Mr. Collett Kicks My Ass

Hey, I just recently noticed my good buddy Tony the C. slapping me around a little bit on his blog.

I can't blame him. I am pretty frickin' insufferable. But I did want to say, I'm happy he enjoyed THE CHAMPIONS in their recent TPB, and now he can understand exactly why I ran the team during that HeroClix game he totally PWNed my sorry butt in. Despite their manifold failings, well, I just love those guys.

I do have to disagree, though, when he says that differences of opinions simply add up to tallies on a chalkboard, and there is no reason why one of us should really want to convince the other as to the validity or lack thereof of a particular point of view.

See, here's the deal -- if a great many people buy really really bad writers doing really really vile things to characters that I love, then editors will encourage really really bad writers to continue doing really really vile things to characters that I love. I dislike this intensely. So, I argue. Sometimes, vociferously.

I think this point is indisputable. They gave Bendis AVENGERS, and he started out by killing Hawkeye. At this point some sane, benevolent, caring individual should have whacked him sharply in the testicles with a rugby bat, and if they had, we'd all be much better off for it, but being civilized and hoping for the best, we all forbore, and now, Wolverine is an Avenger and Spider-Man has mechanical tentacles and no secret identity and Luke Cage looks like Wesley Snipes in an inflatable muscle shirt and the entire frickin' Marvel Universe is, like, beating itself about the head and shoulders with a metal folding chair as it resolutely transforms itself into something much like Alan Moore's WATCHMEN setting, without the zippy dialogue or the pirate comics or the excellent Dave Gibbons artwork. And it makes me sad.

Now, if I could only convince a few thousand other fans that Bendis is an enormous pulsating blowhole who would serve this fabulous funny book industry better as a men's room attendant in Muncie, Indiana than as the writer of anything, anywhere within the vast and varied realm of superhero comics, well, the world would be a better place... not just for me, but for all the other Avengers fans, too. Because, whether they know it or not, the alternate timeline where Wolverine never joined the Avengers is a far, far better place than this.

So, while often you have to agree to disagree, that's not to say there is no value in the attempt to illuminate, nor no purpose in eventual success at same.

As to Batman not belonging in the Justice League, I say thee nay, True Believer. Batman may well not belong in the mainstream DC Universe, but if we accept that he should be there, his grim n gritty urban landscape sprawled all pock marked and graffitified next to the scintillating skyline of Metropolis and the old fashioned architectural charms of Keystone, well, certainly, the Darknight Detective can hang out in the cave or the satellite if he feels the urge. The JLA has never been a team of balance, and if we can accept Tony Stark dropping to his knees and reaching for some Canadian mutant's zipper as he whimpers and sobs about how badly the Avengers need what Wolverine has, well, I have considerably less trouble comprehending that DC's Greatest SuperHeroes might find Batman's intellect, logic, and deductive abilities somewhat handy, as well.

But that's just me. Your mileage may vary, and this isn't an argument I feel needs to be won, since, clearly, DC's editors already agree with me, anyway, and seem to have for the last fifty years or so, at least.