{"id":2142,"date":"2009-05-29T06:47:03","date_gmt":"2009-05-29T13:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/?p=2142"},"modified":"2009-05-29T06:47:03","modified_gmt":"2009-05-29T13:47:03","slug":"this-dwayne-mcduffiejlofa-thing-annoys-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/?p=2142","title":{"rendered":"This Dwayne McDuffie\/JLofA Thing Annoys Me."},"content":{"rendered":"

As first reported (I think) over at Robot 6<\/a>, Dwayne McDuffie has been “fired” from Justice League of America, where even fans of the book would admit he’s had a troubled run, saddled with inelegant dictates to tie his stories and characters into whatever crossover or event happened to be the hype du jour. <\/p>\n

My first thought upon hearing it was of a classic blog post by the cantankerous Dirk Deppey over at Journalista, in which he coined a genius term<\/a> and hit upon what makes the backstage dealings at DC so fascinating and complicated at the same time:<\/p>\n

\n

Add to this the opaque nature of DC’s inner workings and pretty much all commentary turns to Kremlinology, reducing speculation from how the company works and what it can actually do, to little more than which apparatchik is in or out of favor at a given moment. Even comments made by creators defecting from the company need to be seen in this light: Who was giving them information about the chain of command? Their editors? How much of it is real, and how much of it is ass-covering? How many people have passed the buck up to DiDio because he’s the figurehead that they see, how many just want to protect their turf – and how many actually know what they’re talking about? The more you think about it, the more suspect most speculation becomes (including, I hasten to add, my own).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So, yeah. Kremlinology. Suspect speculation at best. Part of me doesn’t want to indulge, cause even at a high level, it amounts to gossip. <\/p>\n

Still, it keeps gnawing at me, this Dwayne McDuffie thing. It should not have been this way. <\/p>\n

\"jla311\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I think first and foremost, I just believe McDuffie is a creator who should never be driven away from a major comics publisher for any reason. He’s just that good. This is a guy who brought us the highly-regarded Milestone line of comics and several seasons of one of the best (maybe THE best?) superhero cartoon shows of all time, Justice League<\/em>. In the realm of what he does, superhero genre entertainment, he’s indisputably a top talent.<\/p>\n

So then why can’t McDuffie find a good gig at DC…or even Marvel for that matter? He had an aborted but genius run on Fantastic Four<\/em> right before Millar and Hitch came on board; now he’s had an aborted run on JLofA<\/em>, long thought to be another “placeholder” while DC lined up its ducks for a “superstar” to take over the writing duties. Speculation has long suggested that Geoff Johns would be that “superstar.”<\/p>\n

Over at Comic By Comic, Rich Lovatt brings up some good points<\/a> relating to the specifics of McDuffie’s work on JLofA<\/em>, and I can’t say I disagree. I guess my frustration deals less with the specifics of what he dealt with on JLofA<\/em> and how he handled it, and more about the kind of editorial environment that would allow him to be “fired” from a book in the first place. <\/p>\n

I could be overestimating McDuffie’s popularity, but I don’t think I’m overestimating his abilities. He’s not a Geoff Johns or a Grant Morrison, but he could be, easily, given the right environment and opportunities. If not that level of stardom, he should at least be a fixture at DC or Marvel, always on some book to do what he does best. <\/p>\n

To me, becoming a “superstar” as a comics creator is about opportunity as much as it’s about talent, and frankly, it pisses me off that McDuffie does not ever seem to have been given a great opportunity at either major publisher to do what he does best in a collaborative environment. I guess it could be argued that he had a shot with JLofA<\/em> and lost it, but when you’re being asked to suspend a storyline to participate in a one-shot event, or having team members dragged away in mid-arc for some other writer, how is that a real opportunity? <\/p>\n

This may seem like a bold statement, but Dwayne McDuffie should always be working in corporate superhero comics, if he wants to. Good comics, real creative opportunities, not books shackled to whatever the latest whim of editorial may be. This guy deserves better. Whatever his offenses that got him “fired,” whether he was indeed airing dirty laundry online or just trying to respond honestly to fans with even-handed, non-judgmental information (I lean toward the latter), he should not have been in this situation in the first place. <\/p>\n

I want to read Dwayne McDuffie on a big superhero book for the Big Two, being supported in the right way, and I can’t. That sucks. And I think whoever is responsible for not making that happen is doing a shitty job. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As first reported (I think) over at Robot 6, Dwayne McDuffie has been “fired” from Justice League of America, where even fans of the book would admit he’s had a troubled run, saddled with inelegant dictates to tie his stories and characters into whatever crossover or event happened to be the hype du jour. My […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,189],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comics","category-kremlinology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}