The 2010 Eisner Awards

Well, something has happened that manage to rouse me out of my long period of no updates.  James Robinson was nominated for an Eisner Award for his work on Cry for Justice.

What the hell?

James Robinson has produced great work . . . in the past.  Cry for Justice is the worst comic series he has ever written.  The villain's a Gary Stu, the plot has more holes than swiss cheese, all the characters behave radically differently from their previously established personalities, the plot meanders.  The comic tries to take itself seriously while using juvenile humor.  The only thing that could be considered good is the art, and even that really isn't spectacular.

Not only that but every single death is meaningless.  Robinson doesn't bother introducing the characters before having them killed off, so any drama or emotion that could have come from the deaths is completely absent.  The only emotion invoked is anger by fans who liked the characters that got killed off in order to write this piece of garbage.  Prometheus Gary Stu is the only character who gets any real panel time before his death, and he's written wildly out of character.

And that's not even getting into the rather unfortunate implications of having a majority of the dead being members of one minority group or another.  Or the fact that Freedom Beast's death is treated as being less important than the deaths of a bunch of animals.

If James Robinson wins an Eisner award because of this, it's proof that the Eisner Awards are meaningless.  The fact that Robinson was even nominated for one is an insult to all the other writers who were nominated.

Cry for Justice: In Memoriam (SPOILERS)

James Robinson has gotten a lot of heat for Cry for Justice.  Some fans have been particularly outraged by his choice of victims, or rather, the minority status of the characters.

Frankly, I don't think there was anything malicious about his choice of victims.  I don't think Robinson is a bigot, racist or sexist.  I think it was just crappy writing.  But, to be fair, here is a complete list of all the characters who were killed off in Cry for Justice (not counting nameless civilians).

Tony- gay black man (Mikaal/Starman's boyfriend)
Freedom Beast- black South African man
Houngan- black Haitian man (presumed dead)
Clayface- white man
Tasmanian Devil- gay Australian man
Gloss- Chinese woman
Sandstorm- Syrian man
Penny Dreadful- white woman
Arak- Native American man
Endless Winter- white woman
Lian Harper- LITTLE GIRL, also part Vietnamese
Prometheus Gary Stu- white man

Note that the only two white men killed are villains.  Every other character who dies is either gay, female, non-white or some combination of the three.  Of the dead, only Prometheus Gary Stu gets a proper introduction before his death.  Everyone else dies within a couple pages of their first appearance (if they appear alive at all).

This adds another level of discomfort and disgust for anyone unfortunate enough to read Cry for Justice. But that doesn't make Robinson a sexist, racist or bigot.  And I don't believe for a second that he is a sexist, racist or bigot.  James Robinson has a very multicultural, inclusive method for killing off characters

It doesn't matter what their gender, orientation, nationality, ethnicity or age is.  No character is safe.

Blackest Night: JSA #1-3 Thoughts

You know, I get the impression that James Robinson was phoning it in for these comics.  What tipped me off wasn't the deus ex machina ending.  Or the fact that characters - particularly the women - were acting like morons.

What tipped me off was the mention of "Jamal Thunder".  His name is Jakeem.  Robinson didn't even bother to get the character's names right.  Thirty seconds on Wikipedia would have been enough to prevent that error.  There is no excuse for that sort of mistake.

James Robinson just didn't care.

An Open Letter to James Robinson

Mr. Robinson:

You have written some excellent comics.  I won't deny that.  In fact, I've greatly enjoyed your work.  But you've developed a bad habit that worries me.  I first saw signs of it in Starman #38, when you killed off Blue Devil, Amazing Man and Crimson Fox.  I later found out that you had only intended to kill off Crimson Fox, but DC editorial told you to kill off the other two as well.

But it was the beginning of a disturbing trend.  Recently, you've killed off quite a few characters, often with little or no introduction.  You made Plastic Man - the epitome of a fun-loving, goofy hero - into a depressing, angst-ridden mess.

You brought back the most vile, disgusting villian ever to blight the pages of DC Comics.  You killed him off soon afterwards, but his presence was an unwanted taint on the comic.  He degraded and derided a character I love.  But she defeated him.  Her victory should have left her proud and triumphant.  Instead, she was left naked and broken.

You congratulate yourself on creating a well-rounded character who happened to be gay, but in that same issue you killed off his partner, destroying a happy couple that you had created.

You took a character whose most prominent trait was putting her family above all else, and you had her killed as she attempted to murder one of her family members.

You reduced two strong, independent women to mere notches on a man's bedpost.

But through all this, I kept telling myself that things would improve.  "He's a great writer.  Things will get better."

Then you killed one of my favorite characters.  Off-panel.  You left it open for his eventual resurrection, but it was too late.  Even if he is alive and well at the end of the story, his death was the last straw.

I cannot enjoy your writing anymore.  You've killed too many, snatched the joy from the characters who survived, made light-hearted characters bleak and taken the fun out of reading about them.

Mr. Robinson, you probably will never read this, but I hope you do.  Because I want you to know this: you've lost a fan.

Lady Momus


Edit: I have since learned that the favorite character I mentioned was killed off in another book not written by James Robinson.  But that isn't enough to win me back.  It seems like every character Robinson has touched lately has ended up dead, angst-ridden or acting out-of-character.

I cannot and will not be a fan of a writer who kills off characters without a thought and doesn't bother to do any research about the characters he writes.