And this ends the second day of C2E2. What did we learn today? We learned that DC Artists make really bad panelists when DC Writers should be featured, but they make great panelists when DC Artists should be featured. We also learned that any phrase that includes “Wally West” will force everyone who is connected to DC to slip into a vexed silence. DC panels are quite like playing a guessing game where the rules are hidden, the vocabulary is hidden, and the success of your attempts are also hidden. It’s magnificently fun and actually a delight, especially when played with annoying children who ask impertinent questions to utterly disaffected DC staffers.
We also learned that DC is wholly preoccupied with how their fans had reacted poorly to the idea that the new event, called Flashpoint would require a significant number of purchases. DC spent an inordinate amount of time trying to “cover their ass” by informing us all that the financial burden wouldn’t be that bad and that we could all read the central work and none of the tie-ins and still enjoy the work. Shortly thereafter Marvel announced their big event with the exact same protestations that nobody really had to buy the entire run but only purchase a core number of books to get enjoyment from the story. Nothing like aggressive retreat in the face of decline. Snatching the brass ring of failure from the maw of a dark and uncertain future.
It’s good to note that DC and Marvel still behave like petulant children when it comes to each other. The fans are pretty much ignorant of the distinctions and many DC fans like Marvel work and the opposite is also true. The backbiting and sniping however are quite choice. Really it’s a pissing match between Warner Brothers and Disney. It’s quite something to watch Bugs Bunny piss all over Mickey Mouse. It just helps build that image that whatever you thought about the health of your inner child is properly violated now that the two companies that you thought would never turn on you and treat you like a slab of cash-stuffed meat-product, in fact, are.
About midway today I was so tired of DC treating this as a throwaway trash event that I was close to giving up on the entire company. I read Brightest Day only because I have respect for the lead writer and I have hope that the story will go somewhere before it ends. It feels a lot like a Stephen King novel, which is to say very flat for 80% and maximally great for the last 20%. I vowed I would never read another Stephen King book sohelpmegod, and I’m getting close to throwing Brightest Day in with Stephen King.
Marvel is just an exercise in impenetrability. I fell off the Marvel wagon years ago and I have no idea where to start. Because I can’t get started again I don’t really feel like I want to start. There’s five or six, maybe, events between Civil War and Fear Itself, and I don’t really care that much to even try to come up with the right questions that might give me some traction. So Marvel keeps on publishing and have created several tounge-in-cheek comedy gold moments, like the endless Deadpool titles, the Rainbow of Hulks, and an endless house of mirrors when you bring up the word “Avengers”. Now Marvel is trying to address this with “.1” releases, but it has the same stain that these overarching events have, that it feels like a cash-grab. When I was a kid I really liked the Fantastic Four. Now that I’m an adult I read it and even after reading a dozen issues it has lost that special feeling I used to have, so I’ve stopped caring about it, stopped reading it, and I don’t really think much of it any longer. It occupies no mind-space in my head. DC used to, but ever since the blind wandering that is Brightest Day (read: The Stephen King-ization) I’ve been finding it very hard to continue interest in DC’s work either.
This leads to the next blog entry, which is a marvelous load of WTF laid by Marvel just tonight in my email inbox. That gem is coming up next.
