Observations from the Legion of Doom:
Of the two, I liked Williams’ Aquaman effort much less. It went far too cutesy for me. Maybe Williams didn’t know what fans had come to enjoy about the renovated title. A part of that was an abundance of “clever” little visual gags, many of which were repeated and lost what little impact they initially had. Wonder Woman #6 shared that fault. Picoult included ten or more references to Wonder Woman not being as popular anymore (i.e. the Wonder Woman milk shake now being the Black Canary Milk Shake). I caught the first one, so each additional gag came across like the creative team shouting, “Hey, you stupid reader! You’re so dumb we have to kick this dead horse until its guts explode!” I know that’s not their intent, but part of writing comics is having a thorough understanding of how your writing looks when it’s conveyed with art, not words.That plays into the other main problem, which is that both authors don’t seem to understand their audiences very well. Now, I don’t know the census figures on average DC readers, but I’m probably not far from the norm. The books, though, are aimed at either a far younger audience (I’ve compared Aquaman to a remake of The Little Mermaid) or people with little familiarity to comics. We’re a demanding bunch to write for, I know, but the bar is set. If a big-time talent comes on, I expect them to clear it, or at least come close.
March 30th, 2007 at 10:57 am
I thought Wonder Woman #6 was fun and interesting, and I definitely don’t think that it was written for a younger audience, just one more broad than one simply composed of regular comic book fans. They both had a sense of being introductions to new readers, perhaps including readers of these authors novels that haven’t been exposed to comic books much, and they should have been that way.