Protectors, Inc. #1

[superboyprime]

'On a piece of white paper, you can be God - but it takes years of professionalism and dedication. You have to write every day, whether you like it or not. I write 12 hours a day, every day, besides my birthday, Christmas Day and New Years.' - JMS

Comments

[bewareofgeek]

"… and then I get bored or pissed off at my editors and leave the story half-finished."

I'm sorry, but J. Michael Straczynski talking about professionalism is like Harlan Ellison talking about humility.

[dewinged]

I concur highly with this comment.

[mrosa]

Still, it's a proof that no matter how much you keep at it, you don't improve your writing just from writing 12 hours a day 365 days a year. I guess there is such a thing as being born with talent after all.

[thatnickguy]

No one's ever said that he's a bad writer. But fewer and fewer people want to even read his stuff if he can't even bother to finish it.

[mrosa]

Well, reading these pages I can easily tell he's a bad writer, but more importantly he's just another one of those comic book writers who wallows in cliches and nostalgia - another superhero comic book about superheroes who fought in WWII, and one of them even has a patriotic theme going. I don't even have the energy to be snarky about it to drive the point home, I think stating the obvious is enough in this case.

[sadoeuphemist]

No, only one superhero fought in WWII. All the rest came after him and were largely rich people who turned it into a business and became celebrities.

[halloweenjack]

Now I'm thinking about taking up needlepoint just so that I can frame this and hang it on the wall.

[althechi]

I'm genuinely curious. Didn't many people commend JMS for his work on Babylon 5, Spider-Man up until OMD and his Thor run? And then it all went to crap starting with Superman: Grounded and Wonder Woman: The Odyssey (to quote two examples)?

Is it more a case of quality declining over time or his underlying faults emerging?

[venatosapiens]

Underlying faults, and his incredible tendency to never have any of those faults actually be, well, his faults. To listen to JMS' interviews, everything that's ever gone wrong in one of his stories is the result of interference from other, lesser minds. So now he just drops things and leaves halfway through stories.

Also, you do a couple works, most people don't notice your tics. When every story has the same issues though...people do start to pick up on it (*cough*Mark Millar*cough*)

[thatnickguy]

He's had the reputation of not finishing things for a long time. Even his Rising Stars book finished almost a decade later, after he stopped working on it.

His Thor run, for as good as it was, didn't really end and was only continued on by another writer.

And then there was Supreme Power, which started out amazingly well, then fizzled and JMS left shortly around that point. He also let someone else finish his runs on Wonder Woman and Superman.

I would even argue his run on Spider-Man started going down the tubes around the point when he had Norman Osborne boff Gwen Stacy.

[icon_uk]

Wasn't it JMS who has gone on record as saying that the Norman Osborne/Gwen Stacy thing was pretty much a completely repellant idea, and he had wanted the kids to be Peter and Gwens if they were going to be anyones. I could see why he might go downhill if forced into a plotline he actively loathed.

[thatnickguy]

Ah, that's true. I'd forgotten that part. In fact, I think it was Quesada's idea to change it.

[dc2houseofmystery]

A lot of his stuff starts so STRONG but fizzles out. If I were a cynic I'd say that he gets REALLY excited about the idea, throws his all into the opening, but then gets bored quite quickly and drops it, preferring to start something else that excites him. I can relate, sure, but damn it's disappointing. Stick with it, you know? Supreme Power was amazing, such a strong start, but then it just dragged and dragged and I don't think you can blame editorial for that (unless we blame them for not telling JMS to pick up the bloody pace).

I enjoyed his ASM stuff (god, it was better than the stuff we're experiencing now, right?) but as soon as he started writing tie-ins to New Avengers and Mike Deodato came on board for art duties, it sucked to high heaven.

[mrstatham]

His Thor run ended poorly because Bendis wanted to cap off the 'doom and gloom' era of Marvel by doing Siege. Straczynski didn't want to go along with that, which is why his run ended the way it did. So in that instance, that wasn't his fault - although I will argue that while his Thor run was great, it was such a slow burn that it seemed almost entirely closed off from the MU around it at times, so perhaps Straczynski should have gone along with working as part of some of the events.

But.. Yeah. Thor arguably wasn't his fault.

[dc2houseofmystery]

Re: Mark Millar - YES.

[kamino_neko]

I think more people criticize JMS for his recent apparent inability to finish anything. It's individual works that get criticized for the quality of the work, that I've seen...JMS generally gets 'well, wake me up if he actually finishes'.

[kamino_neko]

Which, by the way, is certainly my reaction to this.

Looks like it might be interesting...but it's JMS, so there's a good chance it'll never finish, so I don't want to get into it, yet...

[randyripoff]

I think he's a decent writer as long as he only works on his own properties. I don't really like anything he's done with anything established.

[big_daddy_d]

Wonder Woman: The Odyssey

Well that I actually thought was good. And Superman: Earth One

[espanolbot]

I liked his SHIELD series, though again it's frustrating that he didn't finish it.

[arbre_rieur]

I think you're thinking of Hickman.

[kamino_neko]

Odyssey was a good idea, and wasn't BAD when JMS was writing it. But it didn't get actually GOOD until he'd left and another writer whose identity I'm completely blanking on came in to finish it.

Unfortunately somebody else finishing it wasn't nearly enough to fix Grounded.

I haven't been able to get into S:E1, so on the one hand, that kind of counts against him, on the other, I can't comment too well on it. (Still annoyed that it's the Earth One book that got a sequel...Batman: Earth One needs one.)

[big_daddy_d]

Still waiting on the Batman: Earth One sequel myself. Geoff needs to get off his ass. Final page had me excited.

[kamino_neko]

Guh. Seriously. Maybe now that he's done writing Aquaman, GL, and JLA, he'll set some time aside for it.

[wizardru]

Opinions vary. JMS has had a history of tussles with his editors and publishers. I think a large part of it stems from the fact that he has worked as a TV and movie writer, as well as a producer and even director. He's used to calling the shots and doesn't react well when his work is tampered with to a certain degree.

1) Thor - Bendis insisted on interfering with the plotline for 'Siege' and totally derailing his storyline

2) Spiderman - the whole OMD fiasco, the children of Gwen Stacy

3) Rising Stars - artist changes, contractual negotiations (eventually resolved)

4) Superman / Wonder Woman - Generally fairly unpopular runs, likely replaced due to Editorial choice

5) Squadron Supreme - asked to quit after being moved from Max line meant content restrictions

JMS has written and completed plenty of stuff on time. But between his other writing career and his editorial tussles, folks tend to only notice the big failures.

Lately, a lot of his material has felt very cynical and, in some cases, more than a little derivative. His work on Brave and the Bold, Superman and Wonder Woman all felt...not fun. Superman was dull, generally; Wonder Woman was an attempt to reboot the character that wasn't well received and Brave and the Bold had a lot of non-heroic super-heroing going on. Add on to that his more recent work with stuff like Sidekick and some would argue Superman Year One...and you get some dissatisfaction with his work. Especially as audiences are getting pretty tired of the deconstruction of comics ideas that he's been putting forth lately.

I don't think a guy who has won an Eagle, a Hugo and an Eisner (and been nominated for three more), as well as writing nominations for a BAFTA, Cable Ace and WGA award can be said to be a terrible writer. The issue is more that WHAT he's chosen to write lately has not really been the kind of stuff that people are enjoying.

For my money, when JMS is 'on', he's great. When he's not....he's REALLY not. I enjoyed Supreme Power and Squadron Supreme, for example, but don't care for Sidekick. I thought his Thor and Spiderman runs were very good, but his Superman and Wonder Woman work...I could really have done without. So it's a balance.

[beyondthefringe]

Looks interesting, but like people have said, his track record with regards to finishing storylines has suffered over the years. Rising Stars was one such example, as was the whole Supreme Power mess. And as for the Superman storyline...

He's best when working on things of his own creation, and not subject to interference, I think. This looks like it might be another one of his outside-the-box approaches to superheroes, akin to Rising Stars. I'm curious to know why the superhumans that have appeared in this world are all American, prone to good, and mostly rich. Is the power-granting premise directly controlled by a consciousness or something? And when will they all go bad? :)

But given his history, I'll wait for the trade, if it ever comes. :)

[icon_uk]

Provided that the story about the powers origins is true of course. If it's a purchaseable ability within the remit of the US Government (Like, say, a supersoldier serum that triggers latent powers) it makes sense for them to be mostly rich Americans.

Also a little surprised that none of them emigrated so that they'd be the only metahuman in the country.

[randyripoff]

Also a little surprised that none of them emigrated so that they'd be the only metahuman in the country.

I get the feeling that part of the idea of having these powers is to have superhuman fights for thrills. If you're the only one around, it would get boring and your might have to actually *shudder* save someone.

Not to mention the international incident it would cause if someone did come have a fight with you for the thrill of it all.

[salad_barbarian]

Well if it does have to do with the US government then no doubt emigrating is against whatever rules they have for these powers. Try to leave the land of the free and you will regret your very conception.

[espanolbot]

Possibly due to them being superpowered propaganda tools, if they left US borders it could be seen as an act of war or something.

I mean, in Watchmen don't you think that the USSR or China would have threatened an atomic launch if Dr Manhatten approached their borders?

[kamino_neko]

Emigrating and defecting don't involve entering a country unannounced. The country you're moving to will know you're coming - though they may not know that you intend to stay, in any case they'll know you're not part of an assault on them.

With America having a monopoly on supers in this world, most countries (especially those hostile to America) would welcome a defecting ('cuz, let's face it, there's zero chance the Americans would let them emigrate normally) super with open arms - both as a defense against America's supers, and a PR blow to the Americans.

[icon_uk]

In the case of "Speeding Bullet" in the Common grounds series, his superspeed meant that he was basically barred from travelling abroad, since no country would accept the inherent spying risk of a known super speedster.

[halloweenjack]

There have been so many "outside-the-box" series done on superheroes since the eighties that it's really the new box--even JMS has Rising Stars and Supreme Power/Squadron Supreme under his belt.

[drexer]

I've never liked anything written by Straczynski, his Superman Earth One, Grounded and Wonder Woman were horribly written and are some of the most dreadful works of comics I have ever seen, and even his other more well thought of works seemed to me as entirely vacuous and suffering from quite a few flaws that I just couldn't ignore.

But I've got o say that this at the very least looks to be mroe consistent than his usual work? He introduces a setting, its rules, it does not seem far too wishy-washy and seems internally conssistent, and it seems to adress and want to go somewhere with the USA-centrism of superheroes.

Funny how when mostly everyone is against this is when I feel a certain hope on Straczynski finally surprising me.