Battlepig

Honouring Dwayne McDuffie? Don't be silly. It's business. There's no honouring anyone there, apart from the occasional nod to something that has happened in the past. And Static blew, regardless of whose fault it was. Sadly, Rozum's name is attached to it, so for all that will be remembered until the end of time, it was him who made it suck. But suck it did. Blimey, was it ever bad.

Anyhow, if DC's still willing to give Rozum work, they should let him do Xombi again or let him continue the six issues he had before the New Fifty-Two came along. Because that book was excellent and had a sort of quirkiness to it that can't be found in any of the New Fifty-Two books. Besides, it has the advantage of having had absolutely no ties to the DCU at large. There were no crossovers (unless there was one in the last issue, because I haven't gotten around to reading that yet for some odd reason) at all, so it wouldn't screw anything up. Besides, it was good, interesting, completely new and everything. It would fit in well with the general direction of the New Fifty-Two.

@WaveMotionCannon: Dialog like this:

Character A: "Bendis."

Character B: "Bendis?"

A: "Bendis."

B: "That Bendis?"

A: "No, The Bendis."

B: "Oh, Bendis. Chutzpe Oy Vey Schmuck!"

Voila, half a page wasted on something he could have done in one panel.

@Soulstealer said:

Um maybe I'm being that guy... but assholes come in all shapes and sizes so what difference does said person's race make? Also good and bad people come in every creed and color. To be honest while I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, I think that you yourself don't realize that there is always a bias ingrained in people. That's not to call everyone a racist or say "golly gee there should be more minorities in comics" but that is to say that everyone has a culture and as such cultures often times clash and in surprisingly subtle ways in the real word so why should comics or God forbid their writers be like everyone else?

I've gotten into political debates with friends before and had to out right tell them, our personal experiences are too different for us to agree on this ever. And at the time that was absolutely true. And what are we if not an amalgamation of genes, personal experiences, and upbringing? People are different, cultures are different, and cultures affect people to create yet more differences. Differences however are not good or bad, they're just differences.

I agree wholeheartedly with us all being victims of our upbringings. But if we follow that thought along, then creating diverse characters is not going to change anything or anyone. Some racist isn't suddenly going to go "Them-there blacks're pretty gosh-darn friendly folk. Dat's what Spidey-Man's a-taught me". If we're now following that thought in its application to comic books, then creating diverse characters and putting them above a good story (See the whole Victor Hernan Alvarez debacle) won't help anyone. In fact, if anything, it will hurt the medium. I'm not saying that diverse characters don't work as a general concept. If you want to see it properly done, read the pre-New-Fifty-Two incarnation of Jaime Reyes. He just was hispanic and lived near the border. It was never pushed in the foreground. It was never made a big deal of. He had a great, also latino, supporting cast who was not made a big deal out of either and the top priority has always been the story.

And that is my entire point. The very second you put your character's "amazingly diverse background" above the story or you start "economising on space" because you want your black character to be celebrating Kwanzah for five pages, complete with a lengthy explanation of what brought the holiday about and what it means and so on, then you're clearly doing something wrong. Just like you're doing something wrong if you have your white character punch a bad guy in the face for twenty pages an issue.

@Obtrusive: I do like my heroes and villains to be who they are. But if you have to replace them (which is something they appear to feel the need to do every now and then) and decide to go with a black instead of a white character, then at least make it be something you don't do because of "I'mma make a black hero! The black kids will read it if the guy's black! Genius!!!" Also, don't announce him as the "All-New, All-Better, All-Black Spidey-Man". How about just having the character? Like Nick Fury. Suddenly he was not only black but also Samuel L. Jackson. That was awesome, because Sam Jackson is awesome and so is Blackfury. Mainly because his main character trait is not "Being black" which isn't a character trait to begin with, but something else. Even something as silly as "Being Samuel L. Jackson" works.

@Vance Astro: Pretty much this. Only that I really don't mind diversity. I have no problem with having female bosses unless they're incompetent. I have no problem with black people as long as they're not assholes. I have no problem with latinos as long as they're good people. It's not the skin you wear, it's what you are on the inside. And people need to realize. But yeah, maybe it is as @Obtrusive says, that we're just a generation of people who do not mind racial diversity.

@WaveMotionCannon: The story has come to an absolute standstill as nothing has happened in the first three issues other than Bendis giving us some Bendising (the dialog going "Bendis." - "Bendis?" - "Bendis." - "That Bendis?" - "No, The Bendis." - "Oh, Bendis. Chutzpe Oy Vey Schmuck!") and a lot of characters we're supposed to care about despite them not having any defining characterstics other than being black or asian and talking like Bendis characters talk.

While I don't mind the race of the cast, because it's the least of the book's problems, it's everything else that bothers me to no end.

@Superguy0009e and @WildStyle: Sure, otherwise everybody would look the same. But how would that make the story told better. How is Ultimate Spidey-Man better because Miles is a twofer in the Minority Bingo?

@Mega_spidey01: Would the first incarnation of the X-Men have been better if Jean Grey was black and Iceman Asian?

@VenomMelendez: That is all fine and dandy. But how is Ultimate Spidey-Man better because Miles is black?

@goldenkey said:

He lost it in Super Soldier, right after his return from the dead. He was the skinny little Steve Rodgers right before he took the serum. He's still commanding S.H.E.I.L.D. He doesn't need to go into the field to do that.

This.

@RazzaTazz said:

Hmm ... well I am liking Demon Knights I would not say it was all that good, it is going in the right direction at least though. I found that thing with Mr. Terrific and the nanocircuitry equally ridiculous just I think those were like quills or something not horns :P

Does "fixing nanocircuitry with quills" sound any better than the version with horns? The idea alone is utterly ridiculous. Anything but amazing high-tech tools will just not cut it here.

@Outside_85 said:

I disagree on the Mary Sue tag people keep putting on Solstice, since its been put on her for 1 fight and that the origins of her powers were never explained.

Oh and here's 1 Raven fan who would have instantly signed up for her leaving TT, its long overdue for her to do so.

It's not that I think Solstice necessarily is a Mary Sue character, but she was given the Mary Sue treatment. Her first enemy were custom-tailored to be beaten by her, and all the big-name heroes who had years and years of experience in their field were beaten within seconds only to be freed by Solstice.

As for Raven leaving the Teen Titans: They tried it, it didn't work. Raven just isn't a good solo heroine. Also, you've got to love the tagline for that book. Emo. Hurrhurr. Raven should have a team to back her up, to counter that absolutely horrible and contrived "I'm so emotionless and sad"-shtick of hers. Because if you don't add that, you'll have a trainwreck like the thing on the left.

In other news, it looks as if I will try to do a "Fifty-Two Thoughts on the New Fifty-Two"-thing. I'll probably try to get it out for the six-month "anniversary" of the reboot. Maybe. I'm not making any promises, but I'll see if I can do it.

@Billy Batson: I might. I'm not entirely against the idea, but I figured I'd write about the titles that I have an immediate opinion on right off the bat and see how it gels with you lot. Besides, those are, or were, the books I'm the most passionate about. I mean, I wanted Men of War to be good, because that "deployed into superhero battles" seems like a very awesome idea. And I loved Static's cartoon, so I wanted it to be good. On the other hand, I thought Demon Knights was going to be awful solely based on the fact that it was a Sword-and-Sorcery title and I usually hate those.

What I could propose, in a somewhat timely manner is a sort of "Why I stopped reading"-thing, Because I have read all the #1s of the New Fifty-Two. But I dropped some titles immediately. The problem with this would be that I'd have to cover 43 titles that I'm not reading. I could do short write-ups of why and all that, but it would take time, because I have to write parts of a newspaper every day.