moriarty@fluke.UUCP (The Napoleon of Crime) (03/17/86)
How about this for a rhetorical question: how much should a writer be
allowed to fiddle around with an established character? Well, so as not to
turn this into a huge controversial issue, I'll give an obvious, safe, and
ironically, correct answer: It Depends. On your tastes, mainly: how well
did you like the character? How did you like the previous writer's work on
the character? Do you like the current writer's work on the character? How
important is continuity (the sacred word in comic books) to you? Obviously,
it's going to be pretty subjective; but the question did come up after
reading several dozen issue back-to-back.
Anway, I've never been interested in theory very much, so I'll leave you
folks to hash out the above; but I found some interesting examples, and
thought I'd rattle them off.
The first was re-reading the entire run of BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS,
scripted by Mike Barr. You may remember that Jerry and I had some
discussion on Barr's handling of The Batman; Jerry felt didn't like the way
Batman was portrayed in BATO, and felt it fiddled with the continuity in the
other Batman titles (correct me if I'm wrong, Jerry); I agreed on it's
effects on continuity, but said that I liked the different style of The
Batman anyway. Well, after re-reading the whole series, I have to agree
with Jerry that this is NOT The Batman; I'm almost certain that Barr was
writing for The Shadow and using Batman instead. Or, at least a Batman who
was trying to emulate The Shadow. Lots of cloaked appearances and
disappearances, grim smiles, and especially his treatment of the Outsiders
as his "Agents" -- you might as well look at Geo-Force and Katanna as
better-scripted Harry Vincents and Shrevvys. Lots of "War On Crime" talk.
Only some lip service payed to Robin, etc. I still like the way the
character was done, but it could never fit into the way Batman is handled in
his other books -- this is a different guy altogether.
The other is Claremont's run of SPIDER-WOMAN with Steve Leialoha on pencils.
This was during the period just after Byrne and Claremont had split up, and
I was taken aback to discover how much really cliche Claremont dialogue and
characterization there were in these issues. Many of the lampooners have
taken off on CC's style in X-Men and elsewhere, but some of this stuff
sounds like the satirized dialogue ("I...hurt" is used at least four times
in as many issues). What really got me, though, is a conversation between
Spider-Woman and Nick Fury (wearing a tasteful three-piece suit, not a hint
of beard stubble, but still smoking a cigar (whew!)). Nick's accent fades
in and out throughout the speech; it completely disappears in what appears
to be a speech on self-improvement with lots of Zen overtones. I mean, Nick
Fury? Mr. I-gotta-job-ta-do-ya-goldbrickin'-galoots? Even Steranko didn't
monkey with the character this much! I believe Fury might actually believe
this, but hearing him lecture someone else about seems extremely out of
character. Actually, these issues often didn't seem to have distinct
characters; each person, from Jessica Drew on down was a little instrument
for Chris Claremont to make a speech through. Everyone (even the villains,
at times) sounded the same. I often wonder if this was just a bad time in
Claremont's career, or if he gets this way when he's overworked. I suspect
the latter, because it does appear in every other issue of X-Men. Maybe
Chris is just a one-book person (make that two-book -- he juggled IRON FIST
and X-MEN for quite a while during their best periods).
Ah, well, off the soapbox. Can you come up with any characters who went
through some major changes via a new author, either good or bad? There are
a few that were criminally negligent (whoever took over MASTER OF KUNG FU
for it's last issue win's the Grand Prize from me -- and destroyed all the
work that Doug Moench had built up over the years...). Anyway, I'd be
curious to hear what you think...
"But isn't there some
other way to call him?"
"At least a dozen."
"Then WHY?"
"To let them know,
Merkel, to let
EVERYONE know.
"Hit it."
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
ARPA: fluke!moriarty@uw-beaver.ARPA
UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, sb6, lbl-csam}!fluke!moriarty
<*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>scott@hou2g.UUCP (Mr. Berry) (03/21/86)
It has long been my contention (based solely on X-Men--I hadn't read much other Clairmont at the time) that one of the main reasons I enjoyed the early-new (whew!) X-Men was the plotting. Once Byrne left the book (and the co-plotting), the plotting went downhill, and degenerated into more and more of the "Clairmont making a speech" type of story. The main reason I enjoy FF so much (especially earlier in Byrne's run), and the few Hulk issues he did, was the plotting. Conclusion: Clairmont can't plot (at least not consistently), which is why X-Men has gone downhill so much. All we're left with is soap opera. ========================================= "Uncle Dick, are any of the kids in your books named Mitch?" "Uh, actually, most of my characters tend to be hand tools." Scott J. Berry ihnp4!hou2g!scott