Comic writers that don't like superheroes

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Ares
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Comic writers that don't like superheroes

Post by Ares »

By and large, at least in America, the main genre of comic books is superheroes. And it makes sense, since superheroes popularized the medium back in the 40s and have kept it relevant in the decades since.

Not that there isn't a wealth of other genres for folks who want to write comics and not write superheroes. Comics pre-date superheroes, and there have been points where other genres such as westerns, science fiction or horror gained popularity.

Yet there's some writers who get into comics and clearly have a hatred of superheroes . . . and then proceed to write superheroes just to tear them down. It always boggles my mind, like they should just write the genres they're interested in and not tear down an entire genre other people enjoy.

The most obvious example is Garth Ennis. The guy has a RAGING hate boner for superheroes that aren't Superman. He's created entire franchises around the concept of tearing the idea of superheroes down, showing how much they suck and mocking them.

Another person I've noticed that might fit that mold is Keith Giffen. When Giffen is paired up with a co-writer like Levitz or Dematteis they seem to keep his worst tendencies in check. But when left to his own devices, his worst aspects come out. On his own, he took the "Superheroes" out of "Legion of Superheroes", making it this dark, dystopian future, and then blew up the Earth out of spite. He wrote a Wildstorm/DC Crossover whose villain was a fat comic book nerd who was trying to inject actual heroism into Wildstorm, but was written like a brain dead simpleton. When writing Supreme, he took a guy who was already arrogant and made him into a monster and a religious zealot, taking stabs at both religion and superheroes.

You occasionally get smaller examples of writers who don't HATE superheroes, but seem to find those types of stories "beneath them". Chris Claremont reportedly hated writing superhero action scenes, and claimed that Cyclops retiring was Scott "growing up and becoming an adult", implying that in a world where superheroes save lives and stop bad people that being a superhero is somehow immature.

And there was one WildCATs writer from one of the rebooted series that talked about how their earlier adventures of stopping alien invaders was immature and silly as well.

So are there any other examples you can think of? Because it makes me wonder why these guys seem to get in an industry out of what feels like pure spite.
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Re: Comic writers that don't like superheroes

Post by Voltron64 »

Ares wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 5:34 am The most obvious example is Garth Ennis. The guy has a RAGING hate boner for superheroes that aren't Superman. He's created entire franchises around the concept of tearing the idea of superheroes down, showing how much they suck and mocking them.
The main reason for that of course being that he grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Saw a lot of crap. Kinda messed up his head.

In a strange way, it occurs to me that Garth Ennis hates superheroes in the same way Lex Luthor hates Superman in Batman VS Superman: Dawn of Justice. Cause one of the reasons Lex Luthor gives for wanting to destroy Superman is that Superman didn't save him from his abusive father when he was a child... ignoring the fact that Superman was a child at the same time, and could not have known about it.

Shades of Manchester Black too while we're at it...

Frankly, pretty easy to make up a supervillian motivation from all that.
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Re: Comic writers that don't like superheroes

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Really when it comes to Golden Age heroes, I don't think either Ennis or Pat Mills should be huffily passing judgment on what was a primarily a bunch of working class Jewish creatives for how they chose to confront and deal with the spectre of Nazism.
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Re: Comic writers that don't like superheroes

Post by Spectrum »

Turning the question around, why are companies that get the bulk of their money from super heroes tolerating writers that hate their core base?
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Re: Comic writers that don't like superheroes

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Spectrum wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 7:19 pm Turning the question around, why are companies that get the bulk of their money from super heroes tolerating writers that hate their core base?
Honestly? Because the books keep selling. I don't know how much of that is hate-buying ("Man! I gotta buy the latest copy of The Boys to see how badly they botched this!"), how much of it is reaching an audience that doesn't normally read the comics ("I knew Superman couldn't be that squeaky clean. I mean what do you think would happen if the US Military could tap into someone with his powers?"), and how much of it is that some of the core audience enjoys the subversion ("I know, guilty pleasure, but sometimes you just really want to see Batman going off the deep end and machine-gunning terrorists.").
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Re: Comic writers that don't like superheroes

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Spectrum wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 7:19 pm Turning the question around, why are companies that get the bulk of their money from super heroes tolerating writers that hate their core base?
Because the bulk of their money comes from licensing the image of those super heroes for film, television and other merchandise, not the actual comics themselves.
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Re: Comic writers that don't like superheroes

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Spectrum wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 7:19 pm Turning the question around, why are companies that get the bulk of their money from super heroes tolerating writers that hate their core base?
Because the people who run the mega-coprprations that own the companies are less than ambivalent about the core base or the properties. And the writers who hate comics have been around long enough to be promoted into positions of power at the companies.
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Re: Comic writers that don't like superheroes

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I've never gotten the impression that Mark Millar likes superheroes, or rather he doesn't think they are "hip" or "cool" enough. Which is odd, because he has actually written one or two decent Justice League stories.

I honestly feel that more than a few people writing for Marvel and DC these days don't like superheroes, or rather, are only working on them because they're trendy at the moment because of movies, and that this is a good way to get their foot in the door doing a Netflix/Amazon/etc. series or some sort of YA or other novel published. (Or in the worst case, those that see comics as just the next on a long list of institutions to be gutted and worn as a skin suit while spouting increasingly militant political rhetoric.)
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Re: Comic writers that don't like superheroes

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From this thread, I think we can add Sana Amanat, Vita Ayala, Tini Howard and Leah Williams of the Women of Marvel Podcast to the list.
The Women of Marvel wrote:"I also love how you brought up a villain because that's something I laugh about a lot. Like, when people bring up the very valid, like, academic discourse about queer coding in villainy, but at the same time I'm like . . . I identify with villains."

***

"I feel that we identify with villains because of their struggle. Very rarely today do we have a villain that is just cookie cutter. It's like oh, you were traumatized and abused. And you are like 'I'm going to reflect that back'. -Oh I would never do that, but I feel that real deep. It would be a catharsis."

***

"We find something instantly recognizable in these characters that are queer coded and vilified, specifically and are misunderstood by everyone around them. Even if we don't consciously know why we're drawn to these characters, it's kind of an experience that is recognizable."

***

"And for a long time too with villain characters, just in general, not specific to Marvel. They also had a lot of room, not just to be queer, but just to do things that were a little more nuanced and complicated than the cookie-cutter hero characters because you get all this pressure for the hero to kind of stay in one lane . . . because that's the moral character and the moral center of the story. Whereas, with the villain, it's like -no- you can have moments of softness and moments of doubt and all of these things and then you're still the villain."

***

"I would rather see that story (i.e. a villain's story) than the one where the person is like 'hi I'm a good person,' and that's it. I'm going to punch the bad guy."
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Re: Comic writers that don't like superheroes

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That's all them trying desperately to justify being horrible people. The fact that they call heroes "cookie cutter" shows that they've never actually read any of the books. They have zero honesty or self awareness.
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Re: Comic writers that don't like superheroes

Post by NoOneofConsequence »

I remember Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man and the issue he sort of breaks the 4th wall and starts ranting about how the comic writers are God and are therefore a terrible and cruel God because of all the misery and pain They keep inflicting on the characters and their world.
I've always believed Morrison got it completely backwards. It is the superheroes - and really all fictional heroes - who are the gods, the ones who inspire and encourage and remind us to be more brave and kind and nobler in spirit and deed than we otherwise might. And we hate them for it. So it is inevitable that some people, when given the power to do so, will do everything they can to tear them down and destroy them.
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly. That is the first law of nature.
Voltaire, "Tolerance" (1764)
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Re: Comic writers that don't like superheroes

Post by Ares »

NoOneofConsequence wrote: Wed Oct 07, 2020 10:48 pm I remember Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man and the issue he sort of breaks the 4th wall and starts ranting about how the comic writers are God and are therefore a terrible and cruel God because of all the misery and pain They keep inflicting on the characters and their world.
I've always believed Morrison got it completely backwards. It is the superheroes - and really all fictional heroes - who are the gods, the ones who inspire and encourage and remind us to be more brave and kind and nobler in spirit and deed than we otherwise might. And we hate them for it. So it is inevitable that some people, when given the power to do so, will do everything they can to tear them down and destroy them.
I agree. It's also why I feel that superheroes need someone who actually likes humanity and has at least some optimism to really get the most out of the genre. It's why Zack Snyder's DCEU was shit while the MCU, however formulaic it eventually got, was still vastly more popular. It's a frickin sad day when the Marvel Universe is a more optimistic place than the DC Universe. A universe with both Superman and Captain Marvel should be the most hopeful planet in existence.
"My heart is as light as a child's, a feeling I'd nearly forgotten. And by helping those in need, I will be able to keep that feeling alive."
- Captain Marvel SHAZAM! : Power of Hope (2000)

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Re: Comic writers that don't like superheroes

Post by NoOneofConsequence »

One of the reasons I prefer the early MCU movies (the first Iron Man, the first Thor, and, well, all three Cap films) is that they play the characters completely straight and fairly forthright, clearly showing a respect for the characters and the comic stories they were drawn from, and by virtue of that, a respect for the fans of those characters and comics. But once it became this big huge pop culture thing, with masses of fans who knew nothing about these characters outside the films and its own momentum that didn't depend on good word of mouth for success, it felt like they stopped doing that to various degrees.
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly. That is the first law of nature.
Voltaire, "Tolerance" (1764)
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