Thevelmster11 - Space Collide With Time

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I want to talk about this.

But at the same time, I don’t. I don’t want to give any relevance to it.

It’s insulting, really. And I can already feel a blood pressure spike in just typing about it. I’m generally pretty passé on things when it comes to characters I’m invested in. That’s why I don’t get too up-in-arms over the new 52. Lord knows there have been several incarnations I haven’t cared for since I started reading comics as a kid. It’s cyclical. It’ll come back around and something will be stellar again, it’ll just take time to get there. Always does. So I’m usually patient, and silent. When someone asks me what I think of New52, I just smile, nod my head, and say “I’m not really their demographic anymore. But I will be again someday.” And I’m fine with being patient. There’s still plenty of Superman to love. Smallville Season 11 and the recently axed Superman Family Adventures were nice escapes. There’s a new movie coming out in less than five months. And there’s a whole history to enjoy that doesn’t force me to be a part of the new régime. And let me preface the rest of this by saying, I don’t *hate* Action Comics or the running Superman title. They’re just not for me. I supported the titles, buying the first five or six issues of each and giving them a chance, but that was that for me. If I see or hear of something coming that will spike my interest, I’ll pick it up. But right now, that hasn’t happened and nothing I’ve heard of coming down the pipeline in the future didn’t interest me so, really all the new 52 has done is save me some money. I don’t get angry over it, there’s no point. They are going to do what they want to do, everyone has an opinion, I’d just rather not pick up the titles if I don’t care about what’s happening. It’s not the first time I’ve done that and it won’t be the last in any incarnation of Superman. There’s plenty of stuff I haven’t liked in the past, and plenty I won’t like in the future.

[I make no bones about the fact I’d love to write for the character. I’ve tried. Pitched. Been asked to do some rewrites. All fallen through. It’s really all that I hope that I get to accomplish one day. I’ve gotten close, and close is good. But I want it to happen for real and hopefully it will one day. That being said, none of this is written out of jealousy or my being bitter. I’m free to not care for something as a fan, and that isn’t fanboy-bashing or immature criticism. I’m old enough to appreciate things for what they are without taking to the Internet to write diatribes/troll people for their beliefs. I despise drama. I don’t go looking for it. If I don’t care for something, that’s that. No need for an essay on the matter to sway people my direction, whether or not someone else’s opinion is right or wrong. But these are special circumstances.]

Injustice: Gods Among Us. “Well, at least it’s only a game.” I can get by saying. I’m not a huge gamer. Give me the Lego version of something and you’ll keep me content. I never finished Arkham Asylum or City. I just don’t have the attention level to keep me still for that long. ADD all the way. I wouldn’t have played the game whether or not these digital comic prequels had been released. But now that they have been…

…When I don’t care for an incarnation of Superman, I usually satisfy myself by saying, “Oh. Well. That just wasn’t written for me. That’s someone else’s Superman.” And that’s GREAT. Totally fine. Different people have different Supermen. Whether it’s an actor portraying it or a writer defining it, people are allowed to have different likes and dislikes for an iconic character that’s 70 years old.

What you aren’t allowed to do, is tarnish. There’s a difference between something you dislike, that just isn’t your style, and just not bothering to pick it up - and something that you feel so strongly against on every level that makes you actually like the status quo of the way things are right now. I have not paid for a single one of these titles. Call it a boycott, or a stand. I don’t care. My $0.99 per three issues isn’t going to amount to a single line-item change in DC’s profits. I’ve read enough to know I don’t want it in my hands.

Now, I’ve got nothing against the team on this. Tom Taylor is a good guy. He gets it. He’s up against a wall. Honestly, I have to ask myself how I’d be in that position.

DC: Hey Derek! We know you’ve wanted to do it for years - here’s your shot. Your own weekly digital title. You game?

Derek: Does one ring rule them all?! Sign me up!

DC: Great. We’ll get all the paperwork over to you. Go ahead and get us an outline together of a story where Superman and Lois are pregnant.

Derek: I would LOVE that!

DC: Cool. Cool cool cool. It’s a prequel series for this game we’re going release in 2Q 2013.

Derek: A video game of Lois and Clark having a kid?

DC: Oh HELL no. You gotta kill her off in like the most grisly way possible, then Superman gets mad. Like fireants at a picnic everyday for the rest of your life mad. Then shit gets crazy.

Derek: Uh huh. Um…

Honestly, I don’t know what I’d say. I get what I want, but by their rules? Well, that’s just business. Anyone’s going to tell you that. Creator controlled content is scarce these days. I’d like to tell you my morals would kick in, and I would say no. Honestly, would I want my mother reading this? My daughter? Not really. But…COULD I say no? None of this is really the point but as a reader, as a writer, I HAVE to consider it when I get frustrated by it. I have to be unbiased, whether or not I agree with it.

What I don’t have to be unbiased about is something that would totally tear the fabric of what I love away. This is just wrong. As one of my closest friends [president of our local SAFE chapter, and a female reporter, to boot] put it: “just what we need. the world’s greatest superhero, beating the shit out of a woman. his wife. and his child she’s pregnant with. great.”

The tide may turn and we may see this was all a ploy or something. You beat the game when it comes out and none of this really happened. Superman turns the Earth back on its axis and makes it all go bye-bye. And great, if that happens. But this still happened. I still had to see panels where Superman battles Doomsday!Lois and carries her off into space just to hear the heartbeats of her and their child stop.

No. Absolutely not. Not even from a sexist point of view, not from a brutality/domestic abuse point of view, not even from a comics/make-believe point of view…from a HUMANITY point of view. For the sake of morality. It’s wrong. Don’t even bother getting into the argument of a man beating up a woman, it’s wrong on ten different levels BEFORE you have to get to that argument. Don’t tell me it’s a story. It didn’t have to be written. Don’t tell me to not read it. I didn’t read it. I didn’t pay a dime for it. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I don’t go down to the bad part of town and watch a guy hit his girlfriend either, but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

I’m not a damn fanboy. I’m just a fan. Have been my whole life. I don’t get on my horse often. Not a lot pushes me to that point. But if I feel strongly enough about something to point a finger at DC and say, “No.” then it definitely means that something. is. wrong. I’m fine with saying something is not for me and moving along but this is something that’s not for anyone. It exists purely because it exists. To hype a video game release in April. To set in motion something SO big it would make these characters, friends, tear each other to shreds over battle lines.

Release the game. Make up any number of other reasons why they have to fight. But do not do something so grim that people actually have to question your morals over it. If they have to, you already messed up. I sincerely hope that what has been done will be undone, over the course of the digital series or in the game itself but it still was a grisly way to die for Lois Lane. A character who was already getting treated badly enough without this embarrassment. 

As a fan. As a writer. I’m embarrassed.