Nothing pisses me off more than writers that can't be bothered to research the characters their writing. Or writing them a certain way just because they feel like it. For example:
- Cassandra Cains' random heel turn into a deranged killer. Fans called DC on this and they tried to do damage control by retconning it into her being drugged. Then to add insult to injure they hired the same guy that screwed up to write her mini which pissed more people off. DC used the lack of sales as an excuse to take the Batgirl mantle away from her.
- Booster Gold being written as a moron that only cares about money when his first series went to great length to develop the character. Even JLI which made Blue and Gold popular portrayed him with good depth. The worst offender of his OOC behavior I can think of is FKATJL and ICBINTJL. I loath those books with a passion.
- Jason Todd has FAR too many OOC moments especially prior to the relaunch. So many that it looked like writers were just slapping the name onto a new character. While not as extreme as the stupid Blob/Nightwing and Gatman crap the new stuff still grates on my nerves. Most writers outside Lobdell seem to write Jason as a stereotypical street punk and add other stupid traits. Part of the reason I cringe everytime I see BE stuff is because of the shitty way he's written there. Read RHATO and RHA people! He doesn't act like that!
- Spider-Girl (MC2 Mayday Parker) had this happen with the Spider-Verse event that senselessly murdered her father and reduced her character. May became a whining and broody hero that berated the other Spider people for not being her dad. She suddenly decides to toss all her fathers' morals away for revenge then embrace them again because the plot says so. Her creators are trying to work with the bad situation although neither seem to be happy about it.
I feel your pain. There is nothing wrong with having a character grow, so long as it is done organically and over a period of time, with stories that show that growth. But having a new writer who has obviously never read a back issue suddenly take a well established character in a totally new direction without a thought about well established personality traits... well that's just bad writing. And infuriating.
ReplyDeleteIt really is especially in cases where they use their own bias against the characters. I think most of us would LOVE to write these characters and Id like to think most would take the jobs seriously. I know I'd research or try not to use the ones I didn't get.
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