Originally Posted by
Hcmarvel
Just had to ask this, and not trying to be hostile in anyway, it's an honest question I have.
I see a lot of posts here, especially those that are negative or highly critical, often upset that creators aren't "respecting" a character. And they do seem to mean respecting "the character". Not what prior creators have done on that character, but that some how the writer in question isn't respecting the "character" themselves. As if the character was a real person that the creator sought to belittle in someway.
It's not that I don't know what they mean by it in a literal sense, but it just strikes me as such an odd complaint.
I've read comics for 30 years, since I was 5 years old. I love comics. Love them. I have lots of characters I love. Daredevil, Cyclops, Spidey, Captain America, Kate Pryde, Rogue, Nightwing, Wally West, Magneto, etc. But I've never once read a comic and felt like a certain character wasn't getting enough respect and therefore the comic was bad. Have I disliked storylines involving favorite characters? Yes, but I always just thought of them as bad stories, not disrespectful ones.
The idea that a comic book character is worthy of respect is such a reach for me? Like...take Magneto -
I don't like Planet X by Grant Morrison (New X-Men 146-150). (**************SPOILERS FOR A SIXTEEN YEAR OLD COMIC AHEAD**************)
I think the Xorn is really Magneto twist is fun, and sort of set-up through the run so it's a good reveal moment, but I just really did not like how Morrison wrote Magneto in Planet X. I understand what he was getting at, but it was a very John Byrne-esque fidelity to silver age Magneto that the character has clearly evolved past thanks to Chris Claremont's work. So having Magneto running death camps for humans, without textually acknowledging his background as a holocaust survivor, just didn't work for me.
But I never thought of it through the prism of not "respecting" the character of Magneto. I guess I thought it didn't show much respect to Claremont's work, or what future creators might want to do with Magneto (by having Logan "kill" him at the end), but the idea that the character himself wasn't being respected never occurred to me. He's a comic book character. He's not real. His every action is at the whim of writers and artists to do with as they please. On what planet do creators owe characters "respect"?
Or take Wally West and Heroes in Crisis. I hated it. In my opinion, it failed in what it was trying to do as an examination on PTSD and what it did to Wally West sucked. But do I think Tom King didn't "respect" Wally West enough? No. That's insane. Why does Tom King, a grown ass man being paid by DC comics, who owns the character and can do whatever they want with him, have to "respect" Wally West? I may not like the story but I never thought of it as a matter of not respecting the character. Wally West has never "actually" saved the world.
I saw someone on here upset that Anole, ANOLE, was not treated "respectfully" in the most recent New Mutants issue. And again, I'm just baffled by this. On what planet does Anole need to be treated with respect? He's a background X-Men character. I mean sure, treat his status as a homosexual with respect obviously, and try to do right by the character when they're in a book of course, but getting upset about an entire issue because Anole wasn't respected? In a book that is not even about him?
Can someone try to explain this phenomenon? Are some comic book fans so insecure that they need their personal favorite characters to always be treated with "respect" because it reflects the lack of respect they feel in their daily lives somehow? That sounds harsh but I'm straining to explain this thing I see on here. Do some fans so identify with a favorite character that if they are not written exactly as the fan thinks they should be, they take it as the creators not respecting the reader and project this respect thing on the character? People just get so upset about this topic and it is one thing about fandom that I've never been able to understand.