It’s interesting that no one is answering my question. I said:
I’m sure many fans gripe about DC or Marvel not listening to them. Well, I’m listening. It’s important to me, to my job, to figure out what fans want and do my best to provide that while not boring them to death by actually giving them exactly what they want.
And what I’m reading is
“You doesn’t get it and you has zero interest in getting it.”
It’s easy to boo from the cheap seats. Here you have someone from the industry asking you what you want, and either nobody actually knows or would just prefer to beat the dead Damian-Wally horse. So, let’s try this again: what do fans want? I’m actually asking. I’m actually listening. Rants about Damian or Wally are now considered off-topic.
I know rants about Damian and OG Wally are considered off topic and now having read your posts I see your side of the story but there is a thing I think that needs to be discussed.
Damian is an insecure character, truth is that he gets a lot of hate for his actions. While yes he was created to be entitled aristocrat with a murderous edge, his replacement of Tim, his skyrocketing popularity and exposure as well as him being a sort of mini Batman has created a lot hate towards him. Many of these problems plague Deathstroke as well particularly the exposure and Batman clone parts. DC fans have over the years become increasingly hostile to Batman because they think he’s too exposed and too “wanked”. Damian being Bruce’s son, who actually brags about it and displays a similar demeanor gets the brunt of this hate and unlike Batman he doesn’t have the legion of fans to protect him.
Whatever heat you’re getting from Damian fans is reactionary because Damian haters used the Lazarus Contract to fuel the hate towards him. Essentially the case being that he’s not good enough to be Robin, a Teen Titan, leader, Bruce’s son etc based on these actions here. Which automatically stimulates many Damian fans to dismiss Lazarus Contract for not providing a correct depiction of Damian. Also keep in mind this is the first time Damian has been exposed to the larger DC universe proper, for a long time he was kept to the Batman side of things. There’s the fear that Damian cannot endure even more fanbases of established characters turning against him, certainly the fans of both Wallys’ have used this story to generate more hate towards him. Its all reactionary and built on insecurity, there’s a lot of division between the Batman universe and the rest of DC and there are sub divisions with in the Bat universe itself as to who deserves to be Robin or Batgirl and who deserves more spot light etc, throw in what happened to be Jason Todd decades ago and you get the picture.
That’s my two cents and I hope helps you understand where the criticism is coming from, atleast from the Damian camp.
Considering your work on Deathstroke, I want you to do what you’ve already been doing. Hell, your work with Slade, Grant, Wintergreen and Jericho in the crossover was all still very good. I also didn’t mind how Wally 2.0 was written in Lazarus Contract (susceptible to authority figures, easy to betray are basically his primary character traits) so I’m happy to see where you go with him in the upcoming Team Deathstroke arc.
The damage is done on Damian and Wally 1.0 and I don’t think you’re writing them in the future so asking what to do from here on out with them seems a bit pointless. If they’re off topic then I don’t know what to say. What I wanted for Wally today is what I wanted 12 months ago and instead was given two rehashes and a couple of minorly fun one shots inbetween.
Addendum I forgot, I suppose I can tell you what I want in a broader sense.
The main thing I’m interested in are intriguing and interesting stories wrought with character struggle and character growth in a way that doesn’t make me scratch my head and go “that makes no sense.” Interesting characters, heroes, villains, and everything inbetween alike.This kind of leads back to a point you made earlier about if a character just grows and progresses that, eventually, all their rough edges get smoothed out and we end up with this flawless and, in your and my eyes, uninteresting character. After all, what’s Damian without that bit of monster in him that sets him apart from Dick Grayson?
Where we differ is I think the practically flawless, complete person is a perfect outcome. But if, and only if, we’re willing to move on from the characters who have completed their arc. This is where I’m very, very different from most fans. My primary hook into comics is Wally West, he is and probably always will be my favorite superhero. The primary reason I love Wally is I got to witness him reap the benefits of both him growing from an overly flawed asshole of a character slowly, over many years, into one of the most awesome and interesting characters around AND the backdrop of a richer world where he sprung from. Wally West is so great because he came from Barry Allen, a Mr. Perfect standin who was so good and boring they killed him off to try something new.
Where I’m different is I would be happy with a world where, after all of this, Wally gets forced to hang up the boots or dies ala Barry Allen. He may be my favorite character but I would’ve sure been looking forward to a better executed passing of the mantle (they seriously botched Wally’s first departure and Bart’s run). I think The Flash franchise is proof positive of how amazing a story can be told if you move the mantle on down after you’ve told a complete story with one character. First Barry, and then what should’ve been Wally. Instead, DC and Marvel both have this “play it safe” mentality with far too much of their cast. The best example is probably Batman. Batman sells, so we can never get rid of Bruce Wayne, because there’s a fear that you might be harming yourself in sales if you aren’t telling as many Bruce Wayne stories as possible. If we can’t get rid of Bruce Wayne then other, less stable comics that could do with some progression past their main characters will never be able to progress because boy would Justice League look stupid if it was Bruce Wayne and the great grand kids of all of his former teammates. This extends to Superman and Wonder Woman in the same way.
I’d just like a world that progresses and allows the characters to progress with it. Instead we get halfbaked reboots like The New 52 where no one wins because all we see is the industry retelling the same stories as before but packaging it as new and interesting character growth — one of the reasons I’m so negative about the Wolfman Heart Condition rehash. I don’t want to see the exact same character arc for a character who’s gone through this crap. Slightly sprucing it up with the perfume of the modern era doesn’t hide what is essentially a “What does Wally West do without his identity as a superhero?” Story. It’s been told like 4 times.
But I’m in the minority on this. Most people are probably happy reading Bruce Wayne and Barry Allen and Hal Jordan forever and stomaching a reboot every few decades so they can pretend the characters are growing and changing again instead of just being put through the narrative equivalent of a photoshop filter.
Well, I think you’re asking the wrong question, “what fans want?” doesn’t have one answer because different people want different things. I said that I enjoyed Lazarus Contract considerably less than I have the rest of the Deathstroke run and laid out some of my problems while you took the time and explained why those problems exist or why you believe they are not problems and I found your replies very well thought out and I appreciate them. You said:
“…Which is the stigma I’ve been fighting to overcome. The book generates a lot of noise from fan press and mainstream media, but the numbers are middling. I’ve presumed, all along, it’s because it’s a book about a villain. Such books have never performed well. But now I realize it’s because it’s a book about *this* villain, about Slade.”
And it’s not that, it’s just that people want to read “important” comics that change the face of the universe foreverandeverandeveractuallyitsjust2or3years that feature the most popular characters ever. You’ll see that despite the fact that Lazarus Contract was not as well received as your past work on Deathstroke it’ll see an increase in sales. People online where making noise about wanting a Blue Beetle comic for years and when DC gave it to them it debuted at very small numbers, it’s just how the industry works, people would rather read light ad straightforward stories than your more complex run on Deathstroke and people would rather buy the newest issue of Spider-man and then go online and complain about not liking it despite knowing full well what they’re going to get from the creative team and there are certain fans that like to make noise online about something but they are actually a vocal minority. Comics that sell right now are all hype and no substance and your comic has a lot of substance so that’s why it’s not a huge seller. But here’s the deal, would you rather write something that sells very well for a few years and then nothing or would you rather write a comic that will be talked about 20 years later? Your work on Black Panther ended over a decade ago and yet that run is still recommended today and is considered THE Black Panther run so would you rather be a flash in the pan or be the kind of writer that produces worked that will be talked about and recommended 10, 20, 30 years and beyond?
You can ask what you can do to satisfy the Teen Titans fans, and the Titans fans and the Nightwing fans and the Flash fans and the Green Lantern fans and I’m sitting there wondering “well, what about us? what about the fans of your work? or the fans of Deathstroke? Because all we want is for you to keep doing what you do”. People shouting hyperbole will never be pleased and I’ve seen a lot of comments on your blog where people said they liked it very much so it is what it is, some people hated it, some loved it, some(myself included) thought ti had it’s moments but was fairly weak(but not outright bad). Crossover is over now so whatever.
For OG Wally, you need to understand that despite the fact that he pretty much ends up saving the day, some fans, especially in superhero comics, want their favorite characters to solve the day by punching the problem away. I like your reasoning for what you did and as someone who’s read a lot of Flash comics including the majority of WIlliam Messner-Loebs and Mark Waid’s Flash runs as well as Geoff Johns entire work on the character(and I also read the Francis Manapul run on Barry Allen -nice callback by the way, you and Alex Antone did your research-), I think you did a good job and I say that as someone that likes the character but the speedforce has always been poorly defined in comics. Writers know that fans like their favorite charterers to be “the strongest” so they keep upgrading their powers without adding any drawbacks and things get out of hand. Don’t worry about it, I personally dislike the Hulk because he’s boring and just solves all his problems by punching them, he can’t? well he’ll just punch harder then. There are better characters that have done the “monster inside” theme. Don’t worry too much about it, some fans just want their favorite characters to never back down, always solve their problems by using their powers to clobber the enemy, but not ALL of us want that.
“…So, this time, I wanted to be sure I was using the right template for Damian. So I read Damian’s contemporary appearances and, reminder, all of this stuff was vetted through three editors and two outside writers and this…”
That doesn’t necessarily mean the portrayal will be accuratea and you touched upon this in a comment earlier. Here’s an example, in Robin: Son of batman, Deathstroke shows up having taken a contract but Damian “defeats” him by giving him double the money the original contract had to leave them alone. This is not the character Marv Wolfman created and as you’ve shown in your series, this is not the way you write Slade, yet that’s what happened in that comic that also had editors and whatnot and nobody thinks that series is bad because it featured an out of character Deathstroke for a few page. I said it and I’ll say it again, Deathstroke has been largely mishandled by DC for many year until you got a hold of him, a lot of writers had him as a money obsessed dude despite the fact that Slade is rich as hell. I like the character because he’s morally complex but he was like that when he was created and he is light that under you, most of the stuff DC used him in has him as an evil bastard that just kills people for money. I see in your version a pretty nihilistic character, someone that’s fucked up his life to the point where these characters and this desire of being the best is all that keeps him going, he is a man that’s not good at anything… except killing so he keeps going because if he stops and has time to think he’d probably take his own life. Sir, you are SAVING Deathstroke and that is a fact so don’t change your ways trying to please people that don’t truly like the character.
I got sidetracked there because the actual point I was trying to make is that you actually wrote Damian fine. I love Grant Morrison’s run on Batman and he’s a main character there so I really liked him but I don’t believe bringing him back was the right call from DC, eitherway, Damian was always a jerk… he’s a good guy deep inside but he’s immature and impulsive and although some writers like to get real cutesy with him from time to time to balance out the jerkiness, the way you wrote him is not in any way some crime against the character, his dialogue for the most part has been pretty spot on, “Yes, I agree. Apology accepted.” is not only hilarious but exactly something Damian would say.
“…[Digression] this is what both amuses and annoys me about all the speculation going on about our upcoming “Defiance” storyline wherein Slade forms his own Titans group. We’re not actually allowed to call them “Titans” for some arcane reason, but that’s what they are. Fans calling me names and threatening to drop the book– that’s just hilarious”
It always surprises me how gullible some comic book readers are… My only problem with it is that the last time Slade made a Titans team it was awful and I have a strong hatred for that run and for Eric Wallace in general because not only was that run awful, he also did a bad job with a Mr. Terrific ongoing(I think he’s a very interesting character with lots of potential, I have a strong interest in characters with untapped potential, sometimes even more so that in characters that have a lot of really good stories under their belt) and he also regressed Tattooed Man(I know nobody cares about him, but I loved him in Final Crisis and what Eric Wallace did with the character is infuriating) but I digress. My point is, just because I hated the last time Slade formed his own Titans team doesn’t mean I’m afraid “Defiance” will suck, I respect you too much to think that and besides, I firmly believe that there are no bad ideas, just bad execution and I’m much more interest in a (good) writer remaking a bad storyline than remaking a good one because the idea for the storyline might have the potential of being good if done right. My only gripe is that this direction sounds intriguing and I think has a lot of potential so I hope it’s not just for one arc and then back.
“…I disagree. Damian’s been there, he’s been dead.”
Eh, hasn’t everyone in comics by this point? The thing is though, Damian was originally a killer but he developed past that(it also felt weird for Damian of all people to keep bringing up that Slade’s a murderer. There’s plenty of reasons why he shouldn’t want to help that asshole). Damian stopped killing to honor his father and when he did kill again it was a pretty strong scene where you really felt for the guy because he “had to” and his father was really angry with him, it was well done. It’s not a major flaw in the story or anything, I just don’t think it makes sense for the character to treat death lightly considering ALL he’s been through. But that’s just my opinion.
“…I don’t see Batman as a nurturing individual. He’s a guy who shouldn’t own goldfish, let alone be raising kids. And I see Grayson as an adult survivor of child abuse”
And this is where I disagree with you. I think Batman deep down wants to see the best in people(and that’s why he’s best friends with Superman, they share that) but he has a tough exterior and will not be quick to place his trust in others but I see him as someone that believes in second chances or at least wants to believe people can change, I grew up on the animated series and Bruce Timm and Paul Dini often wrote him like that. I don’t think Batman as a loner works because he’s always had allies ever since his inception and the batfamily has gotten so big that it’s just… silly to assume he’s a bad mentor. I think that’s why he does what he does, so no other child has to live through what he did because of some punk with a gun and most of his villains are crazy and he most likely hopes they’ll one day be cured but he doesn’t believe it, he just hopes it. For Dick Grayson, I see him as Bruce but a Bruce that had someone to guide him and give him purpose at a young age so he didn’t turn into Bruce. This particular scene written by Geoff Johns really nails it in my opinion http://i.imgur.com/ghrlrPx.jpg Dick I think would’ve sought revenge for his parents’ murder and he would’ve destroyed his life trying to achieve it and most likely died. Batman helped shape him into the man he is today and because of him, Dick didn’t turn into a broody, emotionally broken man that has a hard time showing emotions.
You and I have different views on Batman, but I think both are valid and despite all this I’d read and most likely enjoy the hell out of a Batman run written by you. If I were an editor, I have a few characters that I think would fit you as a glove and I’d offer those to you first but I would not say no to a Batman run from you.
“…The head pat was silly– shoot me for that,”
Oh, that was you? I thought it was hilarious, I really liked that part.
“…(stop clobbering Benjamin– firing Nu Wally was my idea) ”
Here’s my problem with it. I hate the term of “firing” in comics almost as much as I hate the concept of superhero teams paying their members. If you’re getting paid then I can’t consider you a hero, you’re just doing a job. Kicking out Nu Wally sounds like something would do, and let’s be honest, if Ben Percy wouldn’t have liked it, he wouldn’t set it up in his epilogue pages to deal with later. Even if I don’t like what Ben Percy and Dan Abnett have set up or done on their titles, I have no strong dislike for any of them and I think they should be allowed to tell the stories they want to, so if Ben wants to tell this story then let him.
“…Yes it does. This was my idea. And I stand by it.”
I don’t think it’s your fault, and I don’t think it’s Ben Percy’s fault and I don’t think it’s Dan Dabnett’s fault. I don’t think it’s Alex Antone’s fault nor do I believe it’s group editor, Marie Javins’ fault. Or maybe you’re ALL at fault? who knows, but this wasn’t garbage with no redeeming qualities, the people saying this are just trying to be stir up a reaction. I was annoyed that I had to pick up two titles I don’t normally read for a month and ever since it was firs announced I was iffy on this storyline so it’s not like I had huge expectations and was letdown. It is what it is, I thought Deathstroke #19 was really good and even if I find a lot of flaws in the plot and other 3 issues, I do not hate this crossover, I hate the reaction it’s gotten and the fact that you’ve been bothered by people that haven’t read your previous 19 issues on Deathstroke and that don’t generally care about you or your writing.
“…It’s possible that we (myself included) are all too spoiled by having every living thought of these heroes spoon-fed to us by these god-awful please-stop-doing-that first person narrative captions. Had I done that, I could have Damian explain his thoughts a bit more and maybe I wouldn’t be taking the clobbering.”
One of the main things I like about your Deathstroke run is the lack of inner monologue boxes, especially in dealing with complex characters. Most fans of your run actually like that so don’t for a second think you need to be more cookie cutter. Here’s a legit criticism I have for you, in #17, you used the suit’s AI to directly tell us, the readers, why Slade killed the dog despite it being painfully obvious from the start. You need to let us think a bit too, it’s what you did more of at the start and it was great, we don’t need captions boxes explaining everything to us. I actually think it’s quite disrespectful when a writer has a character conveniently recap everything for the reader, it feels as if he’s talking down to us. Respect your readers and they’ll respect you, we love your style of writing so don’t worry about it. At the end of the Lazarus Contract, there’s a very good reason why Slade doesn’t start cutting up teens and it’s because, deep though, despite all his rage(he is still just a rat in a cage) he recognizes the fact that the Titans saved him and he owes them one and he’s just sick of it all, he’s sick of his life and WANTS to change but often enough what we want to do is vastly different from what we end up doing. Slade is an interesting character to me because he doesn’t do evil things because he’s evil, he’s a selfish man and his actions more often than not end up hurting people. He’s a sociopath but not a pscyopath, something DC made him into years back and it was terrible, I hated the whole affairs of him intentionally trying to ruin Rose’s life and I hated how DC used him and Jericho and I’m just glad we have your run where Slade is not only interesting and well written, but his children are also very well written and interesting(I loved the part where Slade calls Jericho and tells him he has no problem with him coming in and helping Superman, this is the complexity that I love in your characters that other writers are either incapable of or simply don’t want to display. I like gray, I’m tired of all black and white.
In closing, what I want is for you is to keep doing what you want to do. You said months back that you want to tell a story in which Slade loses his money and has to deal with that, I personally think it’s a boring and overdone idea, a rich character temporarily losing his fortune, happened to Batman, happens(a lot) to Iron Man, happened recently in Ben Percy’s Green Arrow run… BUT as I’ve said last time, an idea is only as good as it’s execution so I’m sure you’ll write a good story involving this plot point, hell, it’s entirely possible that I’ll end up loving that arc more than anything you’ve ever done. I trust you as a writer to do good stories, so trust us as readers to “get” what you’re writing. It’s admirable that you’re listening but don’t alienate your current fans in hope that you’ll get new ones and pleasing everybody is an impossible task in…anything, but especially superhero comics. Don’t let yourself get discouraged, “Lazarus Contract” was not as badly received as you’re trying to imply.
Mr. Priest, I understand your frustration. I think there might be some miscommunication between you and the fans. My problem is not the events of the crossover. Damian seemed in character. He did the best he could under stressful circumstances, and I’m interested to see how the fallout of the event will affect his relationships with the Titans. Deathstroke also had some interesting development that continues the arc you set for him. And of course, it’s nice to see Slade and the Titans clash again.
My problem, put in as few words as possible, is that Wally now has a handicap which limits his efficiency as a hero and keeps him out of the Justice League, while Barry Allen still gets to star in The Flash and Justice League, with nary a physical obstacle in sight, while being one of those boring, smoothed over characters with no room for development. My frustration is not with you, but the prevailing attitude at D.C. Comics.
I would also like to thank you for having a dialogue with us fans. It means a lot that you are trying to communicate with us, and that you respect what we have to say. I’m very grateful for this. I hope your writing will continue to reach new heights.
I tried to answer your question in the first comment section but I’ll try again. Personally I wanted this to be an adventure that heavily involves the Titans. Didn’t see much reason for 3/4 of the two Titans team to be around here. I get that Slade being as big or bigger POV being the solo star of one of the three books means he can’t be an obstactle the Titans get to overcome as directly anymore but I’d like to see them try. Here killing each other to avoid having to face him is presented as the best strategy, even though they’re twice as many of them (three times when they went into the past even). That’s quite a fall from grace.
Alternatively what Damian did really was unneccesarily stepping over the line and again, then I want Dick, compassionate friend of Wally that he is, to really deal with Damian because of it. Which I don’t expect to see. Giving a character their rough edges back is fine but it has go hand-in-hand with the reprecussions of being that rough with your allies.
Well, I don’t know if you have any interest. But it’d be nice if you got to write Suicide Squad…
I don’t have a stack of paragraphs this time, and I know this probably isn’t the answer you’re looking for but, this fan? I just want you to keep doing what you’re doing with Slade and Friends.
I have been really impressed by and enjoying your Deathstroke – as a new reader, someone who has not read a lot of Deathstroke before. I found The Lazarus Contract disappointing partly because it’s a crossover with two titles I don’t enjoy that much – which means that in many ways, it’s just not for me. However, the Deathstroke part that I was less moved by was that it felt like a lot of the really complicated, emotionally engaging stuff that I had to work to figure out as a reader in the first 18 issues was kind of just stated literally and plainly. Maybe that’s a function of a crossover for a lot of readers who don’t regularly read Deathstroke, but it felt like a step down in the richness of the storytelling that you’d been doing previously.
That being said, I am incredibly excited about the next arc for Deathstroke, and really appreciate the way you present Christians as normal characters with normal flaws, and normal amounts of good and evil. As a conservative Christian who has a lot of the same problems with the “Christian” market, I really appreciate you bringing your faith to the table as a writer – not preaching at all, but also showing that it’s an essential part of people’s lives, not something to be mocked, ignored, or whitewashed.
I’ve been reading all the threads on the Lazarus Contract Special and it seems to me that saying that all you are reading is “You doesn’t get it and you has zero interest in getting it.” is either a bit unfair or you are not reading what people are actually saying.
The way that a lot of comments seem to be focusing on the handling of OG Wally and Damian would suggest that to them that one of their the main concerns is the characterization of the characters and that they feel you got it wrong.
I really like what you say in your statement that “It’s important to me, to my job, to figure out what fans want and do my best to provide that while not boring them to death by actually giving them exactly what they want.” Honestly, that is the biggest thing I can hope for from a writer on the books I’m reading. I don’t want to tell you exactly what you should be writing because that would make the books extremely boring for me to read and I might just as well have been writing them myself.
But one thing I always dislike is when a character is written out of character, or if he/she is then I’d like it to be an important element of the story. Now, with a shared universe like DC it is not really possible to keep the characterization 100% unified and honestly I don’t think that is even needed. We all act differently in different circumstances so why shouldn’t our heroes and villains do the same. However, some things are part of the core of our character or becomes part of it and if we later deviate from it, the change has to make sense to us. If I went from being pro-death penalty and suddenly changed my mind to become against it, the change would not come as a spur of the moment thing but most likely be the result of some experience I had had.
It’s the same thing with our heroes. If we’ve seen them evolve we do not like to see them regress unless there’s a story behind it (preferably a good one at that). That is what a lot of people didn’t see here. They saw some of their beloved characters act very differently than how they believe they would have done in those situations, based on what they’d read before.
Looking at the comments it seems to me this is the biggest gripe people have with the story and not the story itself. Well, some think the whole stopping and restarting Wally’s heart made little sense in regards to how time was changed, but most of the complaints have been character oriented more than story oriented.
Should you need to read 100’s of comics to get the characters? No, I don’t think that’s necessary and it seems you did some of the things that you ought to do if you haven’t and do not have a firm grab of who the characters are. Ask your editor and other current writers of the characters in question. They should be the ones that had done the research on the characters (in the editors case it might be a question of him asking a different editor) and they should be able to inform you of any important details (having a company character bible of sorts that gave a quick characterization overview could have been a good thing as well). Not that this you should need to read or consult with others on every single character, but if the characters play a big or important role in the story it would go a long way towards getting things right in the fans eyes.
In this case it seems that there is a divide between what the writers think is important elements of the characters and what the fans think, so “getting it right” would have been a difficult task no matter what.
It also shows why crossovers are so hard to do and so hard to do “right” as everyone approaches the story with different expectations and have a lot harder overlooking what they believe to be “mis-characterization” of the characters from the books they are already reading than those of others.
On top of that time travel almost always ends up causing all sorts of paradoxes that raise more questions than it ever answers, so you guys had placed yourself in a pretty difficult situation from the beginning. Add to that the altered past of a much beloved era of the New Teen Titans and your chance of producing a story that wouldn’t be the subject of this kind of scrutiny was slim at best.
Personally, I have to admit I wasn’t a big fan of the story, but I’m generally not a big fan of time travel stories, so I kinda knew it would take a lot to win me over going in.
The special had some great moments though and for the most part I liked how you handled Damian and the panel with him patting Raven on the head was hilarious. I really liked the scenes with Aqualad, Kid Flash and Wintergreen as well. A speed force wielding Deathstroke wasn’t something I needed to see, but now that we did get it I would have loved to have just a glimpse at what it was he saw that made him decide to quit. I hope this will be followed up on in his own book, which I absolutely love btw.
fuck the people who are saying, “fuck priest”.
also, Deathstroke is the bomb. I’ll read anything you put out.
Closing this thread and starting another (again 🙂 See my following post.