Soooo how about that Bill Willingham?

Allow me to interupt my lumbering "best of" list (seriously, at this rate I'll still be writing it in 2010) and just bring up a little editorial/manifesto Bill Willingham recently posted on a site called Big Hollywood. I've never been to the site before but I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's some sort of conservative thing just judging by the comments left after Bill's editorial.

First of all, I love it. Yep, I'm right there with Bill on pretty much everything he said. Unlike Mr. Robert Kirkman's manifesto last year, Willingham's is well thought out, and rather than attempting to rally the entire industry to his cause he merely lays out his thoughts on the offending topic and hammers home his own take and his plans to deal with the situation. I'm a fan of Willingham's Fables series but never have been entirely onboard with his work as a superhero writer. None the less I like what he says about writing them.

You see, I agree with his take on writing Superman, Batman, or heck any of the major characters created before 1960. Those characters were founded on certain ideals. Ideals which have been left behind with the passage of time. I like that he talked about Superman leaving the "and the American way." out of his credo. I was at a convention once where various comic writers (including Kurt Busiek who was taking over writing the character at the time) spoke about the need to let that expression go because Superman fights for everyone, regardless of country. While I respect the notion that Superman is a global hero I don't like the fact that it's considered passe to be representative of the country of America. Superman's adopted home country after all is America. It only makes sense. Not to mention that, though we are supposedly hated by every country in the world, America's ideals are the true standards to which every other country on this planet are judged. Excluding maybe Israel who I'm a rather big fan of.

I digress.

Willingham wants to put the "hero" back in superhero. Good, go for it. I'm all for it. Now the only area where that may not work are changing certain characters which were created with shady morally gray areas already as part of their psyche. But I like the idea that superhero comics need to be something that tries for a loftier ideal. Courage. Heroism. Honesty. Justice. So on. Folks, this is one of the reasons kids don't read comics. Why would a ten year old want to read about a Captain America who apologizes to a terrorist? Or a Superman who spends half a book crying because of a forest fire?

What I'm trying to say is that Bill Willingham is right. The big guns of both universes were created with certain ideals, standards, and morals in place. Don't take those things away from them in an effort to make them more prevelant in today's world. They have stood the test of time as they are. Leave 'em be what they are... heroes.