Well, in news that was shocking only because it came 11 years after everyone assumed it would, Wildstorm Comics is no more.
You may remember Wildstorm as one of the corners of the Image universe at the beginning (back when it was called Homage Studios) and back when WildC.A.T.S. was in its original incarnation of a bunch of fairly transparent knockoffs of other characters, plus a Big Guy (every Image comic had a Big Guy. Liefeld had 20!) which hit big, had a good run for awhile there, then, as the mid-90s crashed caused their fortunes to sag they had Alan Moore come on board to write some books and allowed Warren Ellis to begin laying the groundwork for The Authority by introducing his stock company of characters including Sarcastic Woman Who Is Sarcastic All The Time, Mannish Strong Girl, and Thinly-Disguised Warren Ellis Manque In Black Trenchcoat in a world where everyone's an annoying, effete, douchebag (as the Wildstorm universe consisted pretty much of ciphers up to this point, this was 15% more characterization than they'd had previously), which pointed the way forward in ways that Wynonna Earp just couldn't hope to.
Meanwhile Alan Moore gave birth to the idea of America's Best Comics, which came to him in a flash of inspiration we now call "Fucking Rob Liefeld's check bounced--AGAIN." This leads to a number of well-regarded books for Wildstorm which include stuff like Jonni Future, which has gorgeous Art Adams art and absolutely no shame about layering in salacious stuff that is less "subtext" than "written in 50 foot high letters on fire." Meanwhile, The Authority hums along, with Ellis idyllic vision of a world where everyone's an asshole soon replaced by Millar's vision of a world wherein we are playthings made of offal who dance on the strings of a supreme being whose idea of "being a grown-up" is "age 16." Also, WildC.A.T.S. gets reinvented as something by Joe Casey which I had no interest in (something about corporatzing superheroes, which is not something I could not take seriously in a book featuring characters like "Warblade" and "Voodoo.") and had the upshot of making Joe Casey someone to listen to among the comics intelligentsia for a few years there, which I'm very glad to say is a time long since past.
So, DC bought Wildstorm around the turn of the century. Like when Marvel bought Mailbu comics for their colouring (I have to do a post about how they totally skullfucked the Ultraverse for a brief ugly moment right before they closed it down) their intention was to feast on the carcass of the company in much the same way a school of piranha devours a piece of meat and also as a way of cozying up to Alan Moore, in much the same way a creepy ex boyfriend cozies up to his old girlfriend by moving into the house across the street and shining a spotlight at her. Meanwhile, the critically acclaimed books that made Wildstorm if not a success, then an interesting little side project, began fading fast, culminating with Grant Morrison and Jim Lee collaborating on a relaunch of all their major books, which immediately imploded and the damn things never really ever came out (just like Image used to be!) and Wildstorm petered out into launches, relaunches, bold new directions, more relaunches, new directions, bold launches, new relaunches, and finally settled on "Oh lets just do middling video game and horror comics until Warners remembers they own us and closes us down."
So now, like a zombie, they have been shot in the head, no longer to continue their shambling undead shuffle until DC unearths them for their latest Multiverse spectacular where they will finally kill the holy fuck out of all of them. It's hard to say Wildstorm ever got what it deserved, because it never really seemed to get anything. However, if they are remembered at all (apart from, y'know, all the stuff circa 2000 that people were actually interested in) let them be remembered for teaching us the lesson that, once subsumed into a corporate hydra, you can actually survive fairly comfortably for a time, just like Milton in Office Space. However, just like Milton in Office Space, you will ultimately only be able to communicate in unintelligible gibberish by the end of it.
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You know, there was a brief moment, years after the Ellis/Millar heyday, when it looked like Wildstorm might be heading for an interesting revival - they had Christos Gage on a ground-level Stormwatch series, Ed Brubaker fixed the Authority after that horrid "Let's Take Over America" story, Gail Simone set up some interesting character beats with the new Gen13... and I have no idea what went wrong. It just seemed to quietly go off the rails just as things were starting to come together. Very odd.
I know, right? I think that was the last window where it looked like they'd really turn it around and if I remember right this was after Morrison and Jim Lee's WildC.A.T.S. completely wrecked any and all momentum just died and then they flooded the Earth and . . .errrgggghhh . . .
Actually, blowing up Wildstorm-Earth might've worked, if only because they were under no obligation to turn the clock back afterwards - they could've done an entire line on heroes trying to survive a post-apocalyptic wasteland. But it was the right idea at the wrong time: too late to generate interest, and readers ultimately saw it for what it was, a Hail Mary.
The only problem with blowing up the Earth is that the one time I saw anyone do it was in the utter dregs of the pre-Zero Hour Legion of Superheroes comic, where things were so hopeless that it just felt like they didn't care anymore.
So anytime you talk about make Earth go kablooey, it just says to we've given up."
The key, I think, is to try and imagine a present-day post-apocalyptic scenario where superheroes can only do so much, not because they'd upset the "natural order" if they went too far but because the world is damaged beyond repair. We've seen this sort of thing before, but only in an abbreviated fashion (ie: "Days of Future Past") - I can't recall any series where this was the actual status quo.
I suppose--and it's been done in the 1980s Squadron Supreme miniseries, which really addressed that question in detail. The problem is that it's now been so abused as a concept it's like super hero death, so . . .there's always some trapdoor to walk it back.
Like I said in the other post, I think that's exactly the problem: they've pulled back from that threshold so many times that when we encounter new attempts to break the status quo, the first thing we do is try to anticipate how they'll reset things in six months. There's no credibility anymore.
Yeah, and that's what's ultimately going to torpedo the whole concept of the Big Two's shared universes, because there's no new audience to roll over to and think this stuff is cool and new.
Used to be comics (like wrestling) could rely on the seven-year rule--by that time frame the audience would have been refreshed and it would be OK to haul out whatever trope you wanted to do and it would feel new to the people buying your comics. But seeing as how we've given up on new audiences completely . . .
Or rather, if there is an audience for shared universes, they're not getting their fix through comics...
Have they given up, though? So much of what Marvel and DC are doing now seems geared towards getting new readers (like this ridiculous Issue 500.1 thing), despite all evidence pointing to a complete lack of potential new audiences. Just who are they trying to snag?
Well, they've never been sold on the concept to any great extent, so more than likely, they won't know they missed out on anything.
Oh, I believe they're actually trying for a new audience, but I suspect, given their utterly stupid approach, I think they'll settle for "new audience" meaning "person who was in the comic store anyway and maybe we'll be able to hook them" which is the kind of lowered expectations you expect on a blind date, not necessarily a head on the Disney hydra.
Given that Paul Levitz is comfortable enough to go on record as saying that DC has no interest in appealing to women readers, I'd say that's quite accurate.
Yeah, thanks Paul. Glad we're doing so well as an industry we can afford to turn away people.
I'm sure girls want superheroes. Mind you, what they want may be something wholly other compared to what guys think women want in a superhero. I wonder if it's occurred to anyone to maybe, I dunno FUCKING ASK THEM.
Well, if they don't want my money, I'm happy to oblige them. :)
It's not just that, though; what Gail Simone wants in a superhero isn't necessarily what I want, you know? DC and Marvel have been treating the "problem" of female readers as if there's a single equation that would pull everyone's interest equally. And that's precisely why they're failing.
I know, right? Thanks for the three-day weekend, man! I'm happy to know I'm not needed.
Well, the thing is, they're asking the question wrong. If all that it took to get girls into comics was "You have tits, the character has tits, the person writing it has tits, so this should be perfect for you" then Linda Fite would be more than a footnote in comics history.
The solution goes deeper than tokensism. So long as women writing comics are seen as an event, it's always gonna be this walled-off thing that has to be looked at under glass, and god help the writer if it's not good, because then you get stuff like "I KNEW IT--Women can't write comics!" Until women are allowed to be a significant presence in corporate comics--enough to where adding one is no longer an event and then their success or failure is equally not an event (women should be allowed to write comics as awful and medicore as men can, I believe) then we're going to keep banging against this.
There's a "So Long and Thanks For All The Fish" joke in there, but DC doesn't want me to give them the thirty seconds it'd take to type it up...
And we'd all be reading Heavy Metal. :)
I think it goes even further than that - it's not enough to have women writing comics, they have to be willing and able to work against the stereotypes that are built into the genre. Because I think that, more than anything, is what's keeping female readers away. I mean, Gail Simone is nice and all, but it's not like she's broken any ground in her work for DC. We need women writers who can quash the notion of selling your wife to Satan so you can go bed-hopping again with a clear conscience.
They're humourless churls, aren't they? ;)
Are you saying you don't want a one-way ticket to midnight, Diana? ;)
Very true, but I feel like to make that happen there has to come an institutional change to make that possible, because right now the main directive for them seems to be "make your name writing individual stuff, then come to work at the Big Two and write like the boys, and for God's sake,don't make any trouble." So long as you're up against that, there's no encouragement to do your best work, is there?
Of the worst sort: even laughing at them has minimal entertainment value. :(
Not if this is where it leads... ;)
I just don't see how any kind of creative growth is possible when editors and writers alike just dig their heels in and refuse to move forward. At best you get stagnation - at worst, outright deterioration.
Well, it's just become . . .stupid. in a way. It's like you've been hanging out with the same people for years and years. You get high and laugh at Odd Couple re-runs and you make the mistake of coming down too soon one day and you realise how utterly stupid and futile all of it is, and none of it's funny anymore.
Going anywhere with Sammy Hagar could be construed as a bad idea. Just ask Eddie and Michael. ;)
It's a bit like the world after a nuclear war I think. Everything of value's already gone and all we've got left are a few stupid mutants fighting over whatever non-glowing crud they think they can eat that they found in the ruins of a once-proud civilisation.
It's rare I'm that poetic after dissing Sammy Hagar, y'know.
Exactly. I think that at some fairly recent point, the mainstream just decided to stop fighting the stigma of comics as juvenile and disposable, and now they're embracing it wholeheartedly. They're not even trying anymore. And I really thought they were on the verge of crossing that imaginary line into "real" literature, so getting yanked back is just a bitter, bitter disappointment.
I would, but they keep asking me if this is love, or why this can't be love. :)
In other words, it's the Wasteland from "Fallout", only less Ron Perlman and more Ron Jeremy. :)
I don't think so, actually--I think the problem is that comes forgot that they primarily needed to be juvenile and disposable . . .economically at least. Why not focus on that? You have a perpetually replenishing customer base that rotates in and out and allows for stories to have more of a turnaround because you're not burning out the same 100,000 people total. As to "real literature?" Nahh, comics were never going to be that. That's just a conspicuous status symbol that says you're a big boy. The real goal for the art form (NOT the commercial side) should be for them to simply be literary, and not sweat overmuch what anyone thinks.
I'm fine with that, I just wish they'd get it through their thick skull that I don't want any of their god damned Crystal Pepsi. :)
. . .well, I was thinking more of Larry "Bud" Mellman, but yeah, that works, too. :)
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