Wednesday, September 17, 2008

DCU: Decisions

I just read issue 1 of DCU Decisions at lunch—and it was better than I expected. It's co-written by Bill Willingham, one of my favorite writers (and a conservative) and Judd Winick, a writer I used to like a lot but now tend to avoid like the plague (and a liberal). I expected Crossfire in comics form. What I got was very different.

There's actually very little discussion of real-world politics in this (although we learn that Green Arrow is voting Democratic—gasp! shock!—and can infer that one other longtime, well-known character is likely to vote Republican). But mostly, it seems to be focusing on the interpolitics of the superhuman community, and how Green Arrow's decision to endorse a (fictional) candidate in the Democratic primaries (which he initially does as a misstep during an interview, rather than intentionally) could change how heroes conduct themselves in public and relate to each other in private.

Plus there's a mystery, which is nice.

I kind of expected something that people on both sides of the political aisle would find something to hate in this book, but so far it seems a little to vague for that, and quite possibly better for it.

(Something of interest to me is that this cover seems to have gone through several iterations. The first one was saw—and maybe it was never intended as a cover, just promo art—was the Green Arrow endorsement poster. Next is this cover, which I took directly from DC's website a couple of minutes ago. But the cover I actually bought off the stands is this cover with one addition: "Heroes Don't Vote" is spraypainted over the poster. I wonder if this addition is the reason the comic was pulled from last week's shipment and delayed until this week? Maybe someone at DC or Warners thought the cover would be seen as an actual, unambiguous endorsement of a Dem?)

Rob

7 comments:

Greg! said...

Yeah, what happened to Judd Winick? I think maybe he needs to stop writing mainstream superheros and get back to his roots with some hard-swearing Barry Ween.

Rob S. said...

I think that's it -- I think there's just something fundamentally different about the way he sees superheroes from the way I want to see them. I can't speak to it much more than that, since I stopped picking up his superhero work years ago. (But that said, this ain't half bad. And with Winick co-writing it, I expected almost exactly half-bad.)

He did write something post-Ween that I liked a lot: a crime book DC published called Caper. It was a 12-issue limited series, but was really 3 unrelated 4-issue stories published under one umbrella. I particularly liked the first one, and the second had John Severin art, so that has to go down as a win, too.

I also remember liking Blood + Water, but all I can remember of it now is the main character was a guy with hepatitis who became a vampire in order to get cured.

But superheroes? sigh....

Martin Gray said...

I think the comic was pulled last week cos the female candidate looked too Condy (is that how you spell it?).

Nice review!

Rob S. said...

Thanks, Mart. (Generally I've seen it spelled "Condi.") That's what I'd heard before I saw the book for myself, but looking at the page posted at Lying in the Gutters and comparing it with the page that was actually printed, I really didn't see a difference. But the "Heroes Don't Vote" graffiti is new.

Anonymous said...

Given that the official position of the political establishment is that as many people as possible should exercise their right to vote at every election, perhaps 'Heroes don't vote!' scrawled across the cover of a flagship DC title might give the wrong message heading into this election?

Rob S. said...

You'd think so, wouldn't you? They certainly could have phrased that better...

Greg! said...

I remember enjoying Blood + Water as well. I don't even remember Caper.