SHUT. UP. I’m really not sure if there are a bunch of babies crying right now, but it seems like every damn day, Marvel editor Stephen Wacker is posting tweets that he gets from irate fans. It seems that comic book fans are cranky…about something, all the time. Add to that the whole “controversy” over the DC relaunch of all of their titles, and you get a bunch of people acting like stupid babies. I think the biggest problem with any sort of subculture, and possibly every “culture” in general is a sense of entitlement. People think that because they like something that puts them in the minority, they are the only ones who get to enjoy them and the creators of those things better do things the way they want them done. Before we get to comics, which has one too many ways to disappoint fans, let’s try something a little more polarizing: REMAKES. Not even just remakes, but also adaptations. The announcement of pretty much any sort of remake of a movie or adaptation of a comic generally causes an immediate reaction from people of “HEY THAT’S SOMETHING I LIKE, AND HAD NO INVOLVEMENT IN THE CREATION OF, BUT I’M CRANKY FOR WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING WITH IT!” Goddammit. As an example, a movie like John Carpenter’s “The Thing” has a prequel/remake coming out later this year and people are fucking pissed. I’ve loved the movie since I first saw it, which, admittedly, has only been a few years. Imagine how pissed the people are who have loved this movie since it originally came out decades ago finding out that some “new jack” likes the same thing he likes. I’m sure I could do a Google search and find plenty of people who would have that response, and completely dismiss that a classic film that John Carpenter made was FUCKING BASED ON A MOVIE THAT WAS MADE DECADES EARLIER. Not nearly as many people talk about the original as much as the Kurt Russell version, so if people protested what John Carpenter was doing, we wouldn’t have the classic he produced. I understand that this is an exception to the rule, but to me, it shouldn’t matter. I’m sure there are people who love the Adam West Batman movie and were pissed at both the Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan movies which most people would argue were creative and interesting films. So why did I use the word “comics” in the title of this post? It’s all about entitlement. If hearing horror movie fans bitch and moan about people in Hollywood making decisions that they don’t agree with wasn’t bad enough, comic book fans seem to be even worse. Even though characters like Batman or Spider-Man are some of the most well-known characters in the world right now, it’s typically because people have seen movies or cartoons, as opposed to gaining knowledge through the media that spawned these characters. Of course comic book sales fluctuate over the decades, but despite the fact that some of the characters were created before they were even sperm in their father’s balls, comic book readers find the need to insult the people bringing comic books to the forefront of pop culture. I thoroughly enjoy Watchmen and knew that there didn’t need to be a movie based on it. I still went to see the movie, and though it was visually interesting, it felt hollow. Did I furiously type a thesis towards Zack Snyder for how he ruined Watchmen? No. Okay, well of course I talked shit about it here and there, but that’s besides the point. The point is, having a shitty movie based on something I like doesn’t make me enjoy the comic book itself any less. Seeing a shitty Ghost Rider movie didn’t make me enjoy the comics any less. Why can’t people understand that film, TV, and literature are all mediums that existed before these people could vent their frustrations relatively anonymously on the internet? I apologize for using movies as specific examples, but I feel as though that’s a little bit easier to grasp, allowing more people to understand my point. In a few months, every single DC comic book is ending, with many of them starting over from zero. Let’s say, in theory, someone has every single issue of Action Comics ever printed, which is over 900 issues. Just because there will be new numbering on the issues, what’s stopping someone from enjoying all of their 900 issues? How does a title, or different artist, or different writer, or different storyline stop ANYONE from enjoying what they loved so much, other than out of spite? What causes people to send messages of anger to the people who created some of their favorite issues of comic books, proclaiming how they will never buy anything from Marvel ever again, just because the story is going a way that they don’t approve of? Do you think that anyone cares how long you’ve been collecting comic books for or the fact that you’ll never give a company any money? They don’t. For every one person who throws a tantrum and leaves comics behind, there lies the possibility of gaining people who get turned onto comics. This is not at all to say that creators don’t care about their fans, I know they do, but it’s always the people who are cranky that feel their voice needs to be heard because somehow it was THEIR face that was spat upon. But, then again, I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH CREATING THE THINGS I ENJOY AND HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT TO TELL PEOPLE WHAT’S RIGHT OR WHAT’S WRONG. If any company employs people to make executive decisions about their characters or stories, and that person with the decision-making power pitches an idea to kill off every character for good, and other people who work at the company agree with the idea, how do I have any right to start saying mean things about them on the internet? It’s the same kind of insanity that exists with people sitting on their couches talking about what they would do if THEY were the coach of their favorite team, but rather than applying themselves in any way, shape, or form, or left shouting at a television. Maybe the creators of all of these stories know how insane the “fans” are and choose to only highlight the negative ones because if they only showed off the good ones, it might seem like they were bragging. I feel like I might be getting a little off-track or possibly redundant, but ultimately I think all of this boils down to the fact that people who are fans of anything, whether it be music, movies, books, or comics, think that something is owed to them. Nobody owes me anything, because they already gave me hours upon hours of enjoyment. What is comes down to is there’s really just one thing I’d like to say to anyone who had anything, no matter how minimal, to do with creating the movies, comics, TV, and art that have given me hours of entertainment: THANK YOU.
