Overt Invasion of Terrible Criticism

Readers of this site might remember earlier this week I posted an article about my exasperation with the contentless snark that’s become the de facto mood and tone across the Internet comics community. I don’t think many people read it, I sighed, and I got back to work.

Then Secret Invasion #1 came out, and the shit hit the fan.

In the two days since that comic hit, I have seen some of the most pointless, masturbatory “reviews” of comics I’ve ever seen on the Internet. Reviews that proudly, defiantly, provide no information or content or point of view to the reader, reviews that refuse to judge the book by any reasonable metric, reviews that aren’t reviews at all but just shittily strung together jokes hitting the easiest possible targets - or, even worse, one long, extended, unfunny, drawn-out joke that doesn’t even address the comic.

Let’s start off with Kevin Church’s “review” over at CBR, which appears to be doing its level best to replicate the critical stylings of late-’90s era Pitchfork Media - that is to say, none at all. His review consists of a faux-Bendislike conversation (a criticism and joke that can be called tired at best) between two people, one of whom, I assume, is an “average person” who got the comic. Church’s complaints seem to be A) the average person will read it too quickly to feel it’s worth $4 and B) that people who picked it up based on the Entertainment Weekly preview will be disappointed the story doesn’t end in one issue - neither of which are actually valid criticisms of Secret Invasion itself. Church then proceeds to completely ignore discussing the plot or pacing, focusing on the same Bendis dialogue joke that has all the subtlety of a Kuribo’s Shoe. I honestly can’t find anything about this review that’s even remotely informative, or even anything that remotely depends on the actual contents of the issue. Any single comic could have come out, written by Bendis, with some superheroes, and this “review” would more or less apply. That is a bad review.

Oh, hey, someone just sent me a link to this quote from Church on Twitter:

APPARENTLY, somebody thinks my review of SECRET INVASION #1 was not good comics journalism. Uh. yeah, because SI #1 deserves that.

You know what? It’s not your place to judge what does and doesn’t ‘deserve’ good journalism, because that’s bringing a dumb and unfair bias to the review as soon as you do so. Why would anybody want to read a review of a book by someone who feels the book doesn’t deserve to be reviewed? Who are you writing for? Why not just make fun of it, stop calling it a review and be done with it?

Second up is snarkmaster Abhay Khosla over at Savage Critics. Khosla liked the book, and makes no bones about that fact, nor that he was looking forward to it. However, he goes through Herculean pains to make it clear that, no, he has not gone superhero-comic native and readers should have no worries that he might, I don’t know, start discussing superhero comics without immediate dismissal or anything. Actual quote:

I liked it! It’s the Marvel Universe versus Islam. What’s not to like about that? And the Marvel Universe doesn’t have to go to heaven to know where to find 72 virgins! This is one crossover I’m not going to say “I divorce you” to three times! (I know, I know: it’s more complicated than that…).

So, this issue is all about the New Avengers squaring off with the Badly Written Avengers, when WHAM, the little green not-reflective-of-true-Islam boo-boo-makers, or whatever the politically acceptable term is these days– they do their whole 9/11 thing. That one scene, of everything all ape-shit? Let’s just do that for the next, like, 5 or 6 years.

What does this even mean? Other than a bunch of shit stated as truisms and a horrible joke about comic fans not getting laid. The rest of his review goes on to talk about anal fisting with Rubik’s cubes and suggests that it would be funny to see a bunch of stereotypical black people a la Def Comedy Jam watch it and go “OH NO THAT’S A SKRULL!”. This is not criticism. This isn’t a review, it’s a bunch of jokes about the comic strung together by manic defensiveness for enjoying it. The review reads less like a recommendation and more like an apology that he wasn’t cool enough to hate it. He sure did type “fuck” and make dirty jokes a lot, though, which is apparently gold bullion in the currency of Internet criticism.

Next up is Brian Cronin of Comics Should Be Good, whose review of “Big Crossover #1″ attempts to genericize as many proper names as possible in an attempt to get across how assembly-line and corporate the creation of large companywide crossover events is. You see, every Big Crossover is basically the same, so judging Secret Invasion as an individual story is apparently… a concept without merit? I don’t know, the review ends with this:

So this was a decent Big Crossover issue, but not as good as the first issue of either Millar’s Big Crossover OR Pak’s Big Crossover (although I doubt Bendis will let the quality drop as low as Pak’s, or even Millar’s, later issues), so I’m optimistic that this will be a pretty enjoyable Big Crossover, just not one that is about much of anything beyond being, well, a Big Crossover.

Not Recommended.

There are a few parts of this that just kill me. First of all, he’s optimistic that it’ll be pretty enjoyable, but a purchase is not recommended. Secondly, the review barely mentions the actual events of the book except for this:

The Second Big Shock, though, was kinda silly, as Big Crossover is ABOUT shapeshifting aliens (or as Chris Claremont would have a character call them “shapestealers!”) invading Earth, right? So how can it be any much of a shock to have Characters X, Y and Z turn out to be Skrulls?

That’s the WHOLE POINT OF THE STORY!

What? What metric is this being judged by? “Comic book promising shock shapeshifter reveals has shocking shapeshifter reveals; no other shocks, therefore not shocking enough”? The book promised what it was going to deliver, and it delivered on that. You can criticize the execution, the pacing, the dialogue or even the basic idea, but this is like being disappointed by the fact that Juno didn’t give birth to a facehugger. Cronin established expectations external to those promised, and then criticized the book for not meeting them. That’s not a fair review, not a fair criticism, and not useful to anybody. It’s like slamming the new Ghostface album due to a lack of Rod Stewart.

On top of that, the entire approach of calling the book “Big Crossover” in an underhanded trick to diminish the appearance of artistry is just dumb. Of course it’s easy to criticize something when you mock it like that, but I don’t recall Roger Ebert reviewing Speed as “Big Summer Movie,” first of all because it’d make him look like a dismissive tool and second of all because it’s a bad joke. “Big Crossover” sounds like the comics break-in of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.

Finally, we get to - and the CBR focus here is, I swear, not on purpose! - The Buy Pile’s Hannibal Tabu. Tabu, who’s known for “reviews” like these:

While we’re asking questions, why does issue eight of “Infinity, Inc.” say it’s their “first mission?” You’re starting missions in issue eight? Let’s “WTH” Award that just for the cover.

Re: “Crime Bible: The Five Lessons of Blood” #5 — this was so much better when this ending was in “Agents of Atlas.”

This week’s “WTH?” Award goes to “Wildstorm Revelations” #2 — seriously, WTH?

Also in the running, the ending from “Batman” #672, as Bruce gets a steady girlfriend, base jumps and has an impostor. Yeah, there’s that … but no.

Those are his full comments on the books. Granted, he does have some longer pieces (up to a paragraph), but these are his sole comments on certain books. Why write this? Let’s say I’m curious about Wildstorm Revelations #2. I like to check out The Buy Pile on Thursday morning to see what my boy Hannibal Tabu thought of Wildstorm Revelations #2, because I’m considering grabbing it. And what am I told? “WTH.” That does not tell me jack shit. It does not tell anyone jack shit. It is a review that, to understand, you must first read the comic, which pretty effectively stops it from being an actual review and more of a snide comment. Or what about Batman? Girlfriend and base jumping, but he just says “but no.” Well, that clears everything up.

It’s become devastatingly clear to me over the course of this article that these aren’t even really meant to be traditional reviews, formulated to inform people as to the quality of the book and how successfully that book achieves its goals. Instead, they’re just joke dumps for snide remarks thought of while reading the comic. It’s frustrating, then, to see these passed off as intelligent criticism. It’s equally frustrating to know some people might believe them. I mean no personal insult to Messrs. Church, Tabu, Cronin and Khosla but - if you have no respect for the material you’re reviewing before you even open the cover, if you feel compelled to repeatedly defend any enjoyment you may have of it, if the very concept of the product is so bothersome to you - why write about it? It’s one thing to judge Secret Invasion on its merits and find it lacking as a story, but none of the reviews above have done that. Church even goes so far as to state it’s not worth the effort. Then why is it worth the effort of people to read what you’ve written? If you’re going to insult the readers considering picking the book up, why write? If you’re going to take a reviewing position on a much-visited website, why approach mainstream superhero-comic tastes with such total derision?

The problem with all of this is, for the most part, that this is the way the tide is turning. This is a mentality that’s long been present in the blogs and is now moving into actual “comics journalism.” Hell, look at The Comics Journal - Dirk Deppey’s Journalista, ostensibly a linkblog, somehow manages to link to two negative reviews of Secret Invasion #1 with no opposing viewpoint. This isn’t because this is the consensus; this is because Deppey is not-so-subtly infusing his editorial viewpoint. I’m curious if Deppey even read the issue, or if he is, like others, immediately writing off any artistic merit that might be within for the purpose of maintaining a facade of indie cred cool. It’s childish. Someone can love Kevin Huizenga, Adrian Tomine, Grant Morrison, Brian Michael Bendis and Geoff Johns at the same time, all for different reasons. It doesn’t make any work more or less worthy of discussion, or respect, than another. In any other medium, where a major genre wasn’t ridiculously ghettoized, none of this criticism could be printed. Even Pitchfork has slowed down since the earlier days, because they accidentally got readers and drifted away from the underground. To look even remotely intelligent or trustworthy when discussing something, you have to have an open mind and give things a fair chance. Otherwise, you’re just a bizarro version of the superhero fanboy.

In Roger Ebert Talks About Movies and More, Ebert states that “the job of a movie critic is to see. To be an ideal member of the audience.” The reviews above all, willingly, refuse to see - for seeing is admitting the possibility of being mistaken, or of having to accept that your viewpoint isn’t the only one. The job of the reviewer is not to judge an audience but to attempt to place himself into that audience. By separating itself from the audience, this Pitchfork-inspired snark-heavy cynical approach to comics discussion is resulting in a whole lot of words and not a lot of ideas. Grow up.

UPDATE: I just came across Don MacPherson’s negative review at Eye on Comics, and wanted to point it out as a review that judges the book on reasonable expectations and merits and the reviewer found it lacking. I don’t agree with it, but it’s a decent review from a fair viewpoint that paid attention to the story. Just to not be totally negative.

DOUBLE UPDATE: The anonymous David Brothers over at 4thletter pointed me towards the review at Every Day Is Like Wednesday, which, again, I don’t agree with but is a totally fair review of the book.