New Brevoort Formspring

Hi Tom

I think you are misinterpretating me regarding the comments about the Batman killing the Joker. I agree with you that killing the Joker violates Batman’s moral code but I don’t think I have a problem because that relationship to me is now stale. To me it’s just the difference between Marvel and DC, Marvel characters can change and evolve, DC’s characters unfortunately stagnate because they aren’t allowed move forward.

What I both love and hate about Marvel comics is that my list of favourites has changed over the years. When I started reading Avengers, the Scarlet Witch was one of my favourite comic book characters, easily my favourite Avenger. Then you did M-Day and Children’s Crusade and you had her deliberately go to a super villain to supercharge her powers to raise her children from the dead and she got what she wanted but the consequence was that she put other mothers through the same loss she suffered and now she is just back living in a mansion in Manhattan with a private butler and it just seems amoral to me. To a lesser degree I have felt this way about Beast, the Illuminati in particular Tony Stark over the past decade.

On the flipside though the characters that I was indifferent to when I was younger or just outright hated have changed during the same period. Notably the Scarlet Witch’s siblings, Polaris is a character that I barely noticed but writers over the past decade have made her fascinating to me and her struggle with survivors guilt and depression has actually moved me. Likewise I found Quicksilver’s storyline’s over the past decade really tragic and moving. Polaris and Quicksilver’s storylines seem to be antithesis of Wanda’s storylines as the reader can also feel like their pain and guilt over their actions in an almost visceral way.

But it’s not just Magneto’s kids, It was inspiring seeing Carol Danvers become Captain Marvel after everything she has been through. I hated Cyclops as a kid but his evolution from Fraction onwards has been really incredible. Who saw that coming? The same goes for Magik, Emma Frost, Namor, Hawkeye, pretty much anyone written by Kieron Gillen, and a score of others, great stories, great evolutions.

The point I am making is that just because we’re talking about comics doesn’t mean the characters need to stay still. Marvel characters don’t and that’s why I prefer them to DC. I have to say I have your responses about Batman and Joker a little suprising because I don’t think you think this either.