Nostalgia and inertia; or, how DC and Marvel keep you hooked on the sweet, sweet stuff

The good thing about Countdown to Infinite Crisis, I suppose, is that people are talking about comics and trying to figure out what makes comics good. The owner of my local comic shoppe and one of his employees actually like both Identity Crisis and CtIC, for what reasons I choose not to discuss, because it's beside the point. So people do like them, and the rest of us are talking about them. So it's not the worst thing in the world.

The problem with both of these books are that DC and Marvel (yes, Marvel didn't publish either of them, but they did bring us Avengers: Disassembled) don't care about their fans. They are in the position of drug dealer, and we are in the position of junkie. Anything to keep us on the product! Our drugs: nostalgia and inertia. Bear with me here.

We want comics to be like they were when we first started buying them. That's fine, except it's impossible. So what we do is complain about the current comics, whether they are "like" the comics we used to read or not. If they are similar to the comics we used to read, we complain that the Big Two are wallowing in nostalgia. If they are unlike the comics we used to read, the Big Two are not respecting the characters. Either way, we're hooked. We either buy comics in the hope that they will remind of a more innocent time, or we buy them because we always have. DC and Marvel are counting on our memories, and therefore they don't care about always putting out the best product.

I'm not immune to this. However, I've been buying comics for 17 years and think I have a more discerning eye than I used to. Maybe I don't. Also, since I started buying comics when I was 17, I didn't have the rose-colored view of characters that I would have had if I had bought them when I was 10. If Amazing Spider-Man sucks, I don't buy it. If DC wants to turn Hal Jordan into a mass murderer, go ahead. If DC wants to rape Sue Dibny and kill Blue Beetle, philosophically I have no problem with it. It just seems that they did these things simply to engender a reaction from the fan base and stir the waters. Is that any way to tell a story? Maybe it is, but it's not a very good way.

Let's face it: nostalgia is a stupid reason to buy a certain comic. Batman isn't even the same character today! Judd Winnick's Batman is very different from David Lapham's Batman, who is very different from Grant Morrison's Batman. Just because he's wearing the same costume and people are calling him the same thing doesn't make him the same. So there's no way he's going to be the same character that he was 10, 20, or 30 years ago (whenever you liked him). But we are such Marvel and DC zombies that we slavishly pick up anything with our "favorite character" in it - whether or not the story is any good. Brad pointed this out a few days ago, but it does bear repeating. We are perpetuating this kind of thing with our money. The Big Two count on us buying anything they can slap Wolverine or Batman onto without critical judgment. They think: "People want comics that are grim, so we'll destroy one of the few comic-book marriages that work," or, "Comics in the 1950s and 1960s sure were stupid - let's explain why they were." WE DON'T CARE WHY THEY WERE STUPID!!! It was part of the zeitgeist, and we can read them today with a twinge of nostalgia and condescending paternalism, and move on. If you liked the Giffen/DeMatteis JLI, you don't care that they were ineffectual; they were fun, and that was that. DC and Marvel are counting on the decades-old devotion that they have built up, and we keep re-affirming their faith.

This blog is called Comics Should Be Good for a reason. It is our hope that a growing number of comic-book readers are discerning enough to say, "You know what? I love the character of Batman, but all the comics with him suck." (I'm just using him as an example, since I like Detective.) You may like straight superhero action - that's fine. But for those who want something different, it takes a little work. We need to look through Previews a little more closely. We need to check out the Internet for things. Good ol' Saul Colt from SSS Comics comes to this site to plug his stuff! Steven Grant is always reviewing stuff and providing links to them (this week's column also has an excellent look at rape in comics - check it out!). It's not like you can't find comics that aren't nostalgic wank-fests. I buy a lot of monthly pamphlets - over 100 in the first three months of the year, in fact. If you're tired of DC and Marvel shitting all over you to make a buck, here are some interesting titles:

Do you like westerns with an eerie, fairy-tale spin on it? Check out The Ballad of Sleeping Beauty by Beckett Comics, solicited as a trade paperback in this month's Previews.

Is pulp action in the Indiana Jones tradition for you? Pick up Captain Gravity and the Power of the Vril from Penny-Farthing Press. Gorgeous art by Sal Velluto, fun story by Joshua Dysart.

Want JLA-type hijinks without feeling creepy that two of the characters are dead? Giffen and DeMatteis bring you Hero Squared (which has jumped around to different publishers, but should be out soon).

Miss the sprawling, soap-opera aspects of old-school Uncanny X-Men, Amazing Spider-Man, and Fantastic Four? Noble Causes throws personal conflicts and action at you faster than you can handle it!

Loved The Last Samurai and Shogun? Hell, do you think the only cool Wolverine is a samurai Wolverine? Samurai: Heaven and Earth by Dark Horse is beautiful to look at (Luke Ross is awesome in the title) and tells an intriguing story.

Dig police procedurals? Why not read Small Gods? Wonderful art, interesting stories, and the added twist of telepaths existing in the real world.

Are war comics your deal? Garth Ennis does 'em better than anyone, and he's in the middle of a soon-to-be classic with 303.

John Ostrander is one of the best writers in comics, and he's working with his old partner Timothy Truman on GrimJack from IDW. Gritty science fiction, hard-boiled police action, sex - it's got it all!

Did you enjoy Mark Millar's Red Son? Do you dig Elseworlds and What If? Atomika is about the Russians creating their own superhero in the 1920s. Weird, wild stuff!

Rex Mundi remains my favorite book. Murder, alternate history, religious persecution, political intrigue - it's all there!

Spooky, creepy, slightly-Satanic mysteries with some real-life drama thrown in your cup of tea? Perhaps Shiver in the Dark is a nice-looking book.

Guy at Comic Book Commentary is giving away Elk's Run #1. It's free, people! Well, it's a contest, but still - it's free if you win!

These don't even take into consideration the boutique lines of DC and Marvel, where you can find Vinamarama, Ex Machina, Ocean, Supreme Power, The Twilight Experiment, Otherworld, The Intimates, Powers, Fables - and many others! In the coming months, we have Desolation Jones, The Matador, Mnemovore, Girls (by the Luna brothers of Ultra fame), Beowulf, Scarlet Traces: The Great Game (a sequel to Scarlet Traces - Edginton and D'Israali have also brought us Kingdom of the Wicked, which is excellent), Godland (by crazy Joe Casey), Sea of Red (to fill your pirate comic jones left gaping by the death of El Cazador), Black Diamond On Ramp (by the always interesting - and sometimes really good - Larry Young), Action Philosophers: All-Sex Special (for all ages!), and Heartbreakers Meet Boilerplate. Holy crap!

These suggestions barely make a dent in what is out there, and they're just what I think is good - you might have totally different opinions. If you are angry about how you've been treated by the Big Two (or even just their mainstream superhero divisions), you need to do the work to find stuff you like. Bitching about Maxwell Lord blowing Ted Kord's brains out is fun, but ultimately fruitless. You are the consumer. Hold these publishers to a higher standard. Why should we stand for crap when we're really in a Golden Age of comics goodness?