knight_moves

It's hard to be a young hero.

I grew up reading and rereading comics of teen superheroes. In more recent years, I greatly enjoyed DC's Stargirl TV show (and pointedly ignored their Titans series). But nowadays, I'm reluctant to visit great comics like New Teen Titans or Young Justice, knowing what's going to be visited on these characters later in life.

Dick and Kory's lovely romance is going to end up reduced to a cheap hook-up. Wally will do well for himself for a long while, only to be glibly tossed aside and even reduced to a mass shooter in order to prop up Barry Allen as the one true Flash (thankfully, this has been amended--still, fuck you, Tom King). The irascible Core 4 of Kon-El, Tim Drake, Bart Allen, and Cassie Sandsmark will receive similar treatment: traumatized, orphaned, sexually assaulted, killed off, character assassinated, or even made to date Bernard. I don't follow comics as closely as I used to, but I understand characters like Miles Morales, Kamala Khan, Invincible, and Spider-Gwen are in similar states.

Now, trials and tribulations are a natural part of any adventure story. These characters can't just sit around and do each other's hair all day. But it seems some writers take a perverse glee in giving these heroes 'character development' designed to make them more cynical, darker, more brooding, more traumatized, less idealistic. Like the natural endgame for these characters should be that they're mini-Batmans (or mini-Rorschachs) instead of being their own individuals.

Mary Marvel and Speedball got particularly egregious treatments, although I hear they're thankfully more recognizable these days.

So I wanted to write a comic about a young hero who may face hardships, but retains his innate optimism, warmheartedness, and sense of fair play as he becomes a true icon.

I also wanted to go the other direction--or, I don't know, the Tenet direction--and examine an older hero who is forced to retire, but still remains a positive figure. With a lot of these veteran heroes, their miseries compound to the point where it seems like they would love to retire, but this is taken as a sort of defeatism... to say nothing of how the readership keeps wanting to see them in action...

I don't know, they seem to be kept in this perpetual second act of unresolved misery. Superman and a few others have been allowed to grow--remaining heroes, but entering into stable relationships, starting families, and so forth. I wanted to do a version of that where a hero might progress past being 'iconic,' in the sense of still doing exactly what they did in the Silver Age, but they still contribute to society, find happiness, and uphold their convictions.

And I'm not going to pretend I'm the only person writing optimistic, lighthearted superhero material... but I think we can agree there's always room for one more silly superhero story.

So think of this as a webcomic without the comic. I hope I'll find an artist to hook up with one of these days, but for now, I'm just going to pick away at the writing and hope people like it.

I actually have been writing pretty steadily, both commissions and novel stuff, then this morning I sit down and bang out a two thousand word fanfic for no reason. What the hell?

I wrote a good 700 words yesterday, and around 1500 words today, though it'd hard to tell. I went back and rewrote/added to my last chapter, which I think flows better now. It'll work a lot better when I go back and add in this subplot I have planned (more on that later), but right now I'm plunging on ahead. I think it's safe to say I've written two thousand words at least within 48 hours, so I think I'm entitled to lunch.

Probably be seeing The Meg today. After five years of horror movies about trauma, I'm ready for a horror movie about what if a shark were really, REALLY big.

TMNT... meh. I have love for the eighties cartoon and the live-action movies, but this new one isn't it, bro. I hear the argument that every TMNT incarnation changes things about for the new generation--dude compared it to Star Wars, which let's not even get into--but I feel it's the other way around in this case?

No kid growing up actually wanted to be the kid sidekick. Who wants to be Robin when you can be Batman? Mutant Mayhem looks like a whole movie of adults looking back at childhood and not trying to tell a story about it to children, but to nostalgic adults (sorta like how She-Ra and Owl House and all those other 'brave' cartoons are really for slashers, not kids).

Like, it's trying to do Stranger Things with the Turtles. And I accepted that with Ghostbusters, but with the Turtles? No. Too much squeaking, squealing kids, proving that the Western action cartoon really is dead. (Thanks for trying to resuscitate it, Gennedy, but...)

And obviously, other TMNT cartoons weren't grim and gritty, but they weren't so front-loaded with the childishness. It feels so skewed to the Teenage in the title, to the point that the brothers are indistinguishable from each other, all a bunch of adolescents straight out of Super 8 or any of those other 'nostalgic' movies that aren't about anyone's childhood, but about watching Amblin movies when you were a kid. Just admit it: you didn't ride your bike that much and you know it.

Nothing but a bunch of fucking jokes because Seth Rogen is too high to commit to the Bit. Can someone please Justin Roiland this guy already?

And a weird emphasis on Splinter's sex life, because why should an old widower/gruesomely mutated man/Buddhist monk be celibate? When we can make a joke about Splinter fucking? Why should this character have dignity and gravitas when we can ruin everyone's sense of immersion in the story for sex jokes?