Heroes in Crisis #9: All of Us

[superboyprime]

"I want to make everybody happy, I just don't do it. The failure's my fault, not yours. And if I could write some legitimately fun story that everyone loved, I'd write it in two seconds. But for me to write good, it has to be this weird, personal stuff, and the weird, personal stuff tends to scratch at these heroes, and get them to places where some people don't want to see them go.

"That said, I face this time and again, this is kind of what I do. I tear down heroes to their essential components and build them back up. I mean, to the first page in Mister Miracle, he's bleeding out, he's cut his own wrist. The first issue of Omega Men, Kyle Rayner gets his neck chopped open, the first issue of The Vision has his daughter being stabbed through the heart, right?

"This is sort of what I do, but at the end of the day, hopefully people say "oh, he had some respect for that Mister Miracle, he wasn't just doing it to be mean, he was actually doing it to exploit his character and to elevate the character." Mister Miracle went through hell, but now everybody knows who Mister Miracle is, right? Same with Vision, I put him through hell. I had him almost turn into absolute evil, but it elevated that character a little bit, and now they're doing the TV show which, you know, had something to do with my stuff."

- Tom King

Comments

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

I'd be more impressed wit King's statement 'I build them back up', if he didn't make a habit of retroactively destroying characters in utterly bizarre ways.

Anyone remember when Victor was revealed as a vibranium addict from day one, in Vision?

Anyone remember how Booster Gold became the king of morons when he appeared in Batman?

Tom King clearly prefers to work in broad strokes, but that doesn't work, IMO, when you are focusing on characterization. Leaving aside how Wally somehow perfectly tweaked the crime scene, all this happened because Wally couldn't believe that there were others suffering as much as him.

I know Wally can be a jerk, but damnation!

[cyberghostface]

Yeah he pissed all over Victor in Vision. Rainbow Rowell was the one who built him back up.