Anyone take offense, or seen anyone take offense, by the Joker’s comment about the U. S. of A. in the Wedding Special? The under-the-breath comment that he thot the US was run by corruption or whatever.

It seems like one of them lines that people might take a shot of McDuffie for writing. Maybe not.. but the idea of the writer’s voice and characters’ voices has been on my mind since Podcast 36 with the groups categorization of Millar and Bendis having one voice, their own, for all their characters.

It does seem like this issue popped up in the last year with a author defending her/himself with “The character said it, not me.”

How’s that for an unfocused mess of a post?

I’d say it was a joke. From the Joker.

One of the worst of ‘em was Ann Nocenti, who, for instance, had Daredevil, a Catholic, wake up in Hell and say, “I seem to have landed in some representation of the Judeo-Christian concept of Hell” (I’m paraphrasing).

Anyone take offense, or seen anyone take offense, by the Joker’s comment about the U. S. of A. in the Wedding Special? The under-the-breath comment that he thot the US was run by corruption or whatever.

It seems like one of them lines that people might take a shot of McDuffie for writing. Maybe not.. but the idea of the writer’s voice and characters’ voices has been on my mind since Podcast 36 with the groups categorization of Millar and Bendis having one voice, their own, for all their characters.

It does seem like this issue popped up in the last year with a author defending her/himself with “The character said it, not me.”

How’s that for an unfocused mess of a post?

I didn’t take any offense to it, partially because he’s talking about a country that elected Lex Luthor President, and partly because if anyone would have that perspective on life in the US, it’s the Joker. Also, I don’t happen to think he’s wrong. That’s just my opinion, though.

It seems like one of them lines that people might take a shot of McDuffie for writing. Maybe not.. but the idea of the writer’s voice and characters’ voices has been on my mind since Podcast 36 with the groups categorization of Millar and Bendis having one voice, their own, for all their characters.

It does seem like this issue popped up in the last year with a author defending her/himself with “The character said it, not me.”

How’s that for an unfocused mess of a post?

Ok Dan, I get what you’re saying. I just read the storyline differently, with Wonder Girl stressed out by all sides, since the President did have her mother arrested without chrages and she was almost arrested too. I feel that Wonder Girl quickly got in over her head and was just annoyed that not only adults, but leaders like the President and Hippolyta, would not negotiate, let alone make peace. I read Wonder Girl as being a teenager making mistakes because she was extremely stressed, but since she is Wonder Girl, her mistakes are Wonder Girl-sized. Of course, Amazons Attack made little sense I feel, so perhaps I shouldn’t be trying to rationalize it.

I can’t argue with you there. Really, trying to make sense out of that mess is a bit nuts. You certainly have a point, and I actually agree with you- Cassie simply made mistakes under pressure, and, as you say, hers are bigger than most because of her powers. I’m a fan of the character, which is why I want to see her work through her guilt from the Amazons Attack mess and move on- I just want it to feel like an actual redemption, not a pity-party.

I have yet to read Wonder Girl (so many good things came out yesterday), but I don’t think your assessment of Cassie’s actions in Amazons Attack is completely accurate. Cassie was threatened with arrest because of her Amazonian ties, and then she tried to get the President to negotiate with the Amazons, and the Amazons then downed Air Force 1 while she was trying to broker peace talks. So maybe it is not only the dumb angry mobs and mouthy soldiers that have strong opinions on her actions whithout actually knowing her actions.

Really? Tried to get the President to negotiate? Her first words to Air Force One, and I’m quoting from Amazons Attack #3 here, were “Either you bring this plane down now or we’ll bring it down for you!” I can’t say I’m surprised that a jet fired a missile at her, given that she stood on Air Force One and shouted threats at it. She then actually enters Air Force One, causing decompression, and has Supergirl take the plane down, saying, “But if you don’t do exactly what I say, Mr. President, my friend is going to stop lowering us to a safe altitude and then, believe you me, then you’re gonna have some problems.” That’s from Amazons Attack #4.

So sure, her motives may have been pure. But she acted like an irresponsible child, threatened the life of the President, and guess what? There’s not going to be any reasonable diplomacy under those terms. You can’t threaten a man’s life and then assume he’ll have productive peace talks. The Amazons are the ones who actually brought down the plane, but Cassie was in the process of doing so anyway.

And that was my point. Regardless of all the other stuff that happened during the Amazon attack, Cassie specifically threatened the life of the President. Americans in the DC Universe have a right to be angry about that. Making them look dumb for doing so just makes Cassie look dumb for feeling bad about her part in the whole mess, and makes the redemption she’s trying to achieve seem weakened.

I picked up the Wedding Special cause I felt silly and I want to see Canary do it. But I guess I shoulda paid closer attention to the previews because there was no wedding in this Wedding Special. I was really disappointed. Does this story continue in the normal JLA book?

Yes. In fact, I think they made a mistake in not just publishing this as JLA #13 and not doing a bunch of wedding specials. (There’s one more, the Green Arrow/Black Canary wedding special, which will probably have the actual wedding, if there is one). Because I think if you ignore the bad packaging, what you’ve got is a pretty promising JLA story.

Potter’s Field sounds really interesting. I probably should pick that up. Though I am tired of supporting singles when I really want a collected edition with a complete story. How does Potter’s Field fare in this respect? Complete story between the covers?

Absolutely. The crime is introduced in this issue and solved in this issue, with a satisfying wrap-up that allows a character to change as a result. I’ll be back for the next issue because the storytelling is so good and the over-arcing mystery of the protagonist interests me, but you could pick up only Potter’s Field #1 and get a complete story.

I missed the boat, eh? What I am looking for (fun!) is reportedly in the Wedding Planner book. So I’ll grab that next week.

Potter’s Field sounds really interesting. I probably should pick that up. Though I am tired of supporting singles when I really want a collected edition with a complete story. How does Potter’s Field fare in this respect? Complete story between the covers?

Did I mention it was good?

I liked Zombie Proof, though the art made it hard to understand in some places. I like the small town setting.