My fandom *is* fanon.

[odditycollector]

 
Last week, DC Comics put out Batman 644, the conclusion of the War Crimes storyline. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

(For those of you lucky to have no idea what I'm talking about... Bill Willingham wrote an issue wherein Leslie Thompson - a doctor who was steadily characterized as a pacifist for decades - was suddenly revealed to have murdered one of Batman's sidekicks. Other people have already written about the nearly impossible stupidity levels on the storytelling, stoyteller, and meta levels, so I'll just take that as read.)

My first reaction after reading it was fairly predictable: a goodly helping of Oh, bitch, you didn't, and Well, that certainly didn't happen. My second reaction was to open Photoshop and, well, *retcon* it.

It was very therapeutic. But also very strange because, in my brain, the Leslie-Bruce confrontation I threw together gets waaay more canon points than what Willingham put out, which gets none. Despite, you know, actually being canon.

I was thinking a little bit about that, because I still don't understand the Harry Potter fans who got upset after The Half Blood Prince came out and announced that it was a diverting read, thank you, but totally unacceptable as canon and everyone ought to continue as if it was never published. And I'm sure I'd love you guys if I knew you better, really, and I'm glad you're happy in your little AU bubbles... but that doesn't make you less delusional. The characters are JK Rowling's, and she can do with them as she pleases.*

And I think that, right there, is the problem. For something like the DCU, which is complicated and has very little immutable history and has creative minds in charge who grew up as fans themselves... who exactly owns the characters? (No, I'm not talking copyright here.) Bob Kane "invented" Batman in 1939 - but hundreds of writers, artists and editors have worked with character since. Some of them have left more of a lasting impression on the characters than others, but I challenge anyone to point to one person - or two, or three - who are totally and solely responsible for his development up to now. Or who will be totally and solely responsible from this moment on.

It's impossible, even ignoring the movies and the cartoons and the influential out-of-continuity stories and that there's a lot more feedback between the fans and creators of comics than in most other mediums. So whose characters are they? Who has the right to fuck the DCU around?

Well, it sure as hell isn't Willingham.

And I think many things people have been shouting that I agree with - that Willingham doesn't understand or respect the characters he's writing, nor the people who he's ostensibly writing them for - stem from his inability to grasp that. These characters are not his. They did not spring into existence when he started writing them, and they do not merely exist to forward the stories he would like to tell. (If anything, it's the other way - any stories he involves them in should forward the characters.) Every writer in the Batverse comes in with his or her own interpretation of the characters, but this should be built from stuff that came before.

Leslie is not "a doctor" and Bruce is not "a rich guy who dresses up like a bat and fights for justice" and Tim Drake is not "a boy who got involved in the justice fighting for a bit" and Steph was is not "his girlfriend".

Now personally, I like Fables, also penned by him. It's not the greatest thing going, but it's usually one of the better books I spend money on. And I'm not going to boycott that title, just because its writer is an insulting idiot who incites homicidal rage in myself and many people I like and respect. But Fables is Willingham's world, and if he decides that the major baddy is going to turn out to be Snow White, that's just fine. He'd better at least try to make me believe it, but even if he fails, it's ultimately his prerogative.

I know I'm picking on Willingham here (but wow, does he deserve it). My point wasn't actually meant to be that this guy in particular sucks, but that the DCU (and Marvelverse, I'd assume) of comics is just one big exercise in fanon, for which the original canon has long since been lost. Writers are playing with someone's interpretations of what one fan speculated about the artwork in that AU an editor suggested as a response to a story the first writer scripted.

More often than not, it works reasonably well. It's fun. And occasionally the entire fandom will get together and have a Crisis-themed ficathon, but you know it'll all blow over sooner or later and everyone will get back to their Batman/Gotham WIP and their Supergirl crack-fic and their arguments re: Lex Luthor's motivations. Because that's the way fandom is.

It's just that every once in a while some n00b starts posting the equivalent of gorilla ass-rape mpreg stories all over the place - and means them to be serious and angsty and epic - and you have to ignore them until they go away. Or, you know, mock them mercilessly. Whichever.

*IMO, as someone fairly totally outside the fandom. It may be that book and tv series and movie fandoms feel the same for other people as the DCU one does for me, but the argument that there's more of a definite *line* between canon and fanon still stands (until someone knocks it down).


 

Comments

[thete1.livejournal.com]

This is totally right. It's... hmm. In order for me, personally, to be active in this fandom, I had to decide pretty early what would count as my One True Canon and what wouldn't. Which writers, which issues, which *parts* of which issues... and it's something I never would've been able to do in other fandoms. It's something I've actively mocked people for doing in other fandoms.

On the one hand, I'm a lot mellower just in general than I used to be about fandom issues. On the other hand, though, there is a difference. With the exceptions of things like the latest run of MANHUNTER and FIRESTORM, the entire universe *is* made up of fanon. Fan-fiction written about fan-fiction written about fan-fiction and so on and so forth for generations. It's right and proper that we mix and match -- and *not* just because many of us do it better -- or even 'better' -- than the people who are paid good money to do so.

It's right and proper because that's the actual nature of the *beast*. It's a patchwork, a Frankenstein monster, a coral structure, a... *thingy*. Anyway.

There have been, actually, some shows -- or seasons of shows -- which deserve the same sort of treatment (in both positive -- lots of post S2 due South comes to mind -- and fuck-you-canon -- SG-1 fandom -- ways), but I can't help but notice that most of these shows went through major creative shake-ups before the fans started playing toss the canon around.

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

I had to decide pretty early what would count as my One True Canon and what wouldn't...
Exactly. This is what anyone who plays in the DCU *has* to do... at least if they want to tell halfway legible stories and/or stay sane (which actually might explain something about many comics fans, but). A lot of the published stories are either total crap or don't work with each other, and it'd be a mistake to try to make them. It's the *characters* and the *myths* that count.

One of the other things that is weird is that, One True Canon aside, sometimes you have to use different issues as your base, depending on *which* (eg) Tim story you want to tell. This is why I get confused when I try to fill out any poll on AUs. The whole of the DCU fandom is AUs. Hell, the whole of the *DCU* is AUs. Then on top of that we've got Elseworlds and Legion and, like, anything written by Loeb.

And that's another reason why I shout that there's not all that much difference between the creators and the fans around here. Someone sitting down to tell a story, *their* story, doesn't often go off on a tangent and write that story's equivalent of What if Bruce was a Green Lantern? What if he was *Superman*? What if the Joker was the *good guy*?

It's fans who worry about stuff like that.

With the exceptions of things like the latest run of MANHUNTER and FIRESTORM,
*nods* That's why I was careful to talk about the *DCU* as opposed to comics in general, because otherwise I'd keep inserting, except for anything creator owned, or indy, or most of the Vertigo line, or.... And, yeah, books early enough in their run to have one or two writers fall into the same category. They haven't... diffused into the general domain yet, I guess. If thirty years from now Kate's still around as Manhunter, we might be having a different conversation (or at least different examples).

and *not* just because many of us do it better -- or even 'better' -- than the people who are paid good money to do so.

*laughs* It's so very true.