Lessons comic writers can learn from Barbara and Karl Kesel

As I have mentioned in many other articles, I was away from comic-books from early 1999 until late 2012.  Having just returned to them, I am busy getting re-immersed in the genre. Being a former +DC Comics fan, I have stuck mostly with DC's New 52 line of comics since returning, although I have dabbled in a few other series, such as Dynamite's Pantha (I have all six issues) and Red Sonja (I've read issues 0-2 so far and have 3-6 sitting waiting on my tablet), along with a few others.

I've bought many comic-books, both digitally and in print, since returning to the hobby just a few months ago (and spent several hundred dollars doing it!), and I've read quite a few both older back-issues (like Peter David's Supergirl series) and newer ones (including ones just released last week).  I've greatly enjoyed my time reading these stories and have, in general, been entertained (except for the awful "H'el on Earth" story arc that DC is inflicting on us poor saps who are stupid enough to like Supergirl).  However, despite having fun reading comics again, I've felt like something is missing even from the very best titles like Batgirl and Supergirl.  It took me a while to figure out just what was missing, although I first noticed it in the New 52 Hawk and Dove trade paperback.  What is sorely needed in many of today's comic-books is down time.

By down time, I refer to time away from the action-packed battles that seem to be the main activity our spandex-wearing favorite characters.  And yes, like most other comic-book fans, I do enjoy a good "super-battle" and I like a liberal sampling of them in most comic-book issues.  However, as with anything else, with super-battles, you can have too much of a good thing.  A comic-book can't be all super-battles, all the time, or it loses something.

This brings me to a very important, but little-remembered, pair of series from the late 1980s and early 1990s:  the Hawk and Dove mini-series, and the subsequent Hawk and Dove full series, co-written by Barbara and Karl Kesel.  Although there were tons of action and battle scenes in Hawk and Dove, those scenes are not what made this series stand out as one of the all-time great products in comics history.  Rather, the down time, the in-between-the-fight scenes, made Hawk and Dove such a wonderful series.  Barbara and Karl Kesel understood this fact implicitly, and so if you go back and read the old Hawk and Dove back-issues, you will find a comic with incredible characters and with something the series of today lack almost across the board: depth.

Hawk and Dove began as a mini-series, which re-started the characters after the original Dove, Don Hall, had been killed in the Crisis on Infinite Earths series.  With Don/Original Dove dead, Hawk had worked entirely solo.  In his secret identity as Hank Hall, has just returned to Washington, D.C., after a stint out of the country.  The problem with Hawk, however, is that he can easily get "out of control." Hawk is chaotic, unpredictable, and often violent when battling criminals.  He enjoys combat, and loves smashing perps in the face.  The D.C. cops aren't big fans, because they see him as a vigilante who uses too much force and causes as much trouble as he solves.

Throughout the first issue, however, we see less of Hawk than we do of Hank Hall. We watch as Hank tries to re-assimilate into his old life, after spending so much time out of the country "superheroing" (which, of course, none of his friends or relatives know about).  We witness a painful encounter between Hank and Don's old girlfriend.  We watch as Hank argues with his parents and struggles to find his way in the "normal" world without his brother, starting college classes, trying to join the football team, and meeting new friends on the Georgetown University campus.  These scenes are not super-battles. They are not exciting or pulse-pounding. But they give us a sense of who Hank Hall is, as a person.  They make him human, real.  They give us a reason to cheer for him when he hears a mugging happening and steps in to intervene.

As the mini-series continues, we meet Dawn Granger, also recently transferred to Georgetown from overseas, a foreign relations major. (Gee, notice that? We actually know what her college major is! Compare that with the New 52 version of Hawk and Dove, where we have no idea if she's even in college, let alone what she's majoring in!) Meanwhile, Hawk is followed around and "helped out" by a woman in a Dove costume, calling herself Dove and claiming to be Don's replacement.  Hawk/Hank is violently opposed to any such claim, believing that the woman is defiling his brother's memory.  "Dove is dead! Dove is Dead!" shouts Hawk.  "No Hank," Dove replies, "Don is dead."

Through the rest of the mini-series, we watch as Hank tries to piece together the puzzle, to figure out who, among his college friends, might be Dove.  There are three candidates -- Donna Cabot, tennis sensation and girlfriend of Hank's wrestling partner Kyle; Renata Takamuri (Ren), waitress at the pub called Suds and new girlfriend to Hank; and Dawn Granger, who is friends with Ren and Donna.  There are clues that each one of them could be Dove.  Hank hilariously tries to ask what he thinks are subtle questions to ferret out the truth, but mostly ends up tripping over his own tongue. (Hank: "Donna, is that your real hair?" Donna: "Hank, is that your real brain?")

Eventually, of course, Hank discovers that Dawn Granger is Dove (I assume you knew that already, or I'd have said "spoiler alert").   But the whole business about Hank trying to figure out who was turning into Dove leads to a critical point: This very important (and often uproariously funny) element of the story could not have happened without previous down time.  The only reason the Kesels were able to give us three possible Dove "candidates" and give Hank good reasons to believe each one was Dove, is because they laid the groundwork from the start of the first issue, with lots of "Hank time" in between bursts of him superheroing as Hawk.  The "Hank time" led to him meeting and starting to romance Ren; to him meeting Kyle and Donna and befriending them; to him meeting Dawn.  They had drinks together. They hung out with each other.  During the course of conversations Hank revealed things about himself that then could have been known by Dove.  None of these interactions could have occurred while he was wearing the Hawk spandex.

When Hawk and Dove became a full-blown series and the Kesels continued as writers, they continued their brilliant formula of using high proportions of "down time" in each issue.  We see Hank and Dawn interact with their parents (watching Dawn try to cope with having a secret identity is often hilarious and frequently charming).  We smile as Ren helps them cover up their secret, and even bite our fingernails when she gets absorbed in some of their wilder cases and puts herself in danger.  We learn, not just about Hank and Dawn's pasts, but about the private lives and secrets of Kyle and Donna too.

Again, there are plenty of super-fights.  Kyle's past includes a wayward aunt who was once a hippie and has a record from having set bombs.  The aunt is being hunted by Shell-shock, who is a super-villain, so of course, Hawk and Dove end up battling her.  But the point here is that this is not a pure-action battle of hero against villain for the sole purpose of having a battle, the way so many comic-books seem to be written today.  Rather, there is a deeper story here involving the personal lives of Hank and Dawn and their friends.  This gives meaning to the fight. It's not just about action here. Rather, you're moved to pity or sympathy, to regret or anger, by the character interactions from which the fight is derived.

This, then, is the lesson that comic-book writers can learn from Barbara and Karl Kesel: the use of down time to add depth to characters, and soul to the story arcs of their comic-books.  Mindlessly flinging the heroes from one story arc to another, without giving them a chance to recover, breathe, and have any semblance of a "normal life" doesn't make the comic more "exciting" -- rather, it takes away the characters' humanity.  And it's their humanity, not their powers, that make us cheer these characters on. Barbara and Karl's Hawk and Dove, above all else, seemed like real, live human beings.  And so I cheered for them, and loved them, and was very upset when the series ended and I could read no more about them.

By comparison, too many of today's superhero characters are spandex cut-outs.  The New 52 Hawk and Dove are just empty suits -- heroes with no real humanity behind them.  But it's not just these characters.  Superman is the same way (at least since George Perez stopped writing it).  Even Batgirl, as much as I like the series, has had too little down time in the last 6 or 8 issues.  And in 18 issues, Supergirl has had absolutely no down time at all. She's been on earth for 18 months (of our time, not her time, of course), and she still doesn't really know anyone, or have a single real friend (not even Superman). Indeed, in 18 issues of Supergirl, a monthly, regular, main-line coimc series, there is no supporting cast.  Not one regularly-appearing supporting character exists in that series, a year and a half in -- not even Streaky the cat!

Astonishingly, this lack of down time and of a strong supporting cast is not an over-sight, but seems to be deliberate on the parts of today's writers.  How else can you explain solicitations for upcoming comics that say things like "There's no rest for Supergirl after (fill in the name of the story arc that just finished) because she now (fill in what happens to start the next story arc)."  The problem here is that "There's no rest" for a character means there's no down time -- and thus, there's little, or no, interaction with the supporting cast (if the writers have even bothered to include one, which they often don't).

The writers and editors (and the advertisement specialists) seem to think that having all action and no down time is a good thing. They use it to sell titles (or so they think).  But it's not a good thing. Having no supporting cast and no down time hasn't made Supergirl a more exiting series; rather, it has robbed Kara of the most important thing any comic-book character can have -- her humanity.  (Don't bother posting some snarky comment about how Kara isn't human because she's from Krypton -- I'm using humanity in the sense of person-hood, not biology.)  And without that humanity, the character just becomes a bag of powers that fights other individuals with powers month after month.  And again, it's not just Supergirl that has this issue. Lots of other titles do as well.

There are a few rays of light in the darkness, however.  Somehow, Brian Azzarello has managed, for 18 issues of Wonder Woman, to keep that series out of the DC mainstream, and has managed to avoid getting it sucked into series-spanning crossovers.  Wonder Woman has a large, interesting supporting cast and she has  plenty of down time in each issue.  There are still fights. There is still action. But the characters in it are still human (although, yes, they are also gods, frequently enough -- again, I use human in the sense of the characters seeming to be real people rather than cardboard cutouts).  And although the main stories in Justice League are mostly action-action-action, the Shazam side story has had tons of heart and soul.  These stories with large supporting casts and sufficient hero down time are the exception these days, however, and that's sad -- they used to be the rule.

And that's why, although I am enjoying reading today's comics, I don't like them as much as I still like the old stories form decades past.  Because back then, writers like Barbara and Karl Kesel knew how important a supporting cast of characters, and down time for the superheroes, was in building up the humanity of the characters. That humanity made us care about the heroes so that when the action-jaction battle did come, we had someone to cheer.  If I were in charge at DC, my first order of business would be to hand Barbara and Karl's Hawk and Dove series to every writer and editor on staff and make them read it, to learn how important down time is.  Because when it comes to making characters human, no one did it better than Barbara and Karl.

The bittersweet feeling of completing a collection

Collecting comic-books is a long, slow hobby, not for the impatient.  Unless you begin reading a series on issue #1, and continue to collect it month after month, it is often quite a challenge to own a complete collection of any series.  Even if you begin on #1 and work your way up, the longer a series lasts, the harder it is to own every issue.  Sometimes an issue will sell out before you get to the store on "new comic-book night."  Or sometimes you will be on vacation the week the new issue comes out.  Some of this can be remedied by subscriptions (either through the company, or through your local comic-book shop), but even these cannot proceed forever without error - items can be lost in the mail, and stores can make mistakes.  Thus, as time goes by and the series lasts longer and longer, it becomes all but certain that there will eventually be a few gaps in your "run" of comics.

And that is only true for series you began reading on #1.  If you begin, instead, somewhere in the middle of a production run, say on issue #35, then it is even more difficult to acquire the entire run.  If you desire to do so, you must haunt local comic shops, conventions, and online retailers, seeking with endless patience those issues that will complete your collection.  Fortunately, as you build your way back into the earlier issues, slowly crossing them off your "wish list," you will find that most good comic-book shops will have commonly available copies of old issues for you.

But sooner or later there will come a point where you have every issue available from your retailer, and every one you can find easily at the conventions or online.  And there will still be a few issues missing.  These are the dreaded "rare" issues.  Finding them will be difficult, and buying them expensive, because comic-books increase their value based on a combination of rarity and demand.

And so, every collector of a long-running series will hit a "wall" where he or she has all but a few issues, and those issues seem to be actively resisting entry into the collection.  When I bought The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl in the early 1980s, for instance, I began around mid-series (#10 or so, I believe), and had to work my way backward through the back-issues. In those days all we had was one local comic-book shop, and I was lucky that they had most of the issues I sought.  But two issues before #10, and two issues in the 20s that I missed for some reason (I no longer remember why) were impossible for me to find back then.  Over the years, I tried various vendors and retailers, but I could never get my hands on those last issues.  Finally, last month, Mile High Comics had two of them. And this month, I found the last two (#7 and #22) at MyComicShop.com. Today, I received these two issues, and finally, after 30 years, my collection of this series is complete.

Similarly, after my original copies of Hawk and Dove from the late 1980s were destroyed in a flood, I worked long and hard in the 1990s to re-acquire them.  After much work, I once again owned the entire 5-issue mini-series by the Kesels, and all but two issues, #2 and #8, of the full 28-issue series.  Once again, like the last few issues of Supergirl, these two issues of Hawk and Dove were remarkably difficult to find.  I was unable to do so in the 1990s.  Once again, MyComicShop.com came through, and I received both of those issues in the same shipment.

Thus, today, after decades of waiting and searching, I have managed to complete two old collections of my favorite comic-book series. I have been waiting a long time to do this, and on the one hand, I was quite thrilled to open the box and finally receive these issues for which I had been searching so long.

On the other hand, there is a sadness to acquiring these issues.  They are the last two installments of long-canceled series that I had loved very much as a younger man.  Until I got them, there were always issues of The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl that I hadn't read yet.  That version of Supergirl is long since dead (killed in 1985 by the editors of DC), and there are no more comics ever coming out about her again.  But until today, there were still two stories about her that I had never read, and could still look forward to reading for the very first time.  In a sense, when you are still looking for more issues of a canceled title, it's almost as if the title, for you, is still going on.  There are still more stories you can read.  When you get that last issue, that's it -- there are no more stories by these creators, about these characters, left to read.

And so, it is a rather bitter-sweet moment today.  It's nice to complete these old collections and finally fill in the last gaps. But it's sad that I will have no more Hawk and Dove or Daring New Adventures of Supergirl issues to buy any longer.

New 52 Hawk and Dove - a case study of what’s wrong with comics

One of my all-time favorite comic-book series was +DC Comics Hawk and Dove, written by Barbara and Karl Kesel, which ran from 1989-1991.  Shortly after the final issue of that series (#28), +DC Comics had Hawk become the villain "Monarch" in their Armageddon 2001 crossover, and one of the first things Hawk did was kill Dove.  This removed Hawk and Dove, as heroes, from the DC Universe for a long while.

Therefore, when I returned to comics, I was at first thrilled to discover that, as part of The New 52, +DC Comics had produced a brand new Hawk and Dove series.  I knew the characters had been brought back to life and returned to the DC Universe some time earlier (they apparently had prominent roles during the Brightest Day and Blackest Night series, although I was not reading comics when those were published), but I didn't know any details.  I wasn't sure what level of "reboot" had occurred with these characters, but since the early-90s Hawk and Dove is one of my favorite series of all time, and Hawk and Dove are two of my all-time favorite heroes, putting this series on my "must read" list was pretty much a slam dunk.

Unfortunately, a quick check of ComiXology and the +DC Comics website showed me right away that this series had ended abruptly, after only eight issues.  I was highly disappointed, as I had fully expected to place the New 52 Hawk and Dove on my monthly pull list (it should have been a no-brainer).  I was also rather surprised that the series was canceled so quickly, in light of the fact that fan-favorite Rob Liefeld, who had been involved in the original mini-series back in 1988 that had both launched his career and launched the post-Crisis Hawk and Dove team, had done the art and some of the stories in this short-lived New 52 version.  Liefeld knew these characters from their heyday; he had worked closely with the Kesels to revamp Hawk and Dove in the 1980s; and he was extremely popular with the fans. So why didn't the book "take?"

I decided to find out how the series was for myself.  It may have ended quickly, but here were still eight new issues of my favorite superhero pair, drawn and co-written by a guy who knows them well.  +DC Comics had recently put out a trade paperback collecting the entire 8-issue series in one bound volume, called "Volume 1: First Strikes" (I'm not sure why they called it "volume 1" since there can't be any more volumes, with the series being canceled).  So, during one of my first visits to the comic-book shop since getting back into comic-book collecting, I picked up the Hawk and Dove trade paperback.

Buying the trade paperback, rather than collecting the issues over an 8-month period as one would during their initial publication has some advantages and disadvantages.  The serialization is somewhat lost on the reader, as the individual stories from issue to issue can often "blend" together.  On the other hand, reading them all at once can give a larger perspective of the entire series, providing one with an "overview."

I read the Hawk and Dove trade paperback over the course of a single Saturday, but not all in one sitting.  Starting around mid-morning (after getting home from the shop), I read one or two issues at a time, and then took breaks to do house work, or continue reading a mystery novel I'd been working my way through.  At the beginning of the trade paperback, I was simply in heaven -- reading about Hawk and Dove again after all these years with only old, well-worn back-issues, was a delight.  However, it quickly became apparent that something was not right with this series, and by the time I reached the last story (the one from issue #8), I found myself no longer being surprised that the new Hawk and Dove had been so quickly canceled.

After putting the book aside, I will admit all I had was an intuitive feeling that something simply was "not right" about the stories inside.  The art had been decent (though nothing spectacular -- I've never been a huge fan of the way Liefeld draws faces, because the noses look too "pinched" on almost everyone).  The villains had been interesting.  There hadn't been anything technically wrong with the plots of the individual issues.  But yet, something had seemed "off" about the series.

The next day, I flipped back through the volume. I did not re-read the dialogue, and I didn't look at every single page. I just flipped through, skimming it, and looking for a pattern or something that might help me figure out what was wrong with this series. And then it hit me: Hawk and Dove spend almost all their time being kick-butt action-jaction superheroes, and hardly any of their time in their Hank Hall and Dawn Granger secret identities.

I'm not sure how many comic-book fans appreciate the importance of "secret identity time" for the heroes, but it is critical.  For example, without secret identities, there is effectively no supporting cast for the series. The few normal, non-super people who do show up, are present only for an issue or two and then disappear.  We see Hank's dad, but no mention is made of his mom or Dawn's parents, and Hank's father (Judge Hall) appears only in a few panels.  We get a few panels worth of Hank's ex-girlfriend Ren, but only in one issue, after which she vanishes from the series.  We see Watanabe, the cop, who shows up to arrest villains a few times in the first couple of issues, but then he, too, disappears, never to be heard from again.  Instead, for page after page, panel after panel, it's all action, action, action.

Without a supporting cast, even when Hank and Dawn do appear in their secret IDs, we get very little sense of them as human beings. The few Hank/Dawn scenes occur only between Hank and Dawn (on a rooftop, or in a back alley), and in these scenes, almost all they talk about is superheroing.  In short, after reading eight full issues of the New 52 Hawk and Dove, I have no idea what kind of lives they lead in their secret identities.

Now, at this point you might be thinking to yourself, "Well, duh, Steve -- it's a comic book. The more action the better!" And perhaps many fans feel that way.  But the fact remains that this series was canceled after only eight issues, and in spite of a popular artist headlining the creative team.  The action was certainly fast-paced and hard-hitting, so if action is all one needs, why wouldn't this book have sold?  No, I think the inescapable fact is that any superhero story needs to be grounded in the real world -- and it's the secret identities and the "normal humans" in the supporting cast that provide this grounding.

I've been an almost life-long fan of the previous version of Hawk and Dove, as written by Barbara and Karl Kesel for 33 issues (a 5-issue mini-series and then a 28-issue regular series).  One of the great strengths of that series was its humanity.  The Kesels penned many scenes in their version of Hawk and Dove that focused on the supporting cast, and on Hank and Dawn's personal lives.  And before you say, "Sure but they had a lot more issues in which to do that," think again.  Most of the important and fundamental interpersonal relationships between the main characters and their supporting cast were developed during the 5-issue mini-series.  In those five issues, the Kesels conveyed more about Hank and Dawn's personal lives than in 8 issues of the New 52 series.  And there were many revealing scenes between Hank and Dawn and their supporting cast - Donna, Kyle, Ren, Sal, and both of Hank's parents, among others.  These quiet, often touching or downright hilarious, scenes are among the best moments in the series, and they are what I remember most about it -- rather than the super-fights.  It is in these human, normal scenes that character is truly revealed by the Kesels, and these scenes are entirely lacking in the New 52 Hawk and Dove.

And that is why I felt something was "missing" from the new series.  I would suspect any fan of the Kesels' version of these characters would feel the same way.  We may love Hawk and Dove, the superheroes, and enjoy reading about their super-human exploits, but we also love Hank and Dawn, and all their friends. And without that element to the series, everything else falls apart.  I believe that this is why the new Hawk and Dove was canceled so quickly -- the writers didn't hook the audience by making them care about the characters.  You need to show the human side of heroes to do that.

Furthermore, lack of "personal time" is not a unique problem in Hawk and Dove.  Many of today's comics seem to be all-action, all the time.  I love Supergirl, and her series is one of the better-written ones, but in 16 issues, she has only gotten out of her costume twice, and then, only briefly.  Supergirl has very few "normal" moments. She's been non-stop superheroing since she arrived on earth. And although that does make for some gripping action, it prevents us from getting to know Kara as a human being.  Similarly, Justice League is almost all action, all the time.  The human element one gets from having a cast of supporting, normal characters interacting in more normal ways with the heroes is missing from these titles (and many others).

And that's why, since getting back into comic-books, I have felt that some of these new series are good but still "missing something."  What they're missing is the characters' human side -- the side that gives us something to root for.

The curse of being liked by me

I started collecting comic-books as a kid.  There are several approaches to collecting. For example, some people collect everything having to do with a particular character (such as trying to buy every appearance of Batman).  Others try to follow creators, such as collecting everything written by Walt Simonson or everything drawn by George Perez.  Others will try to collect particular series, such as trying to get every issue of the Avengers or Teen Titans.

I didn't really follow any of those patterns. I liked certain characters a great deal (Supergirl, Batman, Captain America), but what I tended to do was decide it was time to add a title to my collection list, and then cast about among different comic-books for a few months until I settled on one that I really liked -- one with good characters, decent writing, and attractive art.  If it was good enough, and the team had been working on it long enough, then I would try to get back-issues and build up my collection both going forward, and backward.

Unfortunately, over the years it seemed like, as soon as I became truly interested in a title, especially as soon as I became a devotee, the company would either cancel it, or else would change the staff or the series in such a way that the title was no longer enjoyable.  There is a long list of such occurrences, but let me recite a few examples, and then I will mention the most recent one, which happened just in the last few weeks.

X-Men (1983)

In the early 1980s, my friend +Stuart Johnson was a huge fan of X-men, and he finally convinced me to try it.  X-men was in the 160s or so at the time, but I started with some re-prints he had of the first five or six issues (by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby), and then some other issues in the 50s to 60s, followed by reading "Giant Size X-Men #1", in which the team was completely changed to a new roster, and finally reading his individual issues from the early 100s to the current ones.  Since Stu had many issues, this meant reading probably well over 75 comics, over a course of many months, as he loaned me a few at a time.  By the time I had reached the 160s, which had a story-arc about the X-Men battling some space aliens, I had decided I loved the comic and wanted to start collecting it.  The artist at that time was excellent (Paul Smith). And my favorite X-Man had become Storm, for her elegance, grace, nobility, and purity of heart.  She was a true hero.

And so, I got to the end of Stuart's collection, and went to the comic shop to buy the current issue.  And within 4 months, X-Men changed the art team (replacing Smith with John Romita Jr., who's sloppy-looking style was not one I appreciated), and had dramatically changed Storm into a bloodthirsty Wolverine-type character.  Literally as I started collecting X-Men, two of the main reasons I had for collecting the series (based on dozens of back-issues) were destroyed.  This is a perfect example of the historical pattern, that when I decide I really love a series, the company finds a way to ruin what I loved about it.

Thor (1987)

That same friend, +Stuart Johnson, a few years later insisted that I try reading his Thor back-issues.  That series was being written and drawn by Walt Simonson, a creator about whom I knew very little at the time. For months, I stupidly resisted, because I had never really liked Thor as a character.  But Stuart is persistent, and eventually, I agreed to read a couple of issues. He gave me Thor #338, the second issue Simonson had done in what became a 45-issue streak, and I enjoyed it.  He then loaned me a few Thor issues each week as I slowly got caught up. By the 340s, I was hooked, and by the 350s, I had made up my mind that, once I finished with all the back-issues, I was going to start collecting Thor myself.  Well, reading Thor a few issues per week for such a long run takes a while, so a few months went by.  Then, finally, I got to the most recent one, Thor #382. It was excellent, as usual.  I was all set to start collecting the series starting the next month. Except... Thor #382 was Simonson's final issue.  The next issue, the first new one I bought, featured an entirely new creative team, a new direction for the title, and an erasure of all the reasons I'd had for wanting to collect it in the first place.  Once again, just when I decided I loved a series, the publisher changed it in a way that made me not want to read it. (The story does have a bit of a happy ending, since I eventually managed to acquire all 45 back-issues, and they are currently stored in Mylar bags in my apartment... that run has been the pride of my collection for many years.)

Hawk and Dove (1990-1991)

I'd never heard of Hawk and Dove until I read a friend's back-issues of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, in which the original Dove, Don Hall, is killed.  Even so, I wasn't all that interested in the characters.  They had their own series, and I paid very little attention to it, until a friend of mine started telling me how good the series was.  Finally, when the Hawk and Dove series was on #22, decided to try it.  I also was able to grab #21 and #20, since they were still on the news stand.  It took only the very first issue (20) for me to be hooked. The writing was fantastic, the characterization was great, the main stars had interesting powers, and the art, if not mind blowing, was solid.  Over the next 6 months, I spent money and time tracking down the rest of the series, as well as the entire 5-issue mini-series that had pre-dated it (and re-launched the duo).  It took me until issue #27 was on the stands to complete my Hawk and Dove collection.  And what happened next? They ended the series on issue #28, and then, during the "Armageddon 2001" summer crossover that year, they killed off Dove and made Hawk a villain.  Once again, no sooner do I get "on board" with a series and become a devotee than they destroy it.

Batgirl -- almost (2012)

Fast-forward to today.  Just last month, in December, I decided to get back into comic-books for the first time in 13 years (for why, see this article and this one).  Once again, because I tend to have similar tastes to his, I relied upon my good friend, +Stuart Johnson, for which titles are worth collecting.  Among his recommendations was one that surprised me: Batgirl.  Stuart's never been much of a "bat-fan" -- I don't think he's ever spent much money collecting Batman, Detective Comics, Catwoman, or any of the other Bat-related series. Since I had always been more of a bat-fan than he was, I figured Batgirl was a reasonable series to collect, along with my old stand-by series of Batman and Detective Comics.  It took only one issue for me to see that neither of the titles about Batman interested me, but Batgirl was a different story. It was very well written by author Gail Simone (one of the few women working in comics today).  Her characterization of Batgirl was outstanding. The writing was witty and clever.  The plot was easy to follow but complex and interesting.  Within a few weeks, I had read the first 6 issues (I ended up buying a hardcover book of the first 6-issue story arc, I liked it so much), and firmly placed Batgirl written by Gail Simone at the top of my list, as probably the best-written comic title on the market today (at least, of the ones I have read).

So what do you think happened?  Apparently, on December 11, pretty much on the day I started reading (and loving) Simone's Batgirl, the morons running the show at DC Comics fired her from the book. According to Comics Alliance, Simone tweeted her departure from the title on that day.  Now, given my immediate love for this series and this author, the firing of Simone should come as no surprise.  Steve likes the series, therefore DC will do everything in their power to either ruin it, or will cancel it.  It's practically a Law of Nature at this point.  But apparently, some new supernatural forces are at work (maybe the whole Digital comics thing has changed the nature of reality?), because that same article states that within 2 weeks, Simone made another tweet that she had been re-hired to continue on Batgirl. And maybe the Digital age has interfered with the erstwhile rules of nature. In the past, by the time we found out Simone was off the title (when the first issue without her was put on the stands), it would have been too late to do anything about it (months go by between the time a comic is written and when it is published).  But in today's digital age, people found out the day it happened, and were able to bombard DC with enough backlash about this to force the editors to reconsider.

The backlash, by the way, was well earned by DC. Simone is easily the best current writer of comic-books that I have seen. She's doing an outstanding job of writing Batgirl.  And she is one of the few women actually doing the writing on a comic starring a female character (something we need more of in comics, not less).  What kind of editorial stupidity would it take to fire her in the first place? I suppose that question will remain forever unanswered.

Collector Beware

The upshot of all this is to just warn folks. If you love a particular comic-book series, you should be very careful about suggesting to me that I might like it, or worse convincing me to collect it. Fair warning here: My devotion to a series is like a death sentence either for the character, the creative team, or the series itself. Indeed, you're probably better off telling me your favorite series sucks.. Or waiting until the run you are enjoying is over and then telling me to pick up the back-issues, so I can't destroy it by loving it.  Because one of the things that you can almost always count on, is that Steve liking a series is pretty much the end of whatever was good about that series in the first place.