BREAKING POINTS

I read my first DC comic book when I was around 5 years old, circa 1974. It was an issue of Batman, whose TV adventures (starring Adam West, of course) I was already watching every day in reruns and loving thoroughly. From then on, I was hooked, and I don’t think a month has gone by where I haven’t brought at least a few new DC titles into my home.

I first saw Star Wars when I was around 8.  I liked it, certainly enough to start collecting the action figures, the toy spaceships, and the earliest novels, and to actually sit through most of The Star Wars Holiday Special. But a few years later, I saw The Empire Strikes Back and I was absolutely blown away. That’s when my love for George Lucas’s creation kicked into overdrive, ultimately spanning decades. I ended up owning every home video release of the saga. The original pan-and-scan VHS box set from the late 1980s—a gift from my parents. The remastered widescreen VHS box set from the early 1990s. The Special Edition VHS box set from the late ’90s. The DVD box set from 2004. And I even bought the prequels on DVD, albeit individually.

But as of August 31, 2011, I’m saying goodbye to both DC Comics and Star Wars, two things that have meant a great deal to me for most of my life. With both, I’ve simply reached the breaking point.

DC’s widely publicized 52-title relaunch is serving as the perfect exit for me. To be honest, I was becoming increasingly disenchanted with their output for quite a while, despite the fact that they publish two of my favorite characters, namely Batman and Superman. I certainly could have dropped all of the books before now, but I hung in there, thinking that a creative turnaround was just around the corner—even though with each passing month, most of the stuff I was reading was just getting more and more disappointing, or confusing, or frustrating, or just plain bad. I say this not only as a longtime reader but also as an industry vet—someone who has written and edited many comic books and whose skills were honed by learning directly from such creative figures as Mark Gruenwald, Tom DeFalco, Roger Stern, J.M. DeMatteis, Ralph Macchio, Tom Brevoort, and Bob Budiansky.

DC’s overly long, egregiously padded, occasionally impenetrable, ultimately empty “event storylines” like Countdown to Final Crisis, Batman R.I.P., Final Crisis, Blackest Night, Brightest Day, War of the Green Lanterns, Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, and the “New Krypton” saga in the Superman titles left me feeling ripped off—and angry. Angry at the writers, the editors, and DC’s executives for cheating me and every other reader who bought these books in good faith, expecting well constructed, coherent, and complete reading experiences and not getting anything of the sort.

I’m not against reboots or relaunches or whatever you want to call them. I thoroughly enjoyed the 1985 limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, which gave the DC Comics universe a brand-new start. I absolutely loved John Byrne’s 1986-88 run on Superman, which wiped away decades of continuity and restarted the character from Day One—in fact, the Byrne stuff is what made me a regular Superman reader. And for the most part, I really liked what Frank Miller did in Batman: Year One. 

But the thing is, the same executives, editors, writers, and artists who have guided DC for the last few years, who have set the overall direction for the company, who are responsible for the “event storylines” and everything else mentioned above, are the very same folks responsible for this relaunch. And from what I’ve seen, the new DC line seems to have pretty much the same approach, the same mentality, as before.

A perfect example is Justice League #1, the first salvo of the relaunch, which hit the stands on August 31. 

I didn’t buy it, but I did read it. And what I found was more of the same—decompressed storytelling designed to drag the story out over a number of issues for eventual collection in hardcover or trade paperback. Which means nothing really happens in the first issue. All you get, essentially, is a teaser. This is supposed to be the Justice League’s first issue, but there’s no Justice League in it. Set in the past, the Justice League doesn’t exist yet when the story begins—which is fine, but the team doesn’t form by the end of the issue, either. Half of the members don’t even show up. It’s all just set-up, with the focus on Batman and Green Lantern meeting for the first time, along with a one-panel appearance by Superman (wearing his new costume—yuck) and a sequence devoted to Cyborg before he became Cyborg. With a cover price of $3.99. (So much for DC’s “Holding the Line at $2.99” promotion.) Maybe the story will turn out to be just dandy, and it will read wonderfully in collected form. But for those readers not waiting for the collected edition, for the ones buying each issue as it hits the stands, when will the story actually kick in? At this rate, it seems like issue #3 would be the earliest. How will all of the theoretical new readers that DC is hoping to pull in react when they realize they’ve plunked down four bucks—again, in good faith—and all they got was a snippet that took them five minutes to read? Is that really going to make them want to come back for more?

Ah well. That’s really DC’s concern, not mine.

On top of all that, I see Batman still being portrayed as an arrogant, anti-social, paranoid, xenophobic asshole—a portrayal that’s always irked me. I see his 10-year-old, born-out-of-wedlock son Damian—a character I didn’t like when he was first introduced and who I still can’t stand—sticking around post-relaunch, still operating as the new Robin. As far as I’m concerned, if anything should have been wiped out with this relaunch, it was Damian. So I’m done with Batman. And I’ve seen and read enough about the relaunched Superman to conclude that it’s not going to be my cup of tea—starting with that new costume.

And if I’m done with Batman and Superman, that means I’m pretty much done with DC as a whole.

As for Star Wars and George Lucas… I was planning to get the entire six-movie (yes, including the prequels) box set on Blu-ray. I’d love to see them with the best picture quality possible, and with kick-ass sound. Not that the DVDs are in any way lousy—they look and sound fine. I was curious about all the extras that the Blu-ray set was going to include, particularly the deleted scenes. But as I was about to hit the “pre-order” button on Amazon.com, I stopped myself and let reason prevail. I had to know what further changes Lucas made to these films before I’d commit to buying them in a new format. Because unless you’ve been living on the remote ice planet Hoth for the last 18 years or so, you know that George Lucas has kept tinkering with the Star Wars movies, changing them. He’s added and/or deleted special effects and sound effects, altered dialogue, re-edited scenes, adjusted the sound mixes and the colors of the lightsabers, and even shoehorned in characters and actors who weren’t there originally.

I put up with all of these changes, though some bothered me more than others. (It’s not just that Han shot first—it’s that Greedo didn’t shoot at all! I didn’t mind Lucas replacing the original Emperor with actor Ian McDiarmid in The Empire Strikes Back, as it provides consistency with Return of the Jedi and the prequels—but why did he have to change the dialogue? It didn’t add anything and was actually more clunky than before. And adding a scream to Luke in Empire after he let himself fall off the walkway to escape from Vader was absolutely ridiculous. Luke made a calm, cool, collected, conscious decision to fall away. He purposely chose possible death over joining Vader. So why the hell would he scream in terror as he plummeted? Fortunately, Lucas removed that particular tweak when he released the films on DVD.)

I was dreading what further changes had been made for the Blu-ray release—and I was right to do so. The news broke on August 31 that there were indeed more alterations to the films, and they had leaked on to the Internet.

I’d known for years that Lucas was going to replace the Yoda puppet in The Phantom Menace with a CGI version that would match what he looked like in the other prequels. I didn’t mind that—the puppet in Phantom Menace didn’t look good and wouldn’t be missed.

But that wasn’t enough for ol’ George. In Star Wars, when the Tusken Raiders are ransacking Luke’s landspeeder, Ben Kenobi scares them off by making the sound of some local creature that they apparently fear. Lucas has changed this sound several times, and each change is worse than the one before it. Which makes this latest one the worst of all. Seriously, it sounds like Sean Hayes from Will and Grace getting a reach-around while someone parks a car up his rectum.

Lucas also added CGI to the Ewoks’ eyes in Return of the Jedi, so that you can see them blink now. Not a deal-breaker for me, since I kind of zone out whenever the Ewoks are onscreen anyway.

But then he really crossed the line. He completely ruined one of the most important moments in the entire series—certainly the most important moment in Return of the Jedi. The Emperor is blasting Luke with Force lightning. Luke can’t defend himself. He calls out to Vader, “Father, please! Help me!” In the original version of the film, and in every single version up until now, Vader stands there watching and remaining totally silent and mysterious, his thoughts and feelings unknown. It’s a tense, suspenseful, even nerve-wracking sequence. You don’t know what Vader is going to do until he actually does it. Well, here’s the new version of the scene: 

What the hell?!? Talk about killing a moment. Talk about sapping a scene of its power, suspense, and tension. Talk about giving away what’s about to happen. How in the name of all that’s holy could this change be considered an improvement?

It’s funny: I was afraid that it would be further changes to The Empire Strikes Back—one of my all-time favorite films—that would keep me from getting the Blu-ray set. I wasn’t really worried about Return of the Jedi. I figured the odds were that any more changes to that film would be an improvement. So naturally, Lucas zeroes in on the most effective, most important, most powerful moment, the one that needed no change whatsoever, and he pisses right on it. It took this to make me finally accept that George Lucas’s talents, his taste, and his judgment as a creative force are long gone.

Lucas says these are his movies and he can do whatever he wants with them—and he’s absolutely right. But I don’t have to support it. And from this point on, I won’t. 

On one message board, someone responded to the news about the Star Wars Blu-rays by writing, “I wish George Lucas would just die already so that this will stop.”

To paraphrase a line from Chris Rock, I don’t approve of that sentiment—but I understand it.

So yeah, I’ve reached the point where I’ve decided to let these two particular ships sail on without me. But with a sense of genuine gratitude and fondness, because for a good long time, the voyages were wonderful indeed.


UPDATE: I just wanted to mention that I've now read FLASHPOINT #5, the pivotal issue that sets up the "new" DC Universe. It certainly wasn't perfect, but I have to say that the last few pages alone were worth the cover price. Extremely touching and expertly executed. Kudos to writer Geoff Johns and artist Andy Kubert. It's not enough to keep me coming back, but it's a very nice way to close out my time as a regular DC reader—with a smile instead of an angry grimace. 

© All content copyright Glenn Greenberg, 2011.