This may be the best thing that's happened to DC in my lifetime

Is it possible that the coronavirus shutdown is the best thing to happen to DC in my memory?  

That may seem like an insane assertion.  The quarantine has wrecked production of the films, shows, and periodicals that star, and therefore keep popular, the DCU's intellectual properties--their characters and the worlds they inhabit.  The distribution system is in ruins, the direct market collapsing, and brick and mortar stores in ICU.  The situation is so bad that Newsarama, with little of substance to report on, has resorted to publishing its own fan-fic about its fever fantasy of a DC-Marvel crossover event.  It's like watching someone hallucinate in a sensory -deprivation tank. It's hard to imagine a worse situation for comics to be, other than perhaps being directly outlawed or so severely censored as to be gelded (and comics already survived that quite nimbly during the Comics Code Authority Era).

And yet. 

DC is now engaging directly with its readers, finally liberating itself from its shotgun marriage to Diamond Distributors in 1995.  

It's unheard of! At least to any 35 or under.

In that process, DC has resorted to publishing online through its "Digital Firsts" format some comics that were written not for the direct market but for the general public.

And the difference is striking. In a good way.

I have bought these 'new' Digital Firsts and they make me feel like a drowning man finally getting air.  

A good feeling, as Green Arrow has recently taught us.

Why do I enjoy them?  Because they aren't slivers of some year(s)-long arc by some auteur determined to leave the character "as you never seen them before" in some narrative experiment.  Because, although the stories make reference to and take elements from the DCU's long history, they don't rely on the reader's knowledge of it.  Because the heroes are recognizably on model.  Because their adversaries, while definitely villainous, are shown not to be gratuitously so, but to have worldviews and motives that are made evident, consistent, and the cause of their behavior.  Because the heroes are in interested in finding out whether they can defeat the villain by winning the war of ideas, by getting them to change their worldview to mitigate their misbehavior, and failing that, to punch the crap out of them.  

But even sympathetic Batman....

... is still Batman.

Because they are short comics but complete stories. Because they only cost 99 cents and feel worth their cost, for a change.

Because I am buying them; and reading them; and enjoying them; and talking with my friends about them.  Because if someone asked me for something to read to help them get into comics, I could give them these, rather than ones 50 years old or expressly written for children with juvenile art-styles.

Because in one Aquaman story, they reintroduced and modernized the Sea Devils and had them wind up becoming part of Aquaman's larger dynasty of justice-seekers.   In another, they introduced Black Manta with his backstory completely synopsized, brought the Mermazons into continuity as a throwaway, and set a battle at the hilariously named Museum of Unnatural History.

Because they have been fun, and funny, and wise, and exciting, and witty, and sad. Passionate without being overdramatic, instructive without being didactic, action-packed without being incomprehensible.

In short, they are being written in the way comics were when popular cultural adopted them are as our common mythology, as if every comic might be someone's first and therefore making it possible a person to START reading comics at any point and feel welcome.

It is my fervent hope that through the cold turkey of quarantine, DC will have been able to kick its addictions to non-stop crossovers, reboots, epics, and character deconstructions.  All they have to do is keep writing comics like these, comics like I thought people had forgotten how to make, and they will have my devoted readership again.  And just maybe some new readers, too.

The Difference between DC and Marvel

Yes, there is a difference. Coke is a cola. Pepsi is a cola. Coke and Pespi do not taste alike; most people drink one and not the other, and the people who do drink them indiscriminately are usually waiting for what they really want, alcohol.

When I read on-line pablum about, "I just enjoy whatever, and shouldn't we all just read good stories wherever they are written, and I don't think there is a difference, and I want to read a cross-over where Iron Man dates Power Girl, and why can't we just all get along?," I want to take an uzi into a bar and slay a score of second-rate villains in a hail of bullets. But I don't. Why? Because that's a Marvel thing to do, and I'm a DC person. It says so in the blog title.

One of the examples of the Difference Between DC and Marvel is in their panthea (or pantheons, if you're allergic to Greek plurals).

The Greek Gods, the gods of tragedy, are the gods of the DCU.

The Norse Gods, the gods of opera, are the gods of the Marvel.

We see lots of gods and godlings in the DCU: fun, forgotten ones in Vertigo, ham-handed manques like the New Gods, decorative deities like Rao tossed about the universe like theurgic throw-pillows to spice up alien cultures. But for the most part, the "gods" in the DCU means Zeus & Co. Yes, the Greek Gods, the gods of founders of Western Civilization, the people who brought you self-government, logic, and couple other useful concepts, like: tragedy. 

I know I cried. He could have been one of the greats.

Now, not every DC story is a tragedy, of course. But if you set aside the "gosh, that's sad and icky" part of tragedy, its underlying tenet is that what happens to you, your fate, is the usually the result of your own character, not just random happenstance.

Batman's "fate" isn't thrust upon him by a cruel world that fails to understand him. Bruce Wayne could, at any point say, "Well, this is fruitless! Alfred, pack my bags, buy a Caribbean island (if I don't already own one), and tell Silver St. Cloud I'll meet her there for brunch!" But he doesn't, because his character is otherwise.

But an occasional nightcap is acceptable.

Superman isn't enfeebled by the mistrust of a xenophobic society, forcing him to hide as a mild-mannered drudge. "Gosh," Superman could say, "I think I'll rule the world today, then write about it in my gigantic steel diary using my fingernails." Because of his character, Superman chooses (like Cinncinnatus) to rise up above other people only when it is necessary to protect society; otherwise, he chooses to live among them as equals. Whatever "tragic fate" these and other characters suffer stems from their own virtues and flaws (which usually aren't fatal, unless you were a member of Justice League International, like Ted, Tora, those foxy French sisters, and Amazingly-Brittle Man).

Like Cinncinnatus, Superman left his plow to save society.

But Marvel's gods are the Norse ones, who, in our culture, we know mostly through opera. It's fitting; Marvel is about personal drama, people thrust into extraordinarily roles and situations (usually against their will) by life's vicissitudes (you know, errant chromosomes, cosmic rays, radioactive spiders, and such). It's opera, not tragedy, because you are watching people suffer unjustly, to see how they stand up to it all (like on Fear Factor).

Like the audience at the Spider-Man musical.

DC's message? You are responsible for protecting and improving yourself and society, so toughen up for that responsibility.

Marvel's message? You better be tough, because you're going to have to suffer many things in this world that you're not responsible for and can't improve.

Both messages are completely true, of course, which is why each company does speak effectively to so many people. But, in my eyes, DC's message is designed to inspire and Marvel's message is designed to console.

And I know which I prefer.

The Latest Big Tree

I grew up in a household that had a total of 13 dogs. As an adult, I interact with between 70 to 100 dogs every work day (not counting the ones I live with, and the less said about them, the better). In short, I have had a lot of opportunity to experience canine behavior.

When a new tree is planted in area common to lots of dogs, it's a very big event. Many dogs will try to "make their mark" on the tree by pissing on it. The more thoroughly they urinate, the stronger a message they feel they are sending to all the other dogs who will inspect the tree and the collected "smell comments" on it.

Spend a lot of time with dogs, who like us are strongly social, hierarchical, and pack-driven, and you will see how similar people's behavior is, once you scratch off the veneer of our intelligence. For example, in the comic book world the latest Big Tree is, of course, Countdown to Infinite Crisis. It is, in fact, the central tree in DC's new grove, soon to become a forest. It's the most important tree planted since Crisis on Infinite Earths.

So, naturally, every good comic-reading dog has decided that, in order to make their mark and show off for all the other dogs, they have to piss on it. And the stench streaming from their little weblogs is fierce! Yet every time Jeph Loeb's pukes up onto the sidewalk some half-digested pieces of the worst of the Silver Age that he found rotting in the sun, these same dogs run over to roll in it gleefully, hoping some of its stinky aura will adhere to them.

Dog have great astuteness; if they bark, pay attention. But do not take their advice on comic books. As a human being, feel free to look up and admire the majesty of the tree, its powerful roots, its far-reaching branches, its striving to great heights. Don't waste your time sniffing the droppings of those whose world includes only those things right under their noses.