Mmmmm this might be controversial because I'm bad at articulating these mixed complicated feelings. And if any moots think this post is talking about things you've posted I promise it's not, I understand your perspective I'm more talking about things I see in tags.
I do feel like some people who weren't there idealize what comics were like in the in the 2005-2010. like listen. Things were dire in the era too. Steph being Dead and Cass being turned evil. Wonder Woman didn't know how to pump gas. The Teen Titans were nonstop gratuitous deaths. They killed Lian and Roy swung around a dead cat. Dan Didio was destroying every minority hero he got his hands on. The Cass brainwashing was undone but her characterization was total crap and they gave her back to Adam Beechen despite the fact Cass fans didn't like his writing (Looking back I do think this was intentional sabotage. Didio was petty enough, I can believe he wanted the Cass miniseries to fail so he had a reason to argue Babs should be Batgirl again). They were obSESSED with rape. There really was an undercurrent of "adopted kids don't count" with how Damian was treated vs others, and I do think modern fans need to put themselves there and acknowledge how it would look if Damian was the only one treated like Bruce's child. Characterization would be inconsistent across comics even back then..
Things were starting to get better for the Batfam starting with the Reborn era, but Cass was missing for SO long, when you read it all together you don't realize how it was, she'd just kind of been exiled and we only got her back in Gates of Gotham and then the reboot happened.
And I agree that the N52 was horrible and it's why I quit comics! But the rot was seeping in more and more leading to the N52. There were a lot of signs and I was watching with the dread building inside me.
And God that's not even getting into all my interactions at cons, some I think would not happen today bc DC does want a veneer of progressiveness so...I hope no girl my age back then gets as discouraged as I got and I'm glad it's less likely.
-as I've mentioned many times, I was the one who witnessed Bill Willingham saying he wanted to shoot Stephanie Brown fans in the face. He'd absolutely still say that today but he's pretty firmly cut ties with DC comics for their woke agenda or whatever, so. I need everyone to know about this, and know him releasing Fables into public domain was to spite the libs, not out of any coolness.
-I asked why DC was killing off so many characters of color at HeroesCon and Ian Sattler responded that it wasn't a big deal and DC was plenty diverse because they even have green and purple skinned characters. Newsarama and some other comic sites reported this at the time and a lot of people were angry iirc, but it's still wild someone actually said that, and I feel there's less of a chance of it happening now at least. )
But I do see comics out there today that would have NEVER happened back when I was a fan. The Shadow of the Batgirl comic. Spirit World. More women writing comics in general like in 2009 it genuinely felt like it was just Gail Simone, like the increase isn't dramatic but its there. Also it looks like they tend to do it pretty clumsily (the sexy Dick pinups etc) but actually acknowledging their female fanbase and trying to market to them is significant compared to when I'd go to a con and writers would default to assuming their audience was guys when several women were RIGHT THERE.
Which is why I'm of mixed feelings about them throwing in like, a cute Batfam moment to make the teenage girls on tik tok happy or whatever. There's a gender thing going on with all this I don't know how to articulate exactly, but comics have been making characters go ooc to fanservice guys forever, I do not think it happening to fanservice a teen girl or a more cute-stuff-focused twenty something woman is any more dire. Sometimes the rhetoric can get weirdly close to "stop it with these cute and girly things like talking about feelings, they don't belong in comics, you're all fake fans". Fanon is more focused on liking emotions and the characters hanging out, whereas I think we have to acknowledge there IS a the more male centered version of fanon that influences canon too, and has for a LONG time, like Batman is a god who can defeat everyone and he's always right and he has no emotions and is cool all the time, Wonder Woman and Superman should be together because Man of Steel Woman of Kleenex with him and Lois, etc etc'
Also, I do enjoy cute things, and appreciate cute relationship moments and moments of joy for these characters. and I'm not ashamed on that. It can move into feeling too saccharine or ooc, but a decent amount is fine. Besides it it is too sacharrine I'm real good at compatmentalizing and just saying "welp disregarding that".
When we talk about canon, there's also not a lot of acknowledgement it's incredibly inconsistent and contradictory always has been. For example when people say for instance, "canon Jason (Red Hood)", I'm like "ok which canon Jason though" every single writer seems to have a different take on them, and things are retconned or ignored about him constantly, even pre n52, like the whole Morrison take where he gave him red hair.
(I've been looking at the breadth and. Canon Jason could be talking about anything. I do notice Jason fans like to actually acknowledge what he really was like in his 80s run as Robin, while DC will retcon it to hell and back to fit this idea he was ontologically evil or extremely doomed always, and you know what, I enjoy what Jason was actually like as Robin and I think a version of him whose personality and views do have connections to that is the only valid one to me, actually. Yes, people can change especially teen vs adults who went through some shit, people can get worse, but they don't change into a completely different person who shares no traits with their past self.
And fans are really, really married to Battle for the Cowl and bringing it up non stop to a surprising extent considering it was a very shitty comic, not just for Jason either. I've read snippets and Damian is so OOC but people don't insist on bringing that up constantly. Again, the writer wanted to make Jason irredeemable, he SAID this, and that's like. an extremely uninteresting Jason too. Even more uninteresting than fanon Jason, I will say that, like why is he even here, he could be any villain. I'd be fine retconning honestly. )
It's similar to "canon Bruce"-- like lmao which one though. Bronze Age? the million modern age takes? Because there are constantly different takes on him. There are sooo many times comics were like "ah shit we've made Batman such an asshole he's approaching irredeeemable, let's dial it back he's nicer again" when I was reading comics. OYL was like "a kinder Batman" then comics forgot about that and then when he died and came back it was all "a kinder Batman!" again and was starting to backslide too (and DID once the n52 came around).
DC writers are all essentially fans who grow up and get to apply their fanfiction to real comics too, and editorial has always been very bad at keeping things consistent. When you talk about your fave character, you are picking your fave version and ignoring some severely ooc periods, usually, or you have to do a LOT of work to reconcile those periods (aka...headcanoning). Honestly, reading fanfiction for DC can be a little easier for me to accept differences sometimes, because those kinds of inconsistencies do exist in the main canon, and there is such an abundance of AUs and retconning in canon I can be like "ok AU/timeline where x is a little more like this. that's an interesting take.".
BUT at the same time, I get it. I don't want relationships to be flattened either, and there are a lot of bad fanon takes that just. Miss what makes said character interesting. And the treatment of women overall. In some ways the neglect is somehow worse than canon's. Also DC is very 'how do you do fellow kids' and probably always will be. My preferred era absolutely IS pre-52 and that's where I live. The current universe can't be fully valid to me until Babs is BACK in that wheelchair, y'know? So I'm very split. Like I agree on a broad level, I just think there's more nuance than I'm seeing in these discussions.
I know "all comics are bad now" is intentional hyperbole but, like, from the perspective someone who was in that era, dipped out, then came back yesterday, it's not really the case. Cass is in more stuff than she got to be in when I was a fan and is being treated significantly better in this moment, for one. From Greg Rucka's mouth, comics writers are being treated way better than under Didio. The Absolute Universe is an amazingly cool concept and good intro point for fans and I love how good WW's title is. And for all the shit it gets, I think teen girls (bc that is the probable intended audience of this and I think it needs to be acknowledged) having a less full-of-graphic-stuff option to ease into comics with WFA is a good thing, actually, and would have been a real balm to me at fourteen. I overall still prefer my era, but there are some nice changes I like.
OK so. this was a lot of feelings, hard to articulate. I might get cold feet and delete this later, lol. But I think now that I've got this out of me I can refocus myself on reading/rereading comics I enjoy, remaining mostly detached from the current universe with my expectations very low but enjoying cool things I see since there are some, and just focusing on the positives of playing around with an old fandom without getting sidetracked by tumblr discourse/wank and squabbles as much.
I've totally vowed this before. But I'm going to try extra hard this time!
