Green Hornet #25

[positronic]

Ah. Well, usually I can write off press releases as mere hyperbole. However, reading the release in context, they are drawing a parallel between (Kevin Smith's) Green Hornet and (Kevin Smith's) Bionic Man, both having the same creative team. Used in this context, "flagship" obviously refers to the Kevin Smith Green Hornet title being the "flagship" of DE's Green Hornet franchise of titles. Unfortunately, it's now a flagship in a fleet of one, all the other GH titles having been discontinued.

[manga4life]

Wait.....are we arguing about what Green Hornet book is Dynamite's "flagship" GH title? Because if so than the answer is without a doubt "Greem Hornet", as in the one that started out with Kevin Smith and is now written by Ande Parks. If we are talking about which book is Dynamite's overall flagship title than I guess that would be The Boys since it's their most popular, but since it's ending soon than my vote goes to either Green Hornet or Warlord of Mars.

[positronic]

Wait.....are we arguing about what Green Hornet book is Dynamite's "flagship" GH title?

No, I was pointing out that "formerly Kevin Smith's" Green Hornet was the flagship of DE's Green Hornet franchise (now a line of just one title), as opposed to the flagship of DE's entire line of comics.

Green Hornet was the "flagship" (first and most popular) of DE's GH line. It's neither the first, nor the most popular, of DE's entire line of comics.

[Britt68]

Interpret it however you would like. It doesn't change the fact there appears to be a growing number of folks who are not happy with the direction of the art in this title.

[positronic]

It seems it's the way of the world in today's comic industry, however. Artists, for the most part, just don't seem to stay with a title for extended runs -- Jonathan Lau moved on to Bionic Man. Naturally the people who liked what they saw when first came on board with a particular artist would like to see that artist continue on the title indefinitely, or at least be replaced by an artist with a very similar style. Personally, I am more attached to the character than the artist in this case, but clearly other folks feel differently.

[Arcalian]

Uh oh.

The one cop ally got killed? Villain pseudo-mayor still in control?

Guys, this sort of things-will-never-be-the-same-again break-the-hero-down-and-say-you're-gonna-build-him-back-up-but-you-don't-really is the kind of garbage that drove me AWAY from DC.

I didn't know the Mayor from Adam. Chrichton I barely knew, but they killed him. Not a good sign. Not a good sign at all.

If Dynamite is treating their heroes with the same lack of respect as DC, I won't be here for very long.

[positronic]

Could be you're jumping the gun a little bit on pushing the panic button. If I felt the way you do I'd wait and ride this out to the end of the story arc before dropping the book, but that's just me. I don't see any "nothing will ever be the same again" that can't be straightened out by the conclusion of the story. Even if Evil Mayor Guy manages to stay in office and GH loses his police contact, it just makes the job more challenging for GH and Kato, but it doesn't mean the book still can't continue with some great stories. If things just go too easy and smooth for GH all the time, the book would get boring. The writer has to throw a few curveballs his way now and again.

[Arcalian]

I didn't say I already quit. I said if things keep going the same way I would have to. And you can see my concern, right? Surely you're enough of a veteran of this industry to be as tired of "shock! horror! let's treat our protagonists like garbage!" type 'stories' as I am.

[Ande Parks]

Thanks, positronic. I agree. Arcalian- You are judging how this arc will handle the heroes by where they are at the height of their peril... near the climax of the story.

There are two issues left. We're trying to build suspense and raise the stakes for the ending. Please stick with us, and judge when the arc is over. There may be things to be upset about then, but I doubt it will be the things you think...

Anj

[positronic]

Arcalian, I think I'm going to disagree with you a little bit, but bear with me here, as I try to see if I can figure out what your concerns are. Now, unquestionably this is the most dire situation the the Hornet has been in so far. When you say GH is being treated like garbage, I think you may be overreacting just a little. I think every series character, if his book runs long enough, comes up against a situation similar to what's going on with the Hornet right now. Now the problem is, if things keep going from bad to worse to even worse for him, it's ultimately not sustainable as a series.

To use a recent example of another character that had gone down that pathway, let me use as an example Marvel's Daredevil. In the last five or six years, he had his secret identity outed, went to prison, escaped from prison, got married and divorced, became the leader of the criminal ninja clan The Hand, and was ultimately possessed by an evil demon and went psycho, killing Bullseye (and not killing his friends for lack of trying) before being freed from the demon's influence. Lots of other long-running characters have been broken down and made to go through hell, but for my money this was by far the most extreme example in recent memory. Now thankfully, even though the book sold well for most of this extended decent into darkness, Marvel realized they had gone as far as they possibly could with this particular direction, and that after the "Shadowland" arc there was nowhere left to go with this heaping of misery upon misery. As a result they relaunched the book with a new writer, Mark Waid, and a complete change of tone and direction. It's fair to say that now the book is lighter in tone and more "adventuresome" than it's been at any time since Frank Miller first took over the book in the early 1980s, and Waid managed to do this without a reboot, retcon, or "magick-ing away" of events of DD's recent past. In fact, it's now much closer in concept and feel to Stan Lee and Gene Colan's Daredevil of the 1960s. And it's been getting excellent critical reviews. So despite the years of abuse, it proves that rarely is any character made totally unsalvageable. And why did this even happen in the first place? Daredevil was a directionless title for most of the 1970s. When Frank Miller came along and turned it into a hard-boiled crime noir/superhero/ninja epic the result was a book like nothing else on the stands at the time, and the public responded. Since then everyone writing the book has been trying to do either "imitation Frank Miller" or play a game of one-upsmanship with the departing writer. The result, the same kind of nuclear brinksmanship that happened during the Cold War. In the end, all that's left is Mutually Assured Destruction. One can say they played this scenario in DD right up to 10 seconds to midnight on the Doomsday Clock. They had to either back off or kill him. (I guess technically he was dead for about a minute there.)

Now I can't say that GH is anywhere near to being on this scale of being beset by constant suffering. I think you might be just identifying a little too closely with our hero right at this moment, and feeling his pain. Things are certainly not looking well for him right now, but it isn't like this sort of thing has been happening to him for years, getting worse and worse. Please try to have a little faith in both Britt and in Ande Parks. I think he will come through this and be a stronger character for it. Now, my definition of a writer treating a hero like garbage would be if he was distorting the hero's basic character for the sake of temporarily goosing sales with cheap shocks. Like, if all of a sudden the situation the Hornet's in resulted in "he's madder than hell and isn't gonna take it any more", and he brutally kills his doppleganger and then goes hunting for the mayor with murder on his mind. That would be a total distortion of the character. While the Hornet is often lumped in with the "pulp" characters, he's essentially very different than The Shadow or The Spider. He is, when you come right down to it, the modern day incarnation of the Lone Ranger. He cares about Century City and wants to protect its citizens in both his roles as the Hornet and as a responsible newspaper publisher (kudos go to Ande again for putting more of the "crusading publisher of the Daily Sentinel" back into recent issues of GH). Despite the criminal mastermind pose, the Hornet doesn't kill. When he starts, I'm out of here. I've no objections to this in other characters, IF it's been established (for whatever reason) that it's part of their nature. That includes the more obvious ones like The Shadow, The Spider, and The Punisher, but also the ones you wouldn't necessarily think of like John Carter and Tarzan (being raised in the jungle, Tarzan doesn't have any sort of civilized conception of life as sacred -- he's lived with death practically since he was he was an infant). Others would be Nick Fury and Captain America. Wait, did he say Captain America?! Yes, while Cap would never kill today unless under the most dire of circumstances (the no-win scenario/lesser-of-two evils condition), and would probably not even kill to save his own life, we must remember that he and Nick are WWII vets. You may have an older relative, uncle, father or grandfather that fought in WWII. You don't think of them as killers, and under normal circumstances they never would. But war is another story, and we can't judge if we haven't been there ourselves. Having said that, some fictional characters have to be held to a higher standard, they have a code and without it they're diminished as characters. I don't see that happening here, can't even imagine it. I HATE it when a writer has so little respect for the core of what makes a character what he is, that he thinks he can mold him to his whims like plastic. It even works both ways -- if The Shadow ever puts away his .45 Colt 1911A automatics and trades them in for anesthetic dart guns, I'm gone like the wind.

But getting back to the Hornet, I think you may have been oversensitized by various characters going down the dark path because of the suffering they've had to endure, and it's true that this has been a trend that has been going on in comics for 25 years or more. The Hornet hasn't been around (in his current incarnation) for all that long, and I don't think he's anywhere close to sliding in that direction. The current storyline may have jacked up the tension level considerably, but there's no reason to believe that the screws will continue to be twisted tighter and tighter with no end in sight. Thankfully it doesn't look as if the Hornet is in danger of having his back broken and being replaced by a brutal, murderous understudy, or going insane and killing all his enemies and even his former friends and allies, or being killed himself and resurrected as some sort of Dark Hornet.

Patience is needed. Give Ande a chance to bring the story to a satisfying conclusion. Just because other characters started down a dark and violent path due to a similar situation, is no reason to think this is a foregone conclusion for the Hornet. Stick around for the next story arc. If you're still feeling as negative about the character a few issues into the next arc, then bail and you can say "I told you so".