Wonder Woman and the Paternal Narrative

Author’s Note: This is a long one. At first glance it may look like a critique of Brian Azzarello’s Wonder Woman. And it is, although there are many aspects of his work I don’t touch upon. But it’s actually a discussion of the almost-universal Paternal Narrative, the scarce-as-hen’s-teeth Maternal Narrative, and the way female-centric stories are represented (or not) in DC Comics and elsewhere - all seen through the lens of Wonder Woman #1-35.

Wonder Woman and the Paternal Narrative: the Rise of Wonder Woman, the Fall of Women

“We’ve cleaned her up. You can describe who she is now. She’s got the specific description now just like Batman or Superman. She’s the daughter of a god.” - Brian Azzarello

In heroic literature there is a tradition called the Paternal Narrative, also known as “Luke I Am Your Father” Syndrome. (I’d say Patriarchal Narrative, but that word is used in so many different contexts that its meaning gets overloaded.) It states that, if a hero’s parents are important to his story, the father will be of most importance; the mother will be secondary or even irrelevant. The father may be a powerful man - heroic or villainous - from whom the hero gets his skills, personality, or powers. The hero will try to measure up to, oppose, reconcile with, or redeem his father. The mother may be given some interesting backstory, often after the main tale is told - or not - but mainly exists to link child and father.

This is, of course, common throughout the primary tales of Western literature (Hercules, Jesus), modern popular culture (Luke Skywalker), and certainly mainstream comic books. It’s rife in DC Comics, and always has been.

As  a child, Hal Jordan sees his test-pilot father deliberately and heroically crash his plane to save innocent people on the ground. Jordan goes on the become a test pilot, and then, as Green Lantern, a great hero, overcoming fear and risking his life for others just like his father did. Can anybody tell me what Hal Jordan’s mother did? Did she have a job? Raising three sons as a single mother is an eminently respectable and difficult thing to do, but the Hal Jordan story does not highlight or even depict this in any way, or suggest how it causes Hal to become the hero he becomes. It does not drive the narrative or the characterization.

If you read Superman over the decades, you see Jor-el as the most brilliant scientist on Krypton, who predicts Krypton’s destruction when everyone else gets it wrong. He is the creator of the spaceship that takes the infant Kal-el to Earth, as well as virtually every important invention on Krypton, including the Phantom Zone projector. In some stories he gets to come to Earth briefly before Krypton explodes and be a proto-Superman. Silver Age stories traced his ancestry through a lineage (all male) of amazing scientific minds. Throughout all this, Lara is… his devoted wife.

Modern stories may try to flesh out Lara a little more - she’s a member of a warrior clan, she comes from an important family too. (She’s even given a maiden name!) But it doesn’t add up to much, and it doesn’t stick. Read this description of Jor-el from The New 52’s World’s Finest #27 (“The Secret History of Superman & Batman”), published in the “post-feminist” year of 2014: “[He] strode across the giant planet like a titan, a last genetic remnant of the ancient days when their sun was strong, their lives long, and their deeds a song of glory.” (Admittedly Lois Lane, telling the story, mentions that this is Clark’s version, and he “always did tend to overdo the melodrama.” But she doesn’t contradict him.) Here’s Lois’s report on Clark’s description of his mother: “---“. In this particular story, Jor-el’s attempt to save Krypton results in its premature destruction, and Lara has to suggest that he use the tiny rockets he has built to save some children. But none of this is played for irony; Lara and Lois still praise his brilliance, courage, and integrity. Certainly nobody thought the story might be centered around Lara instead.

"And your mom - I hear she was nice."

In every version of Krypton that we’ve seen, children take their family names from their father - it seems to be a default for all worlds in the DC multiverse. And so we have Kal-el, Kara Zor-el, and characters who wind up being named Kon-el and H’el despite their more tenuous relationship to the family. There are countless references to the House of El. The House of Van? I can’t tell you much about that. 

Bruce Wayne sees both his parents murdered before his eyes, and admittedly the image of his mother’s pearls falling to the ground is common. But when he sits in the Frank Miller chair in Wayne Manor, bleeding to death, he calls out to his father - not his parents - for a supernatural sign that he shouldn’t die. And he constantly encounters busts of his father in the house; they must have had a mold made. In some Silver Age stories, Thomas Wayne dons a costume and acts like a proto-Batman. Martha Wayne, like Lara, has been given a little backstory in recent years, but the idea that in any version of Batman - Earth 1, Earth 2, New Earth, anywhere - his mother would be the admired doctor from a wealthy family, and his father a helpful sort who uses his spouse’s money for philanthropy, seems outside the character’s mythos. And would inevitably be condemned by some as “too P.C.”.

The Paternal Narrative applies to female characters as well. Kara Zor-el’s father was, for most of his existence, a literal twin of Jor-el, both biologically and as a character. He saved Argo City, created the Survival Zone, and built the rocket that sent his daughter to safety and her superheroic role. If you want to know how much thought went into her mother’s role, look at her name: Alura. She’s alluring, we get it. (In some stories, especially the New Krypton saga, she gets to do more. These are not typical or lasting.) Helena Wayne, the pre-Crisis On Infinite Earths Huntress, is the daughter of both Batman and Catwoman - but is generally known as “the daughter of Batman,” as he is a far more important and better-known character than Catwoman, who is essentially a member of his supporting cast. (The Huntress’s origin, including the death of her mother, was built around Selina Kyle’s fear that her husband Bruce Wayne would judge and reject her for unwittingly killing someone in the past. He judges, she fears.) After CoIE, Helena Bertinelli’s origin as the Huntress was based on the fact that her father was a Gotham City mafia boss; her heroism is defined in opposition to his criminality, and her struggle not to be as brutal as he was. If her mother is anything other than “the wife of a mafia boss,” I’ve never heard it. (In one storyline Helena discovers that her father was actually a different mafia boss, who had an affair with her mother. This revelation is a key point in the plot. Her mother is still a cipher.) In The New 52, the Huntress is again the daughter of (Earth-2’s) Batman and Catwoman. But count the number of times she mentions her father compared to mentioning her mother. She was Robin to his Batman. Batman’s life on this Earth is, as usual, of vast importance; he, Superman, and Wonder Woman died saving the world, and there is a grand statue celebrating their sacrifice (Earth 2: World’s End #1). Catwoman is unceremoniously blasted out of existence by a parademon, and people don’t really talk about her after that. When Huntress, corrupted by an evil New God, confronts her grandfather Thomas Wayne, she screams “Where were you when my father died?” Presumably she remembers that her mother died too, but she doesn't mention it. (Oh, yes, it turns out that Helena’s paternal grandfather, Thomas Wayne, is alive, and takes on the Batman identity after his son dies. Catwoman’s remaining family, if any, is not part of the narrative. It’s all daddy stories around here.)

Jade was a popular (and much-missed) DC superhero, the daughter of Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern, and Rose Scott (nee Canton), the briefly reformed supervillain Thorn (the Golden Age “Rose and Thorn”). Jade’s powers, down to their color-coding, were taken entirely from her father, and her storylines were heavily influenced by her relationship to him - their finding each other, accepting each other, becoming truly father and daughter. Her mother, believed to be dead, showed up for one arc and then conveniently died. There was a single 8-page story that toyed with the concept of her having some of her mother’s plant-based powers, but it was immediately forgotten because it didn’t fit in with the character concept: Green Lantern’s Daughter. (Her brother Obsidian’s powers - shadow-based rather than light-based - were not derived from their mother either, but from the influence of either the villain Ian Karkull or the alien force Starheart, depending on the story. And his stories also heavily Alan-Scott centric. Really, their mother could have been anyone.)

My examples are taken from DC superheroes, but they don’t need to be limited to them. From my earlier days reading Marvel, I know a great deal about Reed Richards’ father Nathaniel - his time machine, his disappearance, his schemes. I know nothing about Reed’s mother. Indiana Jones spent an entire movie having an adventure with his father, leading to their reconciliation. I suppose he had a mother at one time. For three “episodes,” Luke Skywalker yearns for, recoils from, and is finally saved by his father, from whom he inherited his midichlorian powers. His mother is not even mentioned until the following three prequels, where she exists mainly to explain Anakin’s character development; she dies in childbirth, and her specific character traits and history have no direct impact on Luke’s story - and she has no powers to pass on. Clark “Doc” Savage, Jr…. Well, you get the point.

There are some exceptions. Aquaman inherits his powers and royalty from his mother, although I feel sure that readers are far more likely to remember his lighthouse-keeper father; Atlanna’s fate - and powers, if any -  were always so vague and mutable to making it hard to say exactly how she influenced her son’s heroism . (Another aquatic hero, Namor the Sub-mariner, was more influenced by his mother. These stories were inspired by old legends of human men taking mermaid or selkie brides.) Some second-generation heroes avoid the father-based narrative - Infinity, Inc.’s Fury (Hippolyta Trevor) was the daughter of Wonder Woman and the entirely human Steve Trevor; after Crisis on Infinite Earths, she was ostensibly the daughter of the earlier Fury (Helena Kosmatos), although there are large gaps in that story that never got filled in. (Digression: this is one reason I was unhappy when The New 52 took hold - mysteries from the previous continuity would never be resolved.) Other legacy characters, however,  such as Jesse Quick, were based on their fathers even when both parents were superheroes. In any case, these examples pale in comparison, in both number and narrative strength, to the far more common Paternal Narrative.

And now I’ll tell you a secret: I am not opposed to the Paternal Narrative. I’ve used it myself sometimes. It’s familiar. It resonates with stories familiar to us from childhood, from Greek myths to Biblical tales. (Admittedly those stories stem from sexist cultures, but most of us are not about to throw them out.) It is useful in some cases precisely because it does not challenge assumptions that a writer may not wish to engage with in a particular story. It even has a (weak) “bioliterary” excuse: given the facts or pregnancy, it’s easier to write a story in which characters are surprised by who their father is than by who their mother is. Although I’m not sure “easy” is always the best storytelling choice.

What I am opposed to is the Paternal Narrative’s relentless ubiquity, the way it can be expected to pop up in almost any story. It is so standard, so easy to make a key element of a story be:

• “The hero’s father was a hero/villain/adventurer/inventor,,,,”
• “The hero wishes to live up to his or her father’s example; or is afraid of becoming just like his or her father....”
• “The hero’s life changes when he or she discovers that his or her real father is….”

Fathers, in these stories, have significant traits, character arcs, influence. Mothers are generally far less well defined, mainly used for their biological function: she gave birth to the father’s child. Not much more needs to be known. The message this communicates is that the hero’s father has a vital and specific role in his child’s narrative, the mother a generic role that could be played by any non-specific woman. Men’s personalities drive the narrative, whether the hero is male or female; women give birth, and don’t need much of a personality. (A mother with a strong personality would often get in the way in a story like this. It’s no surprise so many die in childbirth, or not long after.)

There was exactly one well-known, easily recognized - “iconic” - DC superhero (not second-generation, not a legacy) that not only avoided the Paternal Narrative, but subverted it, presented us with a real counterpoint to it. Exactly one, and that was Wonder Woman.

Doctor Bifrost Tells More

Hartley addresses Wally's question: isn't the Joker gay? 1991

If you read my intro piece, you know that I believe in the value of worldbuilding. Yeah, I’m one of those. A Consistency & Continuity Freak. Although in fact I think that continuity and consistency are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to decent worldbuilding. And I also accept that worldbuilding can’t be the be-all and end-all of a story, and that there are sometimes trade-offs with the other important aspects of storytelling: dialog, pacing, character, theme, and so on. Mainly I look for a good-faith effort.

Here’s something else I believe: the stories we tell one another are important. They reflect how we feel and they reflect our culture. And they influence how we feel and they influence our culture.

And stories don’t exist in a vacuum. When I read a story, I don’t experience it in isolation. I read it in context: as a part of all DC Universe stories, as an example of a genre, as a continuation of - or a response to - all the stories that came before. That’s not really a choice on my part; it’s just the kind of reader I am. I think stories (and the people who read and write them) are in a constant, churning conversation with each other, and I’m aware of that in the same way that I’m aware of whether a new Green Arrow costume looks cool or whether the pacing of a story arc is expertly done. It’s all significant to me as a reader.

So when I see Starfire in the first issues of The New 52 Red Hood and the Outlaws, and someone quickly says, “Hey, she just happens to be an alien from a planet where the girls are really hot and don’t like to wear clothes much and will have sex without strings with you and your buddy both, ‘cause it’s an alien planet, bro!” I can think, yeah, she’s just one character, she just “happens to be” that character. But I also think of the character in the context of how women have been portrayed in DC Comics over the years, and the roles of women in adventure stories, and how women are treated more generally in our culture. And then I have a somewhat different reaction. And I am aware of the choices that the author and artist and editor have made, and that they haven’t made them in a vacuum.

Or when I look back on my much earlier days as a reader - a gay kid who didn’t want to admit that even to himself, and saw no (apparently) gay characters in superhero comics at all - or for that matter in the movies and TV shows I was watching, or most of the science fiction and fantasy I was reading - and I remember that the first characters I saw in a superhero comic who could be thought of as gay were two brutal, campy thugs in a public shower room who threatened to rape Bruce Banner (poor choice of victim, that)... well, I can think, hey, there are bad, violent gay people in the world, and these just happen to be two of them. Or I can think, in a larger context, that comics creators have chosen for years to avoid showing any gay characters in comics, and these two violent, ugly stereotypes are the first ones who want to present? In a society where many people already have negative stereotypes about gays, and violence against gays was all too common, what message is the writer communicating with this choice?

Because stories have messages. And themes. And communicate ideas. Sometimes these are explicit, and sometimes implicit. Sometimes they are deliberate, and sometimes they are subconscious - just “business as usual.” Even the status quo communicates a message, and has an agenda.

Yeah, I’m one of those. You can call me a Social Justice Warrior if you want, I won’t flinch. I know it’s usually meant derisively, but it’s not a bad thing. And I grew up on Star Trek: The Original Series, and remember how quietly amazing it was that the bridge crew were not all white male Americans. And I understand now, as I didn’t then, the impact that the presence of Lt. Uhura had on the young African-Americans watching the show, who had never seen a person who looked like someone from their community in a role like that. (I also know that when Kirk and Uhura kissed - even though they were forced by a mind-controlling villain - that some stations in the South wouldn’t air the show.) And I know that none of this was an accident - it was a choice on the part of Gene Roddenberry, who had to fight with the network and the advertisers and even the audience to make this happen. I look to JRR Tolkien as my earliest mentor in worldbuilding. And to Gene Roddenberry as an early Social Justice Warrior in the pop-culture science fiction world. And I don’t forget either one of them.

I think this stuff is important. And interesting. (Also: complex, nuanced, and not at all obvious or easy, even with the best of intentions.) So if you don’t want to read a feminist analysis of The New 52 Wonder Woman, or an essay on the representation of marginalized groups in superhero comics, or why I thought that the Pied Piper had the best coming-out scene in mainstream comics - well, there’s a lot of other blogs out there. I wish you well.

But if you are interested - well, here we are!

Versace of Apokolips

I glanced at the cover of World’s Finest #30, featuring Intri: Warrior of Apokolips (a.k.a. The Goddess Who Can’t Get Anything Done), and couldn’t help but notice that outfit! Cape. Armored gauntlets. Right breast covered in armor. A very low-cut armored bikini bottom, with orange thigh-coverings beneath, then armored leggings and boots. The naked low-cut midriff favored by many costumed females (especially the Bad Girls), leading up to her naked midsection and… naked left breast?

No, that can’t be right.

But that’s exactly what it looks like. The flesh color is a little darker than her left forearm, but that just seems to be shading from her cape. It’s certainly not the orange color covering her thigh. The only thing that tipped  me off that I wasn’t looking at a still from a movie that had to argue its way down to R? No navel or nipple. I just assume Apokoliptons have navels and nipples.

Most of her scenes in the comic don’t make the dress code any clearer, and in fact it’s more… let’s say, revealing - because she doesn’t even have bikini-bottom armor. The basically flesh-colored cloth (I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt here) continues down her crotch and around the back to her buttocks, where she looks completely nude - maybe with a little body paint there, but nothing more. (From the front she looks like a Barbie doll down there, of course.) I looked around the comic to see if I could find a corresponding image of Superman, who after all also has a very tight costume, but no - Kryptonian ass-crack is not in view.

There are a few panels where the “cloth” looks a little more like orange body paint, but mainly Intri looks like she’s getting ready for Hippy Hollow. Or maybe Burning Man.

Many years ago, visiting Universal Studios, I happened to meet She-Ra, Princess of Power, and several of her heroic, brightly-clad friends. “Where do you get those costumes?” I asked admiringly. “Oh,” said Flutterina, “we just wake up in the forest this way.” (Later, during a group photo, He-Man groped my butt. But that’s a story for another day.)

The forest has not done Intri any favors. Nor have her hair and make-up people - assuming, that is, that she’s meant to be stern but beautiful.

Intri’s story, it’s worth noting, makes no sense at all. She went to Krypton (of the Earth-Two universe) when it was exploding, and offered to Jor-L and Lara to save the planet in exchange for the infant Kal-L. They turned her down. (Not a second is wasted on the moral complexity of the issue. And later Lois Lane says, without evidence, that she doubted Intri could or would have saved Krypton.) But Jor-L and Lara have no superpowers on Krypton, and the world was falling apart around them. Intri could have just grabbed the kid and Boom-Tubed out of there. She’s a cruel, powerful goddess, and a warrior of Apokolips. She doesn’t need permission.

(Yes, I know it’s Jor-el and Kal-el. Now. But when they were first introduced in 1938 - and, traditionally, in their Earth-Two incarnations prior to The New 52 - they were Jor-L and Kal-L. I think it was considered science-fictiony.)

Ice Ice Baby

Red Lantern #35: Guy Gardner and Tora Olafsdotter lounge on beach chairs on the sands of Dubai, chatting. She suspects that he’s interested in taking on the possibly superpowered dictator of Qurac, just across the water, but he’s charmingly coy. Later, alone, he does attack said dictator Shahkavat, but their fight is interrupted by the arrival of four New Gods serving Highfather in his hostilities against Lanterns. Outgunned, outnumbered, Guy is about to be killed by Malhedron when he is rescued by… by…

Green Lantern Simon Baz.

In violation of Chekhov’s maxim - and of her own superheroic impulses and any concern she might have for Guy Gardner - Tora is nowhere to be seen.

And I was disappointed. In her day, Tora - known as Ice - was a respected superhero. Princess of a hidden race of ice people (or, well, highly confused and traumatized metahuman member of a Gypsy-like family, depending on the story), member of the Global Guardians and Justice League International, partner (with Beatriz DaCosta) in the two-person villain-thrashing team of Fire & Ice, Tora can fight and rescue with the best of them. But we’ve seen very little of this in The New 52. Why bring in Tora, and not let her do anything superheroic, just when it’s called for?

I understand this is Godhead, the New Gods vs. Lanterns mega-event, but frankly I think it would have been interesting if a non-Lantern had gotten involved. Even if Simon was necessary to the plot, have them both come and help Guy against four - count ‘em, four - New Gods. Don’t treat Tora, in one of her rare modern appearances, like so much cheesecake.

You know what Tora Olafsdotter (if that’s even her name….) gets to do in this story?

• Pose in a bikini for a brightly-lit full-page pin-up
• Act like a sour ex-girlfriend, nagging Guy about his lack of communication skills
• Chill his lukewarm beer
• Not help

I guess Woman As Refrigerator is better than Woman In Refrigerator, but really - why not give her something to do?

We Thought "Daguerreotype" Would Be Too Confusing

Batgirl Creative Team Issues Apology For Transphobic Villain

Quite right.

In the abstract, there's nothing wrong with a villain, or any character, that happens to be a crossdresser. But in the specific: the false association of crossdressing with insanity, dishonesty, and violence is an old and ugly stereotype. (See DRESSED TO KILL, and, on a related but not identical note, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.) It has been used to justify prejudice, discrimination, and violence against crossdressers and other trans* individuals. Do you really want to play to active, dangerous stereotypes?

It's like introducing a Jewish villain named Captain Yarmulke whose M.O. is to steal money from church collection boxes and use it to finance his anti-Christian entertainment empire.

Worse yet, it's like introducing that villain when you have no other Jewish characters in your comics. In the real world, there are plenty of crossdressers who are otherwise quite ordinary people - decent, kind, hardworking. But Batman never runs into them in his nightly rounds, and Animal Man doesn't happen to like dressing up like Amy Poelher in his off hours. If the only place for a crossdresser in your comic-book milieu is as a murderous psychopath, that sends a message, whether you intend to or not. And it's a very ugly and damaging message.

I was impressed with the apology. It wasn't defensive. It wasn't "We're sorry if someone was offended." It was: "We didn't mean to hurt anyone, but we did. We're sorry. We see the mistake we made, and we won't do it again." These folks would make lousy politicians.

Actual crossdressing superhero, ca. 1940

Pick an Amulet, Any Amulet

Last night’s CONSTANTINE wasn’t very convincing, probably because it - like most of the episodes - was rushed. In their haste to get to what they considered key scenes - ConJob uses Anne Marie as bait! Chekhov’s Amulet comes through! - they skipped the details that would make any of it make sense.

My main problem was with the character of Lamashtu, the villain. A sister of Eve’s who turned down Adam’s proposal in order to become a goddess of Hell, she is as old as humankind (give or take the show’s anthropology, which is unclear). She is capable of disguising herself as a nun (did she replace one, or has she been Sister Luisa all along?) and interacting with humans without difficulty. And she has set aside her hunger for babies in order to keep them alive for the Brujeria, so she’s not an immediate gratification freak.

She knows there is a well-informed occultist wandering around. She knows Sister Anne Marie personally, and how upset she is about the disappearance of the babies. She knows the two are working together. And yet, when Anne Marie offers up an infant to her as sacrifice, it doesn’t even occur to her - as it would to any reasonably bright 8-year-old - that it’s a trap. (Just to make it more obvious, Anne Marie is openly wearing the Amulet of Pazuzu, Lamashtu’s enemy.) And she flits Flash-style around the hallways and never even notices the three grown men who are watching her and not really very well concealed. She now seems to be one of those near-mindless, obsessive spirits you sometimes see in shows like this, unable to think or plan. In order to drive the plot, whether it makes sense or not.

And consider: when John goes to Mexico, he knows that a baby is missing, but he has no idea what he’s dealing with. A fairy, a nursery demon, he speculates? He surprised to realize it’s one of Eve’s evil sisters, and then he still has to figure out which one. And yet somehow he just happens to have with him the Amulet of Pazuzu, Lamashtu’s ex. I wonder how many amulets he was carrying in his suitcase? Maybe it’s bigger on the inside….

The show has seemed rushed to me from the beginning, getting to “the map with Rising Darkness sites marked in drops of blood” and the “supernatural safe-haven house stocked with every artifact we will ever need” (obviously taken from the House of Mystery) stage much too fast. In the comics, the best Constantine stories often moved more carefully, as he cajoled, traded with, and defrauded a half-dozen different people and demons, while dealing with the fact that they were doing the same. And the personalities of the characters involved were more complex, and played more of a role. Too complex for a TV series, I suppose. I think I’d enjoy CONSTANTINE better if a story like last night’s worked itself out over four episodes - a whole one dedicated to wheeling and dealing for the Amulet of Pazuzu, as contrasted with “I just happen to have here….” John wheeling and dealing can be more fun than him casting spells. And a convent haunted by a baby-snatching Hell goddess, and staffed by John’s former one-night-stand and occult mentor, now a nun? Stuffing that into one hour means you miss out on some of the parts that could be interesting, and - as in this episode - hand-wave the rest and hope nobody cares.

I was pleased that this episode continued the Vertigo Constantine tradition of drawing on actual folklore and mythology. Lamashtu was a Mesopotamian demon/goddess (daughter of the skygod Anu) who was known for kidnapping new-born children and eating them. Pazuzu was, in Assyrian/Babylonian mythology, ruler of the wind demons, was the son of the god Hanbi, and had a serpentine penis. (Oh, the details of old myths!) And, although evil himself, he was a rival of Lamashtu; amulets with his image were used to protect people from her. (Their star-crossed romance, and Lamashtu’s relationship to Eve, are not part of the myths.)

(Actual amulet of Pazuzu, 1st millennium BCE, now in the Louvre.)

Doctor Bifrost Tells All!

When I was four years old my father would read comics to me while I looked at the pictures. One day he noticed I was reading along with him. That’s how I learned to read. I knew the word “invulnerable” long before most of my friends.

I sent my first letter to a comic book letter column (probably Letters To The Batcave) when I was five. My dad helped. In those days you sent a question on a postcard, and, even if they didn’t print it, you got an answer back on an official DC postcard! My question was, “How do they use the Bat-signal during the day?” The answer came back: “They bounce it off of clouds.” I’m still not sure what that means.

I grew up on DC, but about the time I was 12 I mainly switched to Marvel. There were a number of reasons, but one sticks out in my memory. Someone had a letter published (possibly in Metropolis Mailbag) asking “How come the Atlanteans in Superman have fishtails, but the Atlanteans in Aquaman have legs?” Their answer (paraphrased): “It’s just a comic book. We keep some things the same, like Ma & Pa Kent’s names, but we don’t think we have to pay attention to details what the Atlanteans are like in different comics.” And this seemed… wrong to me. Worse than wrong - boring. It seemed to shut down the imagination I brought to my reading. I mean, Superman and Aquaman were friends - what if they went to Atlantis together? See, I had just read (and fallen deeply in love with) The Lord of the Rings, and, even if I didn’t know the word, world-building had become an interesting and important idea to me. (Of course, if you asked them 20 years later, they would explain that there was more than one city with the same name, Atlantis, and then write stories about the relationships between the cities. But at the time their official, stated policy was: we don’t care, and you shouldn’t either.)

Marvel seemed to be building a more interesting, more consistent world. (I realize now that a lot of that had to do with the fact that they were newer, with less accumulated baggage;  smaller; and one man, Stan Lee, was writing most of the comics. But they did have some writers for whom world-building was a genuine interest.) Each month I bought every comic set in the Marvel Universe. But it wasn’t really sustained. I could write a lengthy essay on how Marvel Comics built and maintained a fascinating “shared universe” - and then, over time, neglected it and let it get sloppy and confusing. In fact, I did. And then pretty much drifted away from comics.

But during all this time I always kept an eye on what was happening over at DC, reading fanzines, glancing at comics in the store. Those characters - they were my people! (Fans get proprietary; territorial; tribal.) And I never went very long without buying a copy of The Legion of Super-Heroes. Really, how could I?

I came back in 1986 for Crisis on Infinite Earths. Loved it. The story was fascinating, unlike anything I had seen; the art was great. And now DC could start fresh, without all the accumulated baggage (inconsistencies, multiple conflicting versions, antiquated concepts) of the past. Thanks in part to Marvel, a lot of people (readers and writers) were interested in a shared universe that actually had some coherence. DC could design one and move forward from there, with fresh versions of the characters I was still interested in.

DC’s follow-through didn’t exactly have me jumping for joy. They couldn’t decide what they wanted - fresh start, or their entire publishing history mashed up together. Editorial planning and communication seemed weak. Very quickly characters and stories started tripping over each other; new baggage piled up fast. (I’m mixing my metaphors.) And, having had a great success with CoIE, they seemed to think they needed to have something just like it each year - if not a history-changing retcon, then at least a massive, all-heroes-on-deck, let’s-change-direction, everything-you-know-is-wrong maxi-series with infinite crossovers. Most of these seemed uninspired, obligatory, and not very good. CoIE worked in part because it was so novel. Its replicas weren’t. And they made it harder, instead of easier, to create a coherent shared universe, because of the constant churn, like ripping up your rose bushes before they can bloom. 

But I was very curious to see what would happen next. And there were some writers who I thought were doing a good job. So I continued reading DC, buying a sizable number of their comics every week. I got invested, to some extent against my better judgement. This is a personal paradox I deal with - even when I’m not really enjoying a continuing story, part of me still keeps asking, “And then…?”

After that, the long, confusing, and numbing trek through Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, and Final Crisis. I read them all, and articles about them, and I still won’t pretend I can tell you what went on. The stories seemed at odds with each other and themselves every step of the way. (I saw more climactic moments and final fates for Jimmy Olsen and for the New Gods than I cared to keep track of.) I had a multitude of criticisms, believe me, and I was mainly around to see what would rise out of the wreckage. But Blackest Night and Brightest Day both had their charms, and made good use of some characters I enjoyed. Oh, forgive me, but I found myself intrigued by Jackson “Kaldur’ahm” Hyde, the new Aqualad. My paradox kicked in: “And then…?”

And then Flashpoint and the New 52. DC kicked over the table again. And if I was interested in the new Aqualad, or any of the other mysteries, developments, and ongoing plots of the DC Universe I’d been following, well, that was just my mistake, wasn’t it? I thought this broke the implicit agreement between readers and writers of ongoing sagas: you get interested in the situations we set you, you keep coming back (and buying) every week (even through the weeks and months that aren’t very good), and we’ll show you “what’s next.” But of course, DC is a corporation, and the writers are employees, and the promise is just a marketing tool, somewhat lacking in sincerity.

That makes it a little hard to get invested in the New 52, doesn’t it? I mean, fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice - we won’t get fooled again. But, interesting writers, interesting artists - I decided to give the New 52 my best shot. I will admit, it’s pushed a lot of my buttons, particularly the big red ones that say DO NOT PUSH THIS BIG RED BUTTON. I will admit, I’m not buying as much of it as I started out with. But these are the characters I grew up with; this is what DC has decided to do with them; and, as you might expect, I have opinions. So I thought I’d write some pieces about them.

Read ‘em and weep!