I suppose someone’s going to have to talk about this, aren’t they?

Personally, I can get neither excited nor outraged about this. DC, in response to what they have to believe to be popular demand for this, is publishing a prequel that will be subject to more scrutiny than the ‘Gone With the Wind’ sequel. They’ve lined up some pretty decent talent for this, although personally if I was any one of these writers or artists I wouldn’t take this job for love nor money. A good chunk of your potential audience has written you off as a soulless hack simply for the act of saying “yes”, especially since Moore himself has been on record for the last 27 years as saying he does not want other writers handling the characters. Even if they’re persuaded to buy the series, they’re going to be comparing you to the towering shadow that Moore and Gibbons cast over the comic-book landscape since 1985. If I thought I was good enough to write or draw something that could be favorably compared to ‘Watchmen’, you can bet I wouldn’t want to make it an actual prequel to ‘Watchmen’.

But more than that, I wonder, is there really a demand for this to begin with? Even if Moore could be persuaded to return for a prequel (which, let’s face it, was never going to happen…and frankly, I think this marks the point where DC has officially given up on seeking a rapprochement with Moore…which at least means we should finally see those comic-book based ‘Watchmen’ figures…) …even if Gibbons would return to work with Moore…is this actually necessary? Do we need (as Moore himself put it) to see a “Moby-Dick” prequel, or tales about what happened to Nick after the end of ‘The Great Gatsby’? For some reason, stories told in comics seem to have a momentum driving them to sequels that we don’t see in other media. (Arguably, movies fall victim to the same pressures, but it seems to be only the “light” films that give in. ‘Transformers’ gets a sequel, but nobody’s out there demanding we see a ‘Silent Running 2’.)

I think that to some extent, comics fans been conditioned to see comic books as a continuing story, despite decades of efforts to break away from the notion. The idea of a “final issue” is one we’ve never gotten truly used to, because the vast majority of comic book fans read comics to be immersed in a universe rather than to read a particular story. (Okay, that’s a pretty big statement to make, but I think there’s something to it. Comic book fans want to enter the Marvel or DC universe for a while, to vicariously live in a world of superheroes and excitement and strangeness, and so the individual stories aren’t as important.) As a result, when someone does put out a sequel or a prequel to a big story, the simple desire to return to that universe is enough to overcome even knowing skepticism about a story’s prospects.

Take ‘The Dark Knight Strikes Again’, probably the other best-known return to the other best-known 80s story. Miller was already beginning to be considered as “past his prime”, and many people doubted he could recapture the lightning in a bottle that was the original mini-series. The promotional artwork and story synopses sounded like fan-fiction based on a classic, and nobody really seemed to have a compelling rationale for the project beyond the simple mercenary belief that it would sell. And yet, sell it did. I personally bought the whole series. I thought the first issue was shoddy and embarrassing, and I still bought the next two. The pull of “what happens next?” was just that strong.

I think that DC believes that the same rationale will work again. They look at comics fans and see people so interested in the Watchmen universe that they don’t care about what’s going to be on those pages in particular; they just want to go back to that world for a little bit longer and live there. I don’t have any particular investment one way or another; I don’t hope they fail, but I don’t wish them success either. All I do have is two words regarding people who tried to recapture the spirit of a cult classic with different creators, hoping that people’s affection for the original would draw them back to a sequel:

“S. Darko”.

In email, colby (from Survivor? We may never know) asks

Why is Sinestro so popular now? Up until a few years ago he was the dorky evil ex-Lantern, but now he’s one of the most popular villains DC has. Maybe even one of the most popular characters. Why did that happen?

Hey, remember the early 1990s, when antihero villains like Venom became so popular because they were basically like the heroes they fought except they were total badasses, because they had a good (if brutal and unsympathetic) point? Take that as your starting point. Then recall that over the last decade, DC has gradually made it more and more clear that the Guardians of the Universe are now conspiratorial baddies. Therefore, when Sinestro rebelled against them, he had a point. And unlike Venom, who had to compete with Spider-Man (who is beloved by nerds), Sinestro only has to compete with Hal Jordan, and I am not the only person out there who loathes Hal Jordan.

That’s why.

In email, zzzzthunk asks:

So a long time ago you talked about how a Flash movie shouldn’t be about the origin of the Flash but instead be about the final adventure of Barry Allen. But who signs on to be Barry Allen in that movie when they’re just going to be cut from the franchise?

Firstly, go ask Liam Neeson why he signed on to play Qui-Gon Jinn. Hint: the answer is “it’s fun and you get to make a lot of money.” But the real answer is that if I was going to plot out a trilogy of Flash movies (as trilogies are the hot thing these days, assuming the first one goes off properly), whoever played Barry would be key in all three. But, since I am not a hack, each movie itself would also have to be a self-contained work within a larger theme.

So what is the Flash’s theme? “Runs real fast” is not an answer, and Geoff Johns’ thing where he tries to turn Barry Allen into Batman isn’t the answer either. Barry Allen works best when he’s just a decent sort who gets superpowers and does good because he can, which is not that fascinating, which means his conflict should be external rather than internal. Wally’s can be internal, though – and the fact that I am mentioning Wally should key off that a Flash movie and/or trilogy should ultimately be about family. The Flash has always been best when the generational aspect of the costume raises its head: after all, the Flash was basically always just a dude who ran fast, and what ultimately distinguished him from other superheroes was really the fact that at a certain point someone took over for the previous guy, and then again, and then again.

So:

The Flash: Barry Allen’s last adventure. Jay and Wally and Linda are introduced as well: Jay is quite explicitly the “older Flash,” and Wally is the former sidekick, grown up, with Linda as his lady. And he’s got cancer, which is of course killing him because every time he uses his speed powers his metabolism clocks up to deadly o’clock. Professor Zoom is the villain, perhaps with Savitar as his assistant, and Zoom wants to command the Speed Force itself to do Bad Things. (NOTE: Do not ever call it the Speed Force in the movies. Say it out loud and you will quickly understand why. Call it “the lightning,” which sounds properly ominous, and you are fine.)

But Zoom gets killed by the end, and the end is Barry Allen running himself into relativity/the Speed Force to save the world from the Speed Force, turning into pure Speed Lightning, traveling through Wally (and curing him in the process by retro-aging the cancer into nonexistence) and eventually going back through time to become the lightning bolt that gives him his superpowers in the first place. (This can actually work as a nice twist on the superhero movie genre as a whole, by having the movie resolutely refuse to explain WHY Barry has speed powers throughout the entire movie – until it does right at the end.) Your conclusion is Wally putting on Barry’s uniform and declaring that the Flash lives again.

There is nothing terribly original in this – the originality would be in putting several disparate elements and tying them together into a satisfying whole. But then we turn to the second movie:

The Return of Barry Allen: Exactly what you think it is. Take Mark Waid’s classic Flash story and use it for the midway point of the trilogy. Any actor warned of this in advance would kill to play Barry Allen now, because he gets to play both the noble hero and a psychotic villain in what is essentially the same role. (This is of course why you need Zoom to be the baddie in the first movie.) And this is as straight an adaptation as can be: maybe you remove Johnny Quick (because he’s mostly extraneous to the plot), but you keep Max Mercury around because you’ll need him to explain the Speed Force a little more than Jay can – particularly how it’s sort of like Heaven – and because he’ll come in handy for movie number three, to be the Magical Speedster who doles out less-than-helpful advice as necessary.

The Fastest Man Alive: The capper of the trilogy only features maybe a brief appearance from Barry within the Speed Force, because at this point it’s become clear that although a trilogy of Flash movies is about family and generational responsibility, it’s also about man’s relationship with what he perceives to be Heaven and what Heaven even is. The third movie is a combination of “The Quick and the Dead” and “Dead Heat” (the Flash stories, not the movies of the same names) and features Savitar as the villain, trying to ascend to his idea of Heaven, even if it destroys the world – and Wally then has to choose, at the same time, ascension to bliss or return to Earth – and Linda. You can place a lot of callbacks in this movie to the first of the trilogy, and show how Wally’s different choices and different personality mean that things end differently for him.

That’s your Flash trilogy right there: a commentary on the superhero as mortal man, and on the superhero as godly ascended being. You can fit in a lot of commentary on man’s relationship with religion as you see fit, but it will all be in the entertaining context of somebody being a superhero by running really, really fast. And, in case any of the movies bomb, each one has its own satisfying ending (Barry ascends and Wally takes his place/Wally finally comes out of Barry’s shadow/Wally makes his final choice). I think that works.

And that concludes Part Three of this comic what we are doing. I am really tremendously happy that we have now completed three whole issues, which feels terribly substantial (especially when you consider that at 28 pages, three issues for us is almost four standard issues for anybody else) and puts us in sight of the halfway marker on the whole story.