I remember the first time I got interested in comics. My story is similar to that of probably every fanboy out there but like every fan the story is always personal. In 1975 My uncle gave me Marvel’s Super Villain Team-Up #2 that starred Dr. Doom and Sub-Mariner. A great issue with a cover by Sal Buscema that I couldn’t put down and read over and over. It had action, suspense, great art, and the death of a character we all knew. At the ripe old age of 5 I became hooked. I think every fan knew when the first moment they fell in love with comics was. It was like your imagination exploding into overdrive in wonderful 2d greatness that left your senses forever changed.
Jim Lee Was One Of The Reasons I Started Collecting
And then it just grew from there. I started reading anything I could get my hands on. And then I bought my very first comic book at 8 years old…Batman #284. It was the best 30 cents I ever spent. I didn’t have a lot of money back then, but when I was out on my own, and could afford it, I started seriously collecting. Jim Lee’s art was one of the reasons I got into collecting. The X-Men #1 cover from 1991 drew me into a whole new explosive world of comics. Jim Lee and the new slew of young talent like Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, Marc Silvestri, Dale Keown, and Andy and Adam Kubert, brought a new kind of art to the comic book format that just screamed from the pages. Those artists, including Jim Lee, got me going to conventions every year, as well, so I could meet these talented artists that brought comic book fandom to a whole other level. But then things started to change.
The Mid Nineties Was The Worst Time To Collect Comics
By the mid nineties it was like the bubble had burst. Every comic book company was coming out with new gimmicks, multiple covers, and poly bags for every issue that came out and it felt like great storytelling was being sacrificed or over shadowed to make a quick buck. I mean, how many covers could I afford of each new comic that came out? It was frustrating and I stopped collecting for 5 years because the fun was lost and gone. The mid nineties was a horrible time for comics that saw an industry on the verge of collapse. It wasn’t until the end of that decade and the beginning of the 2000’s with the elevation of Joe Quesada at Marvel and the hire of Dan DiDio at DC that we could sense a change was about to happen. Both companies got down to the core of all their characters and realized great writing and storytelling were key to sales. Go figure. And in my humble opinion, DC got it more right than Marvel did.
Great Writing and Art Gave Comics The One Two Punch That Fans Were Craving
Great stories were starting to emerge and, I believe, it started over at DC comics. Amazing storytelling like ‘Superman/Batman: Public Enemies’, ‘Identity
Crisis’, and ‘DC: The New Frontier’ came out and fans were blown away. Writers, like Jeph Loeb, Geoff Johns, Darwyn Cooke, and Brad Meltzer, were making comics fun again. Us, as fans, couldn’t wait for the next issue to come out and we were talking feverishly about all the what ifs, why’s, and how could they’s with our friends and strangers at our local comic book shops. Before I knew it I was back into collecting again. With Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness doing ‘Superman/Batman’ and hinting at a new “Crisis” things started to feel great again with storytelling taking center stage that was also complimented with competent artists. ‘Infinite Crisis’ followed, with Geoff Johns leading the charge, giving fans a no holds barred in writing that gave us great story arcs and a reintroduction to characters like Psycho Pirate, Power Girl, and Superman of Earth-2, that we had all but forgotten about. We also saw, at DC, the reemergence of the great artist/writer collaborations that were a thing of the past. Writer/artists such as Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness and Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver were reminding us of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams, Marv Wolfman and George Perez, and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons once again. Even Jim Lee and Jeph Loeb gave us ‘Batman: Hush’ in 2008. It was an exciting book with great art, though it did give us a lackluster ending. Fan service and respect for the characters we loved were at an all time high and you could see the results in the absolute sales that rocketed through the roof for DC comics.
Jim Lee Used to be a Fan
I know this a long winded lead up to the title of this article but I thought it important to know the reason why I think what Jim Lee said is critical to what’s going on in comics right now. In an article from the Hollywood Reporter by Borys Kit, Kit asks Lee about the rumors that higher ups want to get rid of publishing. Jim Lee answers by basically affirming that the only reason publishing is around is to support other media platforms like movies, TV, etc…
“Occasionally you will run across that article or tweet and I have to bite my tongue to not jump into the conversations. It’s the furthest thing from the truth. If anything, it’s the exact opposite. The comics that we publish, the core canon we establish in comics, is driving everything that we do across DC in media. We are constantly referring to the characters as we build DC beyond the publishing world.
Having publishing is vital to our future. You can’t rest on our laurels and having an influx of new voices, new characters, new points of view is vital to keeping the industry healthy and representative of current times. It’s mission one for us to make sure that universe we create and champion is reflective of the fanbase that loves our characters. So yes, it is the cornerstone of everything we do.”
That’s a weak answer and also an admission that DC comics is using their comic books as a platform for political ideology and to push their agendas
onto the big screen and TV. It’s also a direct lie to the fans. When Lee says “It’s mission one for us to make sure that universe we create and champion is reflective of the fanbase that loves our characters.”, he is not being reflective of the core fanbase. The core fanbase are middle age men who have grown up with these characters and want DC to stick to the origins of these characters. Are there deviations that can be told where we see these characters stray from their original purpose…of course. If DC wants to appease the Twitter mobs on the left then they need to create characters that will appease the checkmarks plain and simple. Lee also admits here, very subtly, that the comics they are publishing are establishing a core canon that changes the original canon of these superheroes. You don’t have to look further than the recent ‘Superman: Son of Kal-El’ or ‘Batman Urban Legends #6’ to see what I mean. DC is taking well established characters and changing them to fit a narrative that they think is popular but is not. You only have to look at their sales in last few years to realize that the new crop of political agenda filled ideologues, that DC has hired to write their well established characters hasn’t bode well for them financially. I for one stopped collecting a year and a half ago and have only stuck to buying back issues that don’t contain this political platform garbage. Lee goes on to reaffirm this view of political wokeness when he is asked about DC’s globalization strategy.
“It’s always been a priority but more so now because our fans are everywhere. These movies and productions have taken over pop culture the world over. But the focus of our universe is still very much North American-centric. So I think that there is a lot of work to be done and a lot of opportunity to be in done in diversifying, creating new concepts and characters, working with new creators we’ve never worked with before, bringing in a level of authenticity in their storytelling telling, tapping into other world cultures, and really making the universe as vibrant and relevant as it can be.” Jim Lee used to be a fan favorite but it is becoming quite clear that he is part of the problem whether intentionally or unintentionally.
The Fans Want DC and Marvel to Leave Their Favorite Characters Alone
The true comic book fan does not care about being diverse and inclusive of other cultures in their comic books. We just want to see our heroes fight some bad guys and save the day and not be lectured to through a wag of the finger. Jim Lee also states here that he wants to create new concepts and characters. That’s a lie as well. If that were the case, then DC would not be taking well established characters and changing them to fit a narrative. The new ‘Batman Urban Legends’ #6 which came out on August 10th reveals that Tim Drake AKA Robin is bi-sexual. What?!…Really?! He has been a very heterosexual male for the entire 30 years of his existence with numerous relationships with women such as Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Sandsmark, and Greta Hayes to name a few. If DC wants to create new characters to fit this narrative of appeasing all the checkmarks than just make new characters. But Lee and DC won’t because it’s easier and lazier to do that with our established heroes. It is unfortunate to hear Jim Lee say these things because I was such a huge fan of his. Jim Lee is a much better artist than he is an executive and I wish he would go back to that. If he really, truly believes this woke crap, then DC is really headed to being a poor shadow and shell of what they once were.
Related: Superman and the American Way
