

Dan DiDio: I’d still like to stay mum on this for now, because we’re still quite a ways away from that series actually coming out. Grant is working on a number of other projects right now. What I’d like to say is that it is what we’d hoped it would be which is a story where Grant explores the various worlds of the Multiverse as only Grant could. What’s great about it is that they’re wonderful standalone stories that don’t interact with much else, so therefore they have a chance to act and breathe in their own way. So you get some really good snapshot views of what these different worlds are. And even better, we get a chance to explore these worlds which may not tie in to the DCU directly, but have a right to exist on their own.

NRAMA: And it’s him just doing that exploring and playing?

DD: Right – this is something that Grant has been talking about since 52 and since the multiverse came back, and the fun part about it is that we don’t do Elseworlds anymore to explore the different interpretations of our characters, so this is one way that we can visit that sensibility without committing ourselves to a whole series of Elseworlds projects.6. Something that came up a few times in this question thread, possibly spurred on by Blackest Night #0…Barry Allen’s return is known, Hal Jordan’s return is known. The Martian Manhunter’s death is known in the DCU. Batman’s death – there’s no question about it, no mystery about it from the point of view of the DCU. Is that playing along the lines of the “Batman as an urban legend” idea, that people weren’t 100

DD: The Batman story as it’s established – we have two different perspectives here: the story perspective and the fan perspective. From the story perspective, the DC Universe believes Batman to be dead – the heroes know he is dead, but they have kept that secret away from the world, because of what they feel might happen. The events of Battle for the Cowl shows when heroes and villains start to realize that Batman may be dead – Gotham City falls into, or tumbles towards anarchy. That’s the story there.

From the fan perspective, we all know that there’s something going on with Bruce Wayne. So therefore, we’re going to see reflections of the Bruce Wayne story, the Batman story as it plays out in the DC Universe in all of the Batman books and reflections of it in Blackest Night. The fan knows – or the fans might guess – that was not Batman’s body that was recovered as a skeleton in Final Crisis #6, but nobody else knows that. Part of the year we have coming ahead of us is the exploration of what that means to the DC Universe – what that body represents, and more importantly, what actually happened to Bruce Wayne, and the mystery surrounding him.

7. Wait – that wasn’t Bruce Wayne’s skeleton?

DD: Did I say that?

NRAMA: You said that.

DD: Did I?

NRAMA: Yes.

DD: Dammit. Then who was the guy in the cave if that wasn’t Bruce Wayne’s skeleton?

NRAMA: That’s a very good question, but so is: Did Superman find a body, take that dead body’s clothes off, and put a Batman costume on a dead body, just to carry it outside? That puts Superman into a creepy new light…

DD: See, I know I didn’t say that. Now you’re starting to suppose something else. I’m saying that there was a skeleton. It did have a Batman costume on it, but whose skeleton that is, where it came from, who is the man in the cave, where is the man in the cave – those are all stories we’ll be exploring in the course of the coming year.

10. Given that is has been used so…heavily in the DCU, will “death” still be as strong as a story point after Blackest Night as it was before?

DD: Following Blackest Night, I think that death is a trick we will not be using very often – or at all for a long, long time. There is a finality of what goes on in Blackest Night, and there is an explanation of the “revolving door” sense of death in the DCU that’s part of the Blackest Night storyline.

NRAMA: So are you going to go as far as to say, “Dead is dead?” Someone else talked themselves into a corner that fans wanted to hold him accountable for all time after a statement like that…

DD: Eh – the problem with “dead is dead” is that it works until the next person comes along, or times change. We have a lot of characters and a lot of stories to tell, and to speak in absolutes is never the way to go. It limits your potential and possibilities.

12. Fair enough. Moving on, both you and George Perez have hinted at a DC event coming in 2010…

DD: Did we really?

NRAMA: You both have.

DD: Could it be the same one?

NRAMA: I would hope so, otherwise, you’re planning two events for one year, and readers can get rather iffy about that… Is this a situation where threads are already being laid out, and clues are being planted, or…

DD: in regards to the project with George, the answer is “the opposite.” The fun part about working with George is that he loves the challenge. No matter the project we give him, by the next project, we always feel we have to do one better. Given the number of characters and story he’s telling in Legion of 3 Worlds, you can only imagine how daunting that task must be.

So therefore, I’m happy to say that we’ve come up with a project that gives George the opportunity to examine what makes the DCU great. That’s as far as I’m gonna go.

16. A quick clarification on the status of the Hawks – the seemed to have died in Final Crisis, but in Blackest Night #0, they’re alive and well…

DD: What happened was that during the whole integration of the Multiverse in Final Crisis where we saw a version of Aquaman appearing from another Earth, so was the case with the Hawkman and Hawkgirl that met their fate in Final Crisis. That said, the Hawks are very prominently featured in Blackest Night #1, and are very much alive at the start of that book.

NRAMA: Just at the start?

DD: I’m gonna stand with what I said. (laughs)

How Many Green Arrows is Too Many?

First, I want to thank geist0 for the link to his article about the number of potentially redundant characters running around the DCU these days.  You can read his original article here.  In the article, geist0 suggests that all of these characters shouldn’t be running around the DCU at the same time.

It’s a difficult situation.  And as a big fan of some of those characters, it’s one that’s near and dear to my heart.  So, I’m going to borrow/steal his topic and ramble on for a few paragraphs.  Thanks again, geist0! 

I started reading comics in the early 90s.  It was a strange time to get into comics.  Superman had just died.  And suddenly, every character in comics was getting replaced with a newer, hipper, edgier version.  Most of these replacements were never intended to go the distance.  But some of them had pretty good runs.

I remember when Kyle Rayner first replaced Hal Jordan.  I’ll admit, I was won over really quickly.  I grew up on Hal, but was never really attached to him as anything more than a cool costume and cool powers.  But I could relate to Kyle.  We were about the same age and we were both struggling to find our places in the world.

In those early days, I was always afraid someone was going to pull the rug out from under Kyle.  DC frequently hinted that Hal Jordan might return as Green Lantern.  Each time they pulled that stunt, it worried me a little less.   Eventually, I accepted that Kyle would have a good, long run as Green Lantern.

I always figured one day he would be replaced.  But to tell the truth, I didn’t think Hal would ever be back as GL.  DC had gone to great lengths to make that seem impossible.  First they turned him into a sympathetic villain.  Then they gave him a redemptive death.  And finally, they turned him into the Spectre!  It just got cazier and crazier.

Probably my favorite book at the time was Mark Waid’s the Flash.  I came on board at the same time as the late, great Mike Wieringo.  But I quickly caught up on back-issues to the beginning of Waid’s run.  Wally was my Flash and I loved him.  I related to him just as much as I did Kyle.

I came to know Barry Allen too in flashbacks or the occasional time travel story.  I liked Barry in his role of patron saint of Flashes.  And I was fine reading about his past adventures.  But it always confused me that anyone wanted this guy back as the Flash.  Wally was just so much more interesting to me.

Another phenomenon of the 90s was the creation of new teen heroes.  The third Robin was getting his own mini-series which eventually let to his own series.  One of the replacement Supermen became Superboy who also got his own series.  And a new Kid Flash (but don’t call him that!) showed up in the form of Bart Allen/Impulse.

Yep, I loved all these guys too.  Even with Superboy’s ridiculous costume.  They were just a lot of fun.  To tell you the truth, I miss fun comics.  There’s still a few of them around, sure.  But it seems like they are fewer and fewer in the post-Identity Crisis DC.  (And yes, I still miss Young Justice.)

Well, nothing good lasts forever.  Although sales on his book are still solid, the Connor Hawke Green Arrow book was canceled to make room for Kevin Smith’s relaunch featuring Ollie Queen.  While I enjoyed Smith’s take on Ollie’s return, I read each issue waiting for the inevitable.  I figured Connor would have to be bumped off to make room for Ollie.

To me, the smartest thing Smith did in his relaunch was to keep Connor alive.  He even made room for him as a supporting character.  It seemed like the best of both worlds.  To my surprise, the DC Universe was big enough for two Green Arrows plus Arsenal.

Later on, Judd Winick took over the book.  One of his largest contributions to the GA mythos was transforming Mia Dearden from a wayward teen into the new Speedy.  As the Green Arrow family grew, you started to wonder how many archers the DCU really needed.

Meanwhile, Kyle Rayner’s run as Green Lantern came to an unglamorous end.  Hal Jordan’s return was the next big thing at DC.  And once again I read each passing issue with a sense of dread.  Surely, Kyle was a goner.

To my surprise, Kyle stuck around.  DC didn’t seem to know what to do with him.  But they kept him around nonetheless.  The Green Lantern book belonged solely to Hal.  There was no room for Kyle even as a supporting character.  Instead, he would be part of the ensemble cast of the Green Lantern Corps.

And then, he wasn’t.  Instead, he was turned into Ion and given his own on-going series.  Then the series that had been previously announced as on-going became a 12-issue maxi-series.  The maxi-series just kind of ended in an unsatisfying non-conclusion that set things in place for Kyle’s next transformation.

In the Sinestro Corps War storyline, Kyle was stripped of his Ion power and possessed by Parallax.  I had a bunch of reactions to this.  One was that it was a pretty cool, unexpected twist.  But I also knew right away that Kyle would be forced to kill someone as Parallax to even the score.  Kyle fans could no longer hold Hal’s crimes as Parallax against him.  The score would be evened up.

Then things got weird.  Unfortunately, Kyle got dragged into the mess that was Countdown.  The less said about Countdown, the better.  But dammit, I don’t know when to shut up.

When I saw the teaser art for Countdown, the thing that excited me the most was the shot of Kyle standing next to Donna Troy.  In the early days, the Kyle/Donna relationship was one of the things that sucked me in.  And thanks to John Byrne, that relationship ended suddenly.  Byrne wanted sole use of Donna.  So she was ripped away from Green Lantern.

For years, I waited to see some kind of resolution to the Kyle/Donna relationship.  I didn’t need to see them back together, but I wished DC would give them a better parting.  But with Donna’s death and resurrection, DC just never got around to it.  So, when I saw that image on the Countdown teaser, I thought I would finally get the resolution I was seeking.

Instead, Donna had a weird and uncharacteristic crush on badboy Jason Todd through most of Countdown.  And when Kyle showed up, everyone started acting weird.  Kyle seemed jealous of Jason in spite of the fact that 1) there didn’t seem to be anything going on between Donna and Jason and 2) Kyle and Donna had broken up years ago.

Anyway, Kyle finally settled down in Green Lantern Corps.  He gets treated pretty well there.  But he’s definitely been marginalized as a character.  Personally, I’m just happy to have him around in a book I can read without wretching.

Connor and Kyle are one thing.  Wally West is something else entirely.  Wally has been the Flash for a long time.  Barry Allen died over 20 years ago.  His death was considered one of the few constants in the DC Universe.  Anyone else could be brought back.  But bringing back Barry was considered a sacrilege.

Besides, Wally had gotten very popular as the Flash.  Mark Waid had a long and popular run which was briefly interrupted by a year-long run by Grant Morrison.  And when Waid finally left the book, a young upstart named Geoff Johns took over the book.  Johns stepped up with a long, popular Flash run of his own.

Little by little, the seeds were sown for Wally’s downfall.  Mark Waid ended his run with a wedding.  In interviews, he said he did so to keep DC from killing off Linda Park – a character he had grown to love.  Later, Johns had the couple get pregnant.  At first, the storyline seemed to end in a miscarriage.  But through the magic of comics, Johns ended his run with the Wests having twins.

Suddenly, the former Teen Titan seemed older than most of the other superheroes in the DCU.  He had more responsibilities than Superman.  The once relatable Wally West was starting to seem like dad.  Or worse, Reed Richards.

DC’s solution was to more or less move Wally and the Wests off stage for a while.  In Wally’s place, we got an age-accelerated Bart Allen as the Flash. 

(Age-acceleration is never a good idea.  Remember I said that.  It will come back later.)

DC has said that they never intended Bart to be the Flash for long.  But surely they never imagined the backlash that followed.  Bart’s run was a disaster.  Bart was quickly killed off and Wally was brought back from the Speed Force limbo he had been sent to.

Fan-favorite Mark Waid was brought back to write the new adventures of the Flash.  But Waid had a problem.  What do you do with the twins?  His solution was to age-accelerate them to a more acceptable age.  Suddenly, Wally seemed a lot like Mr. Incredible.

No one wanted to read about Wally as a suburban dad and Waid was more or less booed offstage.  Wally’s book ended again and the once-unthinkable happened.  Barry Allen was brought back.

There was a time when I would have been outraged by such a move.  Barry’s death should never be reversed.  Wally has earned his place as the Flash.  But by now, DC had screwed up Wally so badly that I almost welcomed Barry back.

We’re merely two issues into Barry’s return.  So, who knows what the future holds.  So far, I’m a little underwhelmed (read my review of issue 2 here).

Back to the original question. How many Green Arrows (or Flashes if you will) are too many? Some people feel like having a bunch or archers or speedsters (or Kryptonians) running around dilutes the concept. It’s hard for me to argue against that.

But, we’ve also seen what happens when DC limits itself to one version of each character. When DC enforced a 1-Kryptonian law after the John Byrne reboot, the old Superman concepts slowly crept back into continuity anyway.

During the Kyle years, there was a decree in place that Kyle would be the last and only Green Lantern. Guy was stripped of his ring and given ridiculous new powers. Alan had to change his name. But eventually, the whole Corps came back.

DC EIC Dan Didio came very close to killing off Dick Grayson based on the idea that he was just a watered-down Batman. Thank goodness Geoff Johns talked him out of that one.

My point is, I don’t think having these characters around is inherently a problem. What I do see as a problem is when DC tells bad stories just to keep them around. (See Kyle Rayner in Countdown.)

Recently, Judd Winick ended his run by revamping Connor Hawke. It was the kind of hatchet job Winick’s critics expect of him. Everything that made Connor unique was stripped of him. The peace-loving vegetarian who was raised in a monestary started wolfing down meaty chili and beating thugs to a pulp on rooftops. Suddenly, he couldn’t shoot an arrow to save his life. But he had a kewl new healing factor to make up for it.

And then he was written off stage. DC butchered the character only to write him off stage anyway. Why?

Needless to say, I’d have been happy if they just sent Connor back to the monestary without the extreme make-over. He’s got a built-in way to be moved on and off-stage as DC sees fit. This one seemed like a no-brainer.

But what about Wally? Didio has said in interviews that he sees Wally’s future being bright just like Kyle Rayner’s. What? Look, Kyle’s got a pretty good thing going all things considered. But in no way is this a fitting treatment for Wally. Wally should not be marginalized to a supporting role in Titans (a book in desperate need of a new creative team).

I’d rather see Wally written off stage for a while. Let him live with his family. (No getting rid of them now!) He can come back in a dramatic fashion for the big Flash stories and DC events.

But, here’s my concern with the “off stage” solution. I don’t trust DC to handle it elegantly. When a character moves off stage in the DC Universe, they become cannon fodder for those “event” stories DC is addicted to these days.

In order to justify it’s existence, every event story needs at least one “shocking” death or resurrection.  It’s sad.  But as long as people keep buying these things, DC’s going to keep killing off and resurrecting characters in a morbid, vicious cycle.

So, what’s the answer?  Do we need two Green Arrows a Red Arrow and a Speedy in the DCU?  Is the world better off if Connor Hawke or Mia Dearden are killed off in some bloody fashion?  Can we trust DC to keep them off stage until a story warrants their return?

I don’t know.  But I love a lot of these characters.  And I can only hope that DC does right by them.  Unfortunately, DC’s track record tells me to expect otherwise.

For more comic goodness, go here.

Review: Countdown #2 & #1

Issue #2 picks up right where #3 left off: Jimmy Olsen and Darkseid duking it out. Of course, Olsen gets his butted kicked. Why? Because Jimmy Olsen MUST DIE! Oh shoot, who’s that!? It’s Orion, son of Darkseid and he’s got a knuckle sandwich for his pops. BOOM!!! Cosmic explosions!!! City in ruins!!! What should we do Superman? “Nothing,” said Superman. I was totally into this issue till Superman showed up. Why did we need those panels? It just makes these guys look like idiots. Darkseid and his spawn are ripping the shit out of the city, thousands of people are in danger and the fricking Justice League is sitting on their hands? ON PURPOSE!?!? That scene could have been left out completely! It totally draws attention to obvious plot holes!!! BAD WRITING ALERT!!! Anyway, the issue ends with Orion ripping his dear old dad’s heart out. Prophecy Fulfilled.

As for the final issue of Countdown… I have to admit, I honestly don’t feel qualified commenting on it. I missed about 8 months of this story so anything I say now is an educated guess at best. But I’ll say my piece anyway. As final issues go, it felt lackluster. Maybe I’m just not invested enough in the characters… how could I be? Anyway, there were a few things I do feel comfortable making fun of, like this: OH… MY… GAY? Someone needs to explain that one to me. And this “who watches the watchers” crap? How are you going to enforce what ever it is you think you’re going to enforce, Kyle? Stuff like this is why I’m glad I missed this boat. Having read the final issue, I feel vindicated in my decision in not investing 100+ dollars on this pile of cat feces.

Oh, but the covers were nice. Heh.

Review: Countdown #4 & #3