Revisions continue. I’m in the last third of the first pass of my agent’s mark-up… and I’m pretty happy with here I’m at. It’s fascinating to think of the several iterations this book has been through: each slightly different, each another version, each another take, of the same story. In some, the characters are a little different (or don’t even exist at all), in others the tone is altered or a back story is dumped. Some of the writing is just plain bad, but there are parts of those earlier versions that I really like – there’s nothing really wrong with them, they just don’t fit where the story is now.
That got me thinking about MAN OF STEEL (MoS), which I saw last weekend. Without getting too spoilerish, much has been made of the changes Goyer, Snyder, and Co. made (some say wrecked) on the Superman canon. Look, I’ll be the first to say that Superman has never particularly been my favorite superhero (I was always more of a Wolverine, Spiderman, Batman sort of guy), but I’ve seen all of the movies, read many of the comics, and I’m pretty conversant with the character. Is the Snyder/Goyer version different than previous iterations? Sure. Is MoS better? In some respects, I think yes. Does it invalidate the prior stories, or the earlier “takes” on the character? Absolutely not.
Others, of course, disagree. I even Tweeted a link to an article addressing this very issue (http://www.flickeringmyth.com/2013/06/fandom-how-hardcore-fans-are-killing.html), where the author quite rightly (I think) suggests that fan outrage to canonical characters sometimes prevents authors and movie makers from taking risks with these characters – the very thing we should want them to do. Goyer’s version of Superman doesn’t invalidate Byrne’s, and it’s okay to like one more than the other, but we sell ourselves short if we refuse to “accept” these different versions as valid or worthwhile. I think we should really want to see these “touchstone” characters in different time periods, facing different challenges, maybe making different decisions, and – as always – wearing different costumes. Newer versions keeps these characters and stories alive, fresh, and relevant. Sometimes, even, it improves them.
Fortunately, I have exactly one fan right now – me, and I don’t have a horde of fans at my back hollering when something ends up on the cutting room floor, or when I make a drastic change to a character. But maybe I’ll get lucky and that will change in the future, and when it does, I’ll release some of the earlier cuts of my books – and then those fans will see just how bad things could have been…
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