Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
About this blog
Wyatt Earp, the legendary lawman of the Old West, has found himself in a future he has come to understand but will never truly belong to, a knight from a distant era with a strict code of honor and a clearly defined sense of right and wrong.
Doc Holliday, Earp's old friend and fellow gunslinger, was cloned in 2999. Because of a DNA instability, however, only his head survives, suspended in a fluid-filled jar.
Reunited in a distant century, the two rekindle their friendship and use their Wild West sensibilities to survive in a science-fiction universe, dispensing justice and evading the mysterious parties responsible for Holliday's resurrection.
The Adventures of Wyatt Earp in 2999 is a self-published comic created by Josh Lynch and Justin Zyduck, two friends seeking a publisher for this book.
In the sequential art storytelling medium, the comics are created by two separate yet equally important groups: the artist (Josh) and the writer (Justin). These are their stories.
Doc Holliday, Earp's old friend and fellow gunslinger, was cloned in 2999. Because of a DNA instability, however, only his head survives, suspended in a fluid-filled jar.
Reunited in a distant century, the two rekindle their friendship and use their Wild West sensibilities to survive in a science-fiction universe, dispensing justice and evading the mysterious parties responsible for Holliday's resurrection.
The Adventures of Wyatt Earp in 2999 is a self-published comic created by Josh Lynch and Justin Zyduck, two friends seeking a publisher for this book.
In the sequential art storytelling medium, the comics are created by two separate yet equally important groups: the artist (Josh) and the writer (Justin). These are their stories.
DUDE HOUSE
Our HOUSE
Blog Archive
-
▼
2010
(59)
-
▼
March
(7)
- Terror! Chills! The Current Price of Gasoline!
- A Titan by any other name...
- Communists of the Marvel Universe #002: The Chameleon
- Such strange things did I viddy in my dream, O my ...
- A True Conversation With My Brother (Only Very Sli...
- A Short Story What I Wrote (Justin Pollock's Debut)
- Communists of the Marvel Universe #001: Igor Drenkov
-
▼
March
(7)
8 comments:
I'll say it here, instead of there...
To me, "Arsenal" is a dumb name, but "Red Arrow" is a name that suggests contempt for the audience...because it's not just dumb, it actually seems ignorant of the rules of how you name characters in superhero comics. And that kind of ignorance is hard to believe as ignorance; I mean, isn't that these people's business? Roy Harper started life as Speedy, the red-suited sidekick to green-suited Robin-Hood-Guy, the kid with the domino mask, and that's all he could ever be, unless he was changed into something else...I mean he's not a person, this change stuff doesn't just happen, it's all about doing something different, or not doing something different, on purpose.
Arsenal clearly had a purpose. And even if I think it's a dumb name/concept/design, the purpose wasn't dumb in and of itself...Speedy wasn't much use anymore! Or, no one wanted to do anything with him. So okay, it's a new name and a new look and a new shtick, and of course that's all the same thing really: a new design. And these new designs usually aren't close to the original, for very good and clear reasons they pretty much have to be different, look different and sound different and be bloody different, so at least Arsenal clears that bar. Want a new character? MAKE one, that's the only choice you've got...but the good news is, it can be just about anything you want, so long as that one parameter, difference, is fulfilled.
So what the fuck "Red Arrow" is trying to be is just incomprehensible, in that light. The name's not just close to Green Arrow; due to the red/green colour opposition thing it's inescapably in dialogue with it. It means something. Only problem is, it isn't actually made to mean anything. It's not even a more radicalized version of Green Arrow, isn't even a classic superhero doppelganger identity...it's not a proper successor identity...
Post!
...No matter what the in-story reason is for the name, I mean that's cute and everything but it's the reason that's external to the story that counts, and there isn't any reason like that, they left it out. And fans may not pick up on this consciously, but I think if you're steeped in these conventions you can't help but recognize and react to their violation. You've gotta expect some symbolic commitment to register out of that authorial choice, and when you don't you've (I think) got to feel just a little bit like somebody's taking you for granted and assuming you're an idiot. "We'll just call him Red Arrow"...oh, really? Why, ya got someplace else to be? Can't spare five minutes to consider "The Black Bowman" or "Arrowhawk" or "Compound" or "Flyte" or "Shaft" or "Danger Zone"? Somewhere in there is something that feels like "kids're stupid, just call him any fuckin' thing, it doesn't matter if they're just gonna buy anyway"...hence the old Nerd Rage, when the bargain is revealed: we make it shit, then you think it's cool, okay? Great, that'll be four bucks, now get out.
Oh, why is he called Red Arrow? Well, look, that's what someone called him in the story, that's just what they call him.
Man, what a bullshit dodge that is. "Don't blame the writer for the stupid name, blame the character in the story"...this is how you know they think you're stupid, when they don't even bother having a story-external reason for the new name, shtick, costume, whatever. Red Arrow means blood, obviously -- but that's not connected to anything. It could have been, very easily, but...they just chose not to do it. Somebody calls him Red Arrow, it's a cheesy mistake, it's a running joke, then his kid gets killed and in retaliation he murders her killer. Suddenly the cheesiness has become horrific, and the joke's gone wrong. It's right there.
But they didn't think they had to do it.
I'd be mad too! If I cared.
So Red Arrow's just not a good new name/look/shtick, on the only level that matters, which is the level of craft. If the blood-vengeance story was there, then yes: that's an origin. But without it there's no reason for Red Arrow, and it would be better as anything else, because of all the possible names that spring to mind only Red Arrow requires this origin, is unjustified without this precise origin...I mean it's absolutely astounding, it's such a specifically driven change, and yet it's got to run alongside the car, it's just such an awful dog's breakfast. It's like somebody insisted it must be this exact change, the blood-connotation...then they built the story to the point of rationalizing that (in my opinion shortsighted and boring) choice...then they just dropped it. Unbelievable. It comes across as oure cynicism.
Anyway, that's my three cents! All from hearsay, mind you...
Ooh!
Going away for the weekend, so I'll have to be brief now and expand later...
I suppose I'd been assuming it was, like, the very *sounds* of the words "Red Arrow" fans found somehow repellent, and not about what it *means* (or, in fact, doesn't mean). Not Busy Enough Thinking About My Comics, to be sure!
Still, I think the Red Arrow problem is the same as the Roy Harper problem, which is what is the point? His two most defining character traits are "Has (had) a kid" and "Was on heroin as a teenager". Seems like there might almost be mileage in him as a guy not cut out for The Life - some kids are meant to be teen sidekicks, and some are just meant to stay wherever it was he came from and go to school and become an optometrist, no shame in it. I'm not sure why, exactly, Brad M took some kind of *interest* in promoting him without supplying an interesting hook.
I mean, what *would* you call this guy? What *is* there to call him?
Although the more I think about it, the more I *do* like what Arsenal *could* mean, as a sort of rejection of Green Arrow. Oliver Queen is a showboat, he's going to try to impress chicks by going "See that dude? I'm going to handcuff him from 100 yards away with a friggin' *arrow* for God's sake, watch this." A guy called Arsenal isn't limited, though, he'll think maybe there's problems that can't be solved with an arrow with a gimmick on the tip. Like I said at MGK's, a practical guy.
That, it seems, is my idea of being "brief."
You know what, I think Brad Meltzer's a guy who's Not Busy Enough Thinking About My Comics. Surely if you invested, like, a long car trip thinking about Identity Crisis before you wrote it, you'd toss the idea out the window on the freeway, right?
Hm; two days later, and I don't have as much to add as I thought.
I guess in the final analysis, I don't feel "contempt" in the move, but more of an unwarranted self-satisfaction on the writer's part. I actually have that first arc of the new Justice League of America - I was in one of my fits of wanting to be engaged with "what's going on" in superhero comics that I get every couple of years - and it feels like while writing it Brad Meltzer thought, "Yes, this is significant. This is a bold step forward for this character, this is meaningful," and he was just a bit *wrong* because he hadn't thought it through enough.
I mean, if you told me, "We need you to do something with Roy Harper," the first thing I'd think to do would be to go with Red Arrow because it *sounds* important, but then you ought to think about, like you said, what it means, the blood connection, etc. I'd like to think I'd either address that or go in a different direction.
I don't know, I think you could even get away with "Red Arrow", but only if you gave it *less* thought. If you threw it at the wall to see if it'd add up to anything later ... well, as a consumer of entertainment I always forgive sloppiness and a lack of polish if I get a sense of energy and creativity behind it, of *potential*. But the way it came off, it read a bit as if Brad Meltzer thought about it a bit, became swept up in his conviction, and totally thought he nailed it.
Hm, but (presumably) nobody told Meltzer "We need you to do something with Roy Harper," it was his idea, so again, I'm not sure why Roy Harper/Red Arrow was something he was *interested* in doing, particularly if he wasn't going to do anything with it in the end.
"Hm, hm, hm" ... that's all I've got to say.
Post a Comment