I was pleased to see Kevin Smith returning to the DCU, with Batman: Cacaphony. Smith’s style is wordy, distinct, and irreverent, and I look forward to seeing him injecting a little humor into the Batverse. I’m also happy to see that Onomatopoeia, the Green Arrow villain, will be returning. Onomatopoeia has the right set of characteristics for a comics villain; a superhuman set of skills, a recognizable goal, and a quirky gimmick.

The only thing that bothers me about Onomatopoeia is that he fits too well with the villains we see these days; he’s deadly, he’s more out to get the superheroes than to commit crimes that might benefit him personally, and he’s the best, baddest villain ever. Poison Ivy moved from thief and environmental terrorist to random sadist and mass murderer with the powers of Swamp Thing. Two-Face now knows how to spar and goes on random killing sprees. Even Croc manages to do a lot of damage. Damian kills off villains and beats up Robin. Talia manages a national web of terrorists. And Hush – don’t even get me started on Hush.

There seems to be an unfortunate rate of inflation going on in comics. No more talented bank robbers or minor thugs. Everyone has to be the biggest, baddest, darkest, most formidable opponent Batman has ever encountered. It’s not that I don’t understand that it looks a little silly to have Batman go from a life-altering confrontation with the Black Glove one month to chasing down a safe-cracker the next, but it would be nice to see some variation.

One of my favorite examples of Oliver Queen, clueless grandstanding dolt, is in the Grell run. It’s a two issue story (#17-#18) about the murder of a stripper. There are mobsters, drugs, biker gangs, and of course multiple strip clubs, the last of which probably provides the reason for the ‘Suggested For Mature Readers’ warning label on the first issue of the run. (Although it could also be for the violence of the murder.)

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Most people have heard of the Green Arrow movie by now. It’s not called Green Arrow, and the hero doesn’t have the Green Arrow costume, and he doesn’t fight any costumed criminals, and the people he does fight aren’t on the street, they’re in a prison, and he is, too, and just before they put him away for life, they shave his goatee.

This pretty much sounds like they’re hanging on to the concept of the Green Arrow comic with one pinky and a whole lot of optimism. I mean, taking away his beard. Really? For one thing; that’s low. For another; they want us to believe he’s incarcerated in the ultimate prison designed for the worst offenders in the world, but they still give the prisoners access to razor blades?

In the end, though, I don’t much care if Ollie never wears the suit, or runs through the streets shooting arrows. I do, however, want to see him stand up during one of those tense communal meals, the ones where you wonder if someone is going to get a shiv to the neck, and give a big speech on the politics of the prison system in this country. And I want to see his fellow inmates roll their eyes and keep eating. Because that’s who Ollie is; the liberal idiot.

When I say idiot, I don’t mean it as a comment on the extremism of his politics, because that would be meaningless. Everyone who is or has ever been liberal has experienced a moment when you look to the person to the right of you and think, ‘You’re not really a liberal,’ and then look to the person to the left of you and think, ‘Yeah. Come back to earth, Moon Unit.’ Ollie is neither of those people. He’s the guy who is standing opposite the three of you and making a long speech that makes all three of you yell ‘Shut up,’ even though all three of you agree with him. He’s the guy in the coffee house, stroking the thigh of a girl fifteen years younger than he is and saying, ‘The concept of marriage is completely a tool of the patriarchy. I love that you see through that.’

Oliver Queen is a liberal idiot. He’s always injecting politics into every situation. He makes a point of positioning himself as not only right, but righteous. He identifies with the little guy, the poor, the weak, the underdogs, while he’s a billionaire vigilante, highly trained in martial arts. He’s much more principled politically than he is personally.

He’s also a dedicated political activist who puts his money, time, and effort where his mouth is.

Green Arrow emerges from all of these contradictions as a gloriously fun amalgam of the liberal movement; its inappropriateness, its shaggy, swaggering machismo, its self-righteousness, and its moments of great achievement. If the filmmakers are going to toss out the green hoodie, I hope that they at least keep that.

Well. Yes. There is also that.

I know there must have been a stage when my interest in comics was something between non-existent and monomaniacal, but I don’t remember it. One day my fingers had never touched mylar, and the next I was ordering long boxes and clearing out my bookshelves.

My obsession began in my mid-twenties, in the mid-2000’s, which was a pretty good time to start the habit. I had a job that paid enough to order everything I needed and I could find what I needed easily, since comics culture was thriving on the internet. I could buy trades, and if they weren’t available, look up what issues referenced what storylines and buy full stories online.

Which is why it was a shock to me the first time I picked up a new issue and realized it would be a whole month before I got the next piece of the story. More than a shock. I think, in fact, we should have a clinic, or a hotline, or an online support service to deal with that.

Over the years I’ve gotten used to the feeling, but there are still comics which give me withdrawal pangs. Lately it’s been Secret Six and Blue Beetle. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. Anyone else?

The Big Three of DC, Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman, have always had a certain status in the DCU. Part of this comes from popularity, although admittedly Wonder Woman’s popularity has been low of late. Part of it comes from longevity. Everyone has memories of them. Most of it, though, comes from their iconic nature.

Superman is the one last hope of a dying race. He is sent to an unknown place where that hope is brilliantly realized, even if the sense of loss remains. He represents every parent’s wish for their child, and the responsibility that every child feels when it makes its way in the world.

Batman is the personification of solitary, relentless obsession.

The well known phrase used to describe Wonder Woman is ‘beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena’ but it sites entirely the wrong goddesses. Artemis is much more appropriate. The perpetual virgin and goddess of the hunt, Artemis was also the protector of newborn animals. This is what Wonder Woman evokes; purity, strength, ferocity, and the defense of the weak.

These three, and their situations, are archetypes that everyone recognizes and responds to.

Except that Superman is not Krypton’s last hope. Kryptonians hedged their bets by sending his cousin. And his other cousin. Also a dog. And a monkey. And a horse, in case the dog, monkey, and two cousins need a ride somewhere. There may also be a cat. But everyone loves cats, right?

Batman, the solitary night stalker, could be running a daycare center. Yes, the daycare center would get shut down by the state fairly soon, but until it did it would be full. No other hero has collected such a large number of sidekicks.

Wonder Woman has had crushes on various men for decades, and right now she’s aggressively pursuing Tom Tressor, I guess because his name sounds so much like Steve Trevor.

I can’t help but feel wistful for the icons, the perfect, immovable ideals that the originals represented. The Last Son Of Krypton has an emotional and aesthetic wallop that can’t be matched by three cousins and a petting zoo. The Dark Knight, the lone crusader who pits himself against every criminal in a vast, chaotic city is an extraordinarily spare and beautiful picture. That picture has gotten pretty crowded. And Wonder Woman? The virgin huntress? She’s wooing a man with a nectarine pit.

But if you take Supergirl and Powergirl out of the Superman mythos, you lose not only two fantastic characters, but the sweetness and the emphasis on family that is so great about the Superman books. The Batkids bring warmth and enthusiasm to the Batman mythos. And Wonder Woman is such a difficult character to relate to. Romantic love and all the failings and vulnerabilities that it brings out in a person gives readers a toe-hold, a way of understanding an immortal, invulnerable, an infinitely wise character.

There is something thrilling about iconic characters, and plenty of wonderful stories have been told using that aspect of the Big Three. However, a lot of good comes from knocking those characters off the pedestal. Not only does it introduce new and different characters, but it adds richness and texture to characters who would have been only splash pages. There’s something to be said for being a human instead of a god.

There has been plenty of criticism of Superman/Batman, most of it deserved. The comic is where kitsch goes to die a long, agonizing death. Its inhabitants often act so baffling out of character that it’s hard to believe that their names aren’t misprints. Many of the issues play fast and loose with continuity.

The most cynical part of this book is right on the cover. Whoever conceived of this book took the two most lucrative characters in the DC universe and stuck them in a book without even a proper title. No ’The Adventures of.’ No, ’Duo.’ No ’League of.’ They just put a forward slash between the names, presumably so no one will think the book’s about a mutant hybrid. As grabs for reader’s money go, that falls somewhere between having the Birds of Prey go undercover as porn stars and just gripping readers by the ankles, holding them upside down and shaking them until their wallets fall out.

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I believe that a small part of every fanboy’s soul dies screaming whenever someone suggests that Superman would beat Batman in a fight.

In writing, the phrase ‘killing your darlings’ refers to the painful process by which authors weed out their favorite lines, best scenes, and most precious concepts because they distract from the story. In comics fandom, I think of it as describing the way that fandom crushes its own favorite characters under the weight of their own popularity – a process I can’t help but take part in.

Oracle is one of the best characters in comics. Her role on the various teams she’s on is irreplaceable. Her history is as varied and interesting as any character’s could be. She has a defined personality but isn’t a tired, one-note character. Her strengths and weaknesses make every fight she is in even enough that the reader cannot predict the outcome. Of the hundreds of people in the DCU running around in capes and solving the problems of the world by punching people, Barbara Gordon, confined to her wheelchair while being the Lone Ranger of cyberspace stands apart as a unique character.

I, as a reader, would give all that up in a second if she could be Batgirl again. I wouldn’t do it because I lack female crime fighters to identify with. After Fempocalypse – the cancellation of Manhunter, Batgirl, and the elimination of Spoiler, Onyx, Leslie Thompkins, and Gotham Central – DC is gyning up their superhero roster again and I can find strong females without resorting to the Teeny Blue Miniskirt. (Although, to be fair, Kelley Puckett has done an excellent job on Supergirl and I’ve been reading that again, too.)

I wouldn’t even do it because the Batman: The Animated Series episodes that starred Batgirl brought joy to my pre-adolescent life, although admittedly that would be a secondary reason.

I’d regress Barbara Gordon from a team leader to a Batman knock-off with problem hair for one reason: I think it would make her happier.

Yes. You read that right. I want a fictional character to be able to take a walk in a fictional park, then maybe go out dancing with her fictional boyfriend. Just to end the day right, I want her to get her fictional feet massaged. She’s earned it, hasn’t she?

The idea of treating characters as real human beings is plainly ridiculous, but it’s also only an extension of what comics fans do all the time. When we can’t believe that these characters have a life of their own, if only for twenty-two pages, then all we’re doing is staring at ink splotches on wood pulp. And while obsessing over a pet character can be silly, I don’t want to meet the comics fan with a soul so dead that they let go of all character identification and only read comic books ‘for the story.’ However, there does need to be a story, and indulging love for a pet character most often turns that character and every story they’re in as flat as the page they’re printed on.

Striking a balance between wanting a good story and wanting to cater to a favorite character is difficult. The character that makes me topple over is Barbara Gordon, obviously, but I’m willing to bet that every comics fan has one or two characters they’d like to get hold of. Someone out there wants to cast believability to the wind and make Ted Kord and Booster Gold in charge of the Justice League, or allow Superman to rebuild Krypton, or save Bruce Wayne’s parents.

Of course, thinking about 800 issues of Batman in which Babs Gordon goes for a walk with Martha Wayne on New Krypton and talks about how smoothly things have been going since New League took over earth is enough to make me glad there are strict copyright laws.

Thomas and Martha Wayne have always been the saints of the DCU. Thomas worked long hours healing the sick. Martha founded the Wayne foundation. Thomas used the Wayne fortune to keep Gotham from economic collapse. Martha stalked and attempted to trap pedophiles. They were pillars of society and always ready to serve the public good.

As parents, however, there was room for improvement.

The first story I read that included Thomas and Martha Wayne as anything other than portraits hanging over the mantle was Hush. Thomas Wayne takes Bruce and Bruce’s friend Tommy with him on a business trip and gets angry when they wander slightly away from him to see a couple of superheroes fighting. As punishment he locks them both in his hotel room for the weekend.
The next time I saw this parenting team they sent Bruce to his room without supper and grounded him for a week because he read a comic book. That’s right; a comic book. I suppose they might have been justified, if the comic was one of the more overtly racist Chick Tracts, but it’s most likely that the Waynes fell down on the job again.

What finally cemented my opinion of the Waynes was a single issue of Batman which I suppose was meant to be cute. Alfred is serving as butler to the Waynes when seven-year-old Bruce comes home covered in bruises. His mother and father immediately send him to his room without supper, where he pitifully stares out the window until Alfred comes up, comforts him, and shows him a creative way to deal with bullies.

Substitute the word ‘Headmaster’ for ‘Father’ and ‘Governess’ for ‘Mother’ and you have something out of Dickensian fiction. They didn’t even offer him a band-aid.

When DC comics shows alternate universes in which the Waynes survive, Bruce is generally either a shallow socialite or a good, but bland, businessman. I’m thinking that at best he’d be in rehab and more likely he’d be a modern day Lizzie Borden.

Some readers think that it’s significant that Bruce’s parents were shot when he was eight years old because he was exactly the right age to understand what happened without being able to deal with it. I think it’s significant that Bruce’s parents were shot when he was eight years old because a few years later he would have shoved them into the path of the bullets.