Young Justice Dark Crisis

[scourge]

The funny thing is, there's actually the ingredients of a decent story in this mess.

The notion of using Mickey Mxyzptlk as a stand-in for "toxic fanboys who celebrate all the icky things about nostalgia," while a bit of a Superboy-Prime retread, is nevertheless right in line with the kind of on-the-nose parody/satire that Peter David used to do back in the day. So it could've worked.

Also, the *idea* of tossing the male YJ members in a whack, filtered-through-a-toxic-gaze dreamworld of their past adventures is also kind of interesting. Done well, it could be used as an opportunity to show how the characters have grown over the years, acknowledge some of the actual cringe in their pasts, and, as a side benefit, plant a few continuity stakes in their ever-fluctuating continuities.

Of course, for all of this to work, the YJ team would have to not behave like morons. Three issues of wallowing in Mickey's dumb-ass, dreamworld, rather than outright rejecting it immediately, makes the team look lame.

And that's not even mentioning the inexplicable stuff going on with Cassie and Cissie.

Ugh.

Oh there's definitely potential in the idea of the series. The boys trapped in some toxic dreamworld while the girls search for them and come to the rescue.

The execution is the mess. Its like zero effort was put into actually researching the histories of these characters or the series they were in other than a brief skimming of a wiki and social media. Fitzmartin retreads things that have long since been grown past and handled far better like it never happened on top of inventing conflicts and stuff that never actually happened just so she can make meta comments. The fake world isn't even well constructed. Its outright obviously fake from the start and with no actual indication that Mickey is messing with their heads (like little Kirby-dots or glowing eyes or some kind of power haze whenever the guys' minds get messed with) it really does look like someone stapled a whole store's worth of Idiot Balls to the team. Even the big fight is just coming off as boring padding that should have only lasted half as long as it has.

[Drako]

It looks like it's pretty difficult nowadays to make a fun Young Justice book, huh? Bendis made absolutely boring and Fitzmartin made a complete mess.

[Dataweaver]

It looks like it's pretty difficult nowadays to make a fun Young Justice book, huh? Bendis made absolutely boring and Fitzmartin made a complete mess.

It's really not that hard to do. The problem is that people keep of trying to change YJ into something it was never intended to be.

[scourge]

It looks like it's pretty difficult nowadays to make a fun Young Justice book, huh? Bendis made absolutely boring and Fitzmartin made a complete mess.

I'd be easier if they got a good writer and less editorial nonsense messing things up.

But of course this can be said about a lot of teams and characters.

[Saithor]

Excuse me for not being surprised Chuck Dixon is against a character being LGBTQ. Also, do we need to consult Steve Ditko and Stan Lee via medium every time something new happens with Spider-man? You can appreciate their opinions on the characters if you want, but they are by no means the only definitive voices.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Gotta wonder if this writer has even read Young Justice.

Cassie and Cissie, and labeling Fite, Empress and Madd as enemies like Harm?

Yeesh

[D.Z]

She probably used wikis and some google images and only few books.

[D.Z]

Exactly.

Nope.

34 chars.

[Dataweaver]

Excuse me for not being surprised Chuck Dixon is against a character being LGBTQ. Also, do we need to consult Steve Ditko and Stan Lee via medium every time something new happens with Spider-man? You can appreciate their opinions on the characters if you want, but they are by no means the only definitive voices.

In addition to Chuck Dixon (1991–2002, plus a brief return in 2008), Tim Drake has been written by Jon Lewis (2002–2004), Bill Willingham (2004–2006), Adam Beechen (2006–2007), Fabian Nicieza (2008–2009 and 2010–2011), Christopher Yost (2009–2010), Peter David (1998–2003), Scott Lobdell (2011–2014), Will Pfeifer (2014–2016), James Tynion (2017–2019), and a handful of others who only wore a handful of issues or only had him as a supporting character in their titles (mostly Batman and Detective Comics). With the possible exception of Peter David, every last one of them either didn't address Tim's sexuality at all, or treated Tim as straight. Even in the case of Peter David, it's at least as likely that slash fans were reading something sexual into something that was written to be nothing more than guys being best buds. Jon Lewis and Bill Willingham had him dating Stephanie Brown (until Didio had her killed off); Adam Beechen introduced a new love interest for him (though I forget her name); Fabian basically carried on whichever romantic interest the previous writer had set up (Stephanie Brown for his first stint, Tam Fox for his second); Lobdell and Pfeifer tried to pair him up with Cassie; and Tynion got him back together with Stephanie. Fitzmartin is the first writer to portray Tim as bi, or even of having tendencies toward bisexuality.

And getting back to my first point, criticizing her move to make him bisexual is not inherently phobic. She got a lot of things wrong about Tim (and, in DCYJ, everyone else in YJ); and his sexuality is just one more thing on a long laundry list of discrepancies, differing from the others only in that it's obvious that she made the change deliberately rather than out of ignorance.

[scourge]

Gotta wonder if this writer has even read Young Justice.

Cassie and Cissie, and labeling Fite, Empress and Madd as enemies like Harm?

Yeesh

And having the wrong Bedlam there.


And yeah, crying that "Waah Tim being Bi is OOC! Waah he shouldn't be Bi! You have to PROVE HE'S BI (nevermind we'll never accept anything you say!) OR IT DOESN'T COUNT!" is inherently phobic.

[Saithor]

In addition to Chuck Dixon (1991–2002, plus a brief return in 2008), Tim Drake has been written by Jon Lewis (2002–2004), Bill Willingham (2004–2006), Adam Beechen (2006–2007), Fabian Nicieza (2008–2009 and 2010–2011), Christopher Yost (2009–2010), Peter David (1998–2003), Scott Lobdell (2011–2014), Will Pfeifer (2014–2016), James Tynion (2017–2019), and a handful of others who only wore a handful of issues or only had him as a supporting character in their titles (mostly Batman and Detective Comics). With the possible exception of Peter David, every last one of them either didn't address Tim's sexuality at all, or treated Tim as straight. Even in the case of Peter David, it's at least as likely that slash fans were reading something sexual into something that was written to be nothing more than guys being best buds. Jon Lewis and Bill Willingham had him dating Stephanie Brown (until Didio had her killed off); Adam Beechen introduced a new love interest for him (though I forget her name); Fabian basically carried on whichever romantic interest the previous writer had set up (Stephanie Brown for his first stint, Tam Fox for his second); Lobdell and Pfeifer tried to pair him up with Cassie; and Tynion got him back together with Stephanie. Fitzmartin is the first writer to portray Tim as bi, or even of having tendencies toward bisexuality.

And getting back to my first point, criticizing her move to make him bisexual is not inherently phobic. She got a lot of things wrong about Tim (and, in DCYJ, everyone else in YJ); and his sexuality is just one more thing on a long laundry list of discrepancies, differing from the others only in that it's obvious that she made the change deliberately rather than out of ignorance.

And yet it’s the element being focused on. I suppose Alan Scott being gay is also a bad thing?

[Dataweaver]

And yeah, crying that "Waah Tim being Bi is OOC! Waah he shouldn't be Bi! You have to PROVE HE'S BI (nevermind we'll never accept anything you say!) OR IT DOESN'T COUNT!" is inherently phobic.

No, it isn't. You and I agree that Fitzmartin fundamentally gets Tim wrong; why is it bigoted to complain about her changing his sexual orientation inherently bigoted when complaining about anything else she did differently isn't?

If you're saying that anyone who objects to comic book characters having their sexual preferences altered must be a bigot, then you're expressing a kind of bigotry of your own. Stick to arguing the facts; not throwing around baseless ad hominem attacks.

[Dataweaver]

And yet it’s the element being focused on. I suppose Alan Scott being gay is also a bad thing?

I'm only focusing on it because scourge made it a point to accuse everyone who doesn't like Tim's sexuality being changed of being bigots. That's a rather large blanket statement. I also specifically limited my commentary to Tim Drake, because I don't in general have a problem with other characters being LGBT. The New 52 Alan Scott being gay didn't bother me at all, for example, because he was a brand new iteration of the character; and like I've said before, I have no problem with characters like Wonder Woman, Apollo and Midnighter, Obsidian, Batwoman, and more being various kinds of LGBT; those characters were created with such things in mind.

Tim Drake wasn't; and it isn't inherently homophobic to point that out.

It's not about characters being LGBT. It's not really even about characters being changed to be LGBT. It's only about the hateful rhetoric directed at people who have a problem with characters being changed to be LGBT: the assumption that the only possible reason anyone would object is because they're a bigot. That right there is its own kind of bigotry.

[scourge]

No, it isn't. You and I agree that Fitzmartin fundamentally gets Tim wrong; why is it bigoted to complain about her changing his sexual orientation inherently bigoted when complaining about anything else she did differently isn't?

If you're saying that anyone who objects to comic book characters having their sexual preferences altered must be a bigot, then you're expressing a kind of bigotry of your own. Stick to arguing the facts; not throwing around ad hominem attacks.

Yes, yes it is. Because you're flat wrong, that's why. The fact is that a solid majority of fans and likely several writers always saw Tim as non-straight but had to go along with what they thought editorial would let them get away with. Fitzmartin's just the one that pulled the trigger so to speak and got away with it. She gets a lot wrong but that's not among it. And no, calling out people crying that a character came out of the closet using the same sad non-arguments that comicsgators use isn't bigotry.

And funny you mention Obsidian but he is a character that was straight at first then came out of the closet too.

[scourge]

And to get back on the topic of the actual mini...

There's only two issues left in it.

And it looks like the last two issues are going to be one big fight against Mickey.
Anyone got predictions for how that's going to go?
I'm only predicting a lot of padding in issue 5 to stretch it into 6.