The Virgin Read: She Has Weird Ideas About How To Improve Comics, But Being A Girl, It Is Not Like You Care

DC Universe Decisions # 1
Written by Bill Willingham & Judd Winick
Art by Rick Leonardi, Karl Story, Dan Green & Alex Bleyaert
Published by DC Comics

Hey!  Guess what I’m beyond sick of hearing about right now?  The upcoming Election!  Yeah!  Because for the love of Pete, 97.7% of my “friends” on Facebook let me know on a daily, if not hourly basis, who they want to vote for.  Well, no no no.  It's not really that they're expressing who they want to vote for.  It's them telling me who they think I should vote for.  And that is IRKING ME LIKE THE DICKENS. 

Even if I’m interested in the same candidate as you, I really don’t need you posting news stories on my "feed" that you think I really, really, really, really really need to read.  Because for the love of God, if I don’t read this article/watch this video/listen to your brother’s bands new song about the election, I might just what?  Think for myself?  By your out of proportion sense of duty or your desire to evoke change by using the classic irritate people into giving up and start seeing things your way method, you're exemplifying everything you seem to be politically against.  And it's starting to make me want to vote against you, just to make you mad.  Or kill yourself.  I'm not sure which will happen first, but probably the mad part.

So, in a love/hate sort of way I simply had to read this comic.  I was sort of hoping that maybe the Real World guy and this other dude would share my disgust and try to carry the message that people need to respect that we all have different opinions, a right to those opinions, and a right to privacy.

Nah…not really.  It seems like the marketing and writing team got together and said, “How can we make the DC Universe edgy?  Now?  Relevant?”  And then they just gave up immediately and said "Make it about the election."  Well, okay.  What about the election?  What sort of issues could the DC Universe address?  Let’s skip over little details and questions like, "Do super-heroes get a vote?"  Aren’t they above the laws that govern the daily lives of others?  And if they are out saving the world, at large, is America really the place they vote?  Should they vote in all elections, worldwide?  What do super-heroes think of “the right to bear arms?”  Do the alien ones pay taxes?   I mean, when you really get down to it, how are super-heroes affected by the outcome of an election? 

These are not the questions that are asked.  No.  Rather, super-heroes seem to be filling the place of celebrities here, and the question posed is “What happens when a super-hero endorses a candidate?"  Sorry, but I’m not really that anxious about the dramatic possibility of that question.  Because, well, we live that reality.  See in this book, Green Arrow sorta kinda endorses this Brewster candidate, consequently, Brewster is up by 15% in the polls.   And everyone keeps saying, “Oh no…things are gonna get ugly.  Whoopsie daisies.”  And I guess we’re supposed to be on the edge of our seats wondering how bad its gonna get.  Or good?  The comic makes that seem bad, so I guess Green Arrow is...what, is he supposed to be Lindsay Lohan?  That's why it's bad?

And you know, there’s some, uh, "other stuff" in the comic.  The whole "plot" is about someone, somewhere, who is hypnotizing political insiders to strap on bombs and blow themselves up, terrorism style, in order to assassinate the candidates.  I don’t know why I found it so funny that this would be the most pressing matter going on in the world right now, and that requires the story to assemble all of the super-heroes to stop all of the possible bombings, but I did.  I thought that was pretty funny.  I mean, honestly, since we’re in make-believe-land, I’d actually like to read the comic book where the bombers succeeded and killed every single one of these pretend candidates in this silly fantasyland election.  Then what?  That’s a GREAT “what would happen if….?”  Because what WOULD happened?  It would have to be more interesting to read then whether or not Green Arrow likes some guy.

Oh, and couldn’t the police and detectives handle all this stuff?  And the super-heroes could be helping out in China or Iraq or North Korea or....No.  BETTER.  The superheroes could be solving global warming and the energy crisis.  Now THAT’S what I want to read about.  Green Arrow can shoot things with arrows when he fights stuff, right?  Have him shoot the energy crisis.

-Nina Stone, 2008

Comments

[Kenny]

Well, I care what you say regardless of your gender, but I also like to use the term "babymen" to describe people who have different tastes/obsessions than I do, so I'm not the guy to go by! lol

Anyway, I would actually read the book you suggested - the bombers blow up all the politicians and the superheroes are left to solve stuff like the energy crisis, the food crisis, etc. Will the Joker take over Zimbabwe and will the world continue to be apathetic about Zimbabwe? Or would the world's superpowers finally care?

I know these two writers are persona non grata (sp?) on this site, but Warren Ellis and Mark Millar wrote this series called The Authority that examined a similar premise - superheroes end up in charge of the world - and it went interesting places (to me). The superheroes ended up doing a worse job than the current governments of the world. It was a good read, better than DCU: Decisions had any hope of being.

[Tucker Stone]

Ah, Warren and Mark aren't Persona Non Grata. Give me some Fell or more Nextwave and I'll be fine. Millar--well, Ultimates was fun.

[Guy Smiley]

Hi Nina. Are you busy lately? Have you got a lot going on right now? Because if you've got just a little free time, I'd like you to write the comic books. All of them.

If that's too much, could you just write the ones I generally like to read? You totally wouldn't have to do Robin, that way, or any X-Men books. I could send you a list of titles, and you could go tell the companies which ones you'll be writing. 'Cause I think this would be lots better. Let me know. Thanks.

[Matthew J. Brady]

More people should refer to Judd Winick as "the Real World guy".

And not to get obnoxiously political here, but I would hope that when people share news stories, they are not just blatantly trying to force someone to agree with them. Rather, I would imagine they are saying that the story affected their own viewpoint by being informative, and they wish to share that information with others. But that's me always hoping for the best in people; I'm often disappointed. And all that goes out the window when it's "lipstick on a pig" bullshit. Why not focus on something like, say, Sarah Palin forcing rape victims to pay for their own rape kits when reporting the crime to police?

Eh, sorry to sidetrack things; that was probably a waste of everybody's time. This comic looks stupid. I didn't bother to read it, but it sounds from your description that it's exactly what I expected, with nothing in the way of ambition or a desire to approach the subject in an interesting manner. Sounds like modern superhero comics in a nutshell.

[Tucker Stone]

Trust me, I've seen some of the shit Nina gets sent, and it's about as subtle as a video of an infant being lit on fire by Sarah Palin while Barack Obama masturbates in the background. If that sort of shit helps anybody "choose," then I see no reason why I shouldn't start raping children while whipping myself with a broken tv aerial.

[andre]

NINA STONE FOR PRESIDENT!

[Kenny]

Tucker, I wasn't sure how you felt about Ellis or Millar, I just remember a recent Millar Wolverine comic getting a thrashing. So, I wasn't trying to be snarky, I was just trying to be all like, "hey, here's a relevant tangent" without forcing my taste on you guys, you know?

Anyway, I'm voting for Guy Smilely! I, too, want Nina writing all the comics I read!

And your video of Sarah Palin setting an infant on fire sounds intriguing. How come I never get cool stuff like that? I think I need new friends....

[Tucker Stone]

I actually just re-read that Enemy of the State thing Millar did, and although I thought that EC Comics Wolverine Versus Nazis In A Concentration Camp thing was pretty tasteless, I quite enjoyed watching Logan tear through all the ninja people. That sequence where he asks how many bad guys there are, and the guy says something like "346,000 worldwide--you gonna kill them all single handed?" and then it's just a splash of Logan saying "Bingo" is, to put it honestly, pretty fucking awesome. Especially when he teams up with a Sentinel to do it.

But yeah, old man logan is a toothy blowjob. Painful, stupid, and only successful because it eventually ends.

Nina was supposed to write the next Cloak & Dagger mini-series, but then they found out she didn't cry when Spoiler died. So we'll just have to wait to see the "kill all presidential candidates while Bruce Wayne personally pays for the financial crisis" comic. She has to get booked as a guest on Road Rules first--that's the way in.

[Kenny]

This is just my sensibilities, but I think the way Millar unabashedly embraces the tasteless in his stories is why I can get behind him. He's not pretending like the tastelessness serves some goal, it's more that sort of Jackass tasteless for tasteless sake kind of thing - except when he's gunning for mainstream press, and he's quite good at that. Then, when he tries to have a dramatic moment like the one you described, he succeeds more often than not.

Your Cloak & Dagger joke was awesome. I'm expecting that Cloak & Dagger series to fail worse than the new New Warriors series, and then for a certain blog to write all about how it failed because comics hates women.

[Tucker Stone]

Hey Kenny, Guy, Matthew and Andre (and of course, Tucker) --

You're all hilarious.
And BRILLIANT.
The mission of my life has become clear:
First comic books, next the Presidency, and then -- THE WORLD.

But first I'm gonna take a nap......

[Nina]

oops. that was me...above. Posting. It kinda defaulted to Tucker.

Mmmm.... I guess I'm not so "detail oriented." Will this get me fired from Dame of The World status?

[Kenny]

Nina, I hope Tucker doesn't get mad and ban me, but I'm starting to feel like my Jessica Alba curse is transferring over to you, which means I want to marry you! lol

[Matthew J. Brady]

I think Millar can write pretty damn good action, and be reasonably entertaining, but when he tries to court controversy, or do something that, like, means something, or freak out the squares, man, he gets pretty old pretty quick. He's probably going to spend his whole career trying to duplicate that Captain America "I hate France" moment.

That was me trying to live up to my purported brilliance.

[Tucker Stone]

Success!

[Guy Smiley]

Mr Brady is spot-on about Millar.

And at the risk of more politics, Nina, I'd say there's recent precedent for world leaders "not being detail oriented," so don't sweat that. Also, when you're Ruler of All, you can call your naps "cabinet meetings" and no one can challenge you.