Musing with the Pros: Brad Meltzer's JLA

Here's something I read all the time on various comic book forums:

"It'll read better in trade."

Read a little bit of an interview with Brad Meltzer from Newsarama and see if you can see where I'm going with this. It's pretty transparent.

BM: I think it was a crucible, but I think more, it was an examination of identity. If you look at every character, including the villains in “The Tornado’s Path,” everyone is struggling with identity. From Red Tornado who wants to be the real boy, obviously, to Hal trying to get used to being the older hero on the team, from Vixen trying to figure out how her powers work, from the big three trying to figure out that they’re not he center of the universe that they actually think they are; from all of those down to the villains, whether it’s Grundy or Ivo – everyone is trying to figure out who they are. That was always meant to be the allegory for the League that we were building.

The biggest identity that we were building in those first six issues was the identity of the League itself. I know that there were some people who wanted us to hit fast-forward and just pick things up where we left off, but if you look at the last two years of the League, it was destroyed and left in pieces. I think to just jump in and say, “We’re back!” would be something that wouldn’t take any of the former history seriously. We had to earn coming back. You don’t destroy a whole fire department on Friday, and then expect everyone to come in on Monday and assume everything’s good again. You really have to have the characters look at this and say, “Do we really want to be here?” “Do we really need to be here?” “Should we be here?” and “How are we going to be here in any way that makes sense, given our past history?”

The Tornado’s Path isn’t just a Red Tornado story, and those who read it as such may have missed what we were doing. I really do believe that it was a story about the identity of all of our players.

NRAMA: So what we’re gong to see in issue #7 is this somewhat disparate group pulled together and…given a purpose? A place?

BM: What people will see in issue #7 isn’t just the payoff, but the true end to the story. The end of the story is not “Well, Red Tornado is a robot again,” the end of the story is where does what has happened leave the big three? Where does it leave all their choices? Where does it leave everyone else who was standing there with Amazo in a million pieces in front of them? Where does it leave all of these characters emotionally?

To me, issue #7 is the most vital part of the story, not just because they get a new headquarters.

Now, disregarding whether or not I liked Meltzer's JLA (for the record I loved #6, thought 1-5 were passable), I'm curious as to why DC chose to release The Tornado's Path as a monthly comic book.

Crazy!

I know the industry is monthly. It's serialized. But I don't think that format works for every story. I think The Tornado's Path might be one of those stories.

There are times when I can dig the serialized nature of comic books. Once a month I get to look forward to reading a well constructed story line. However, I think I'd be happier if I got a full story as opposed to reading bits and pieces of it once a month. Think about it.

Using The Tornado's Path as an example, over a period of 7 months, the readers got 22 pages a month of a 154 page story. Comics have been moving further and further away from telling one issue stories, and moving towards writing for the trade paperback.

There's nothing inherently wrong with longer stories, I just question the wisdom in releasing them in trickles.

Musing: Writing for the Trade

So a a fairly interesting read discussing Brad Meltzer's recently finished JLA arc tipped me off to this topic.

Read that article before reading this.

Or don't. Ya know, you don't have to. I just think you should.

But why take my advice?

Oh, that's what this whole blog is about? What a novel idea!

So you read it? Good! Read on!


Let me share with you my thoughts on Melter's JLA arc. I wasn't a big fan of 1-5. I thought there were some cool ideas, but, I wasn't taken with it enough. Wait though, it's a six issue story arc! What about issue 6?

I thought #6 was really good. There were a few moments I didn't love, but I really dug this issue.

You're following this: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 not really worth it to me. 6 very much worth it.

I'm not sure this is entirely Meltzer's fault. I mean, obviously, he was responsible for the writing, and if he couldn't fill the story with enough awesome for six issues than maybe he shouldn't tell it, but! their seems to be a lot of pressure to write for the trade in the industry.

I think multi issue story arcs are a good thing. I think the more story you can tell, the better. However, I don't like the mandate to tell six part stories. I understand it, trades sell in book stores, and book stores probably bring in some decent coin, but that doesn't mean I like it. I think it stifles creativity. Not every story can be told well in a standardized amount of pages. Not to mention the cliff hanger that needs to be written in at the end of every issue to keep the reader interested for a month.

I'm not sure what to do about the situation. It's a format that works pretty well. But, I don't think it works as well as it could from a creative stand point.