My Reply to The Mindhut - The Top is not lame

[xBarryxAllenx]

Thanks to dillonmania's blog, I read an article comparing the Rogues' Galleries of several superheroes, including The Flash. While I usually love reading other people's opinions (even when I disagree), something about this article just didn't sit well with me. I replied on my own Tumblr and thought I'd add a link here:

barryallenvsm.tumblr.com/post/16693596824/the-top-and-others-lame-i-dont-think-so

Take a look and let me know your thoughts. Thanks!

[dillonmania]

Well put! I don't know what those folks were thinking -- they probably didn't put much thought into it at all, actually.

It actually isn't uncommon for people on the net to declare the Top is lame because apparently spinning = stupid, but I question how familiar they are with the Flashverse.

And even during Waid's run on the Flash, there was this and this (not canon, but written by "Iris Allen").

[xBarryxAllenx]

There are some folks who write pieces with no other purpose than getting a story published, whether in print or online. You can usually spot them as the stories with a "hook line" - like:

1. 10 Comic Book Deaths That Matter
2. 5 New Things We Learned About (fill in the comic hero name)
3. ...and the one we're talking about here

It happens in most lines of journalism, even with MSNBC and The New York Times - this is a common method of writing to get published. Nothing wrong with writing those stories - they're entertaining and fun to read in most cases. And, if you are professional (or aspiring professional) writer you've got to get published to be able to move ahead. So, I don't have a problem with the practice in general. I just recognize that the story is not meant to provide in-depth analysis, and that's okay as far as it goes.

What hit me here, on this story, is that it wasn't the usual I-want-to-get-published-piece. It was a fluff piece masquerading as in-depth analysis, and that's where it missed the boat. The tone was more than a bit snarky, sort of hipster-ish in trying to tell us what's "lame" in the comic world without taking the time to know much more than the names of the characters involved.

Again, I appreciate that someone wants to get published and is likely trying to make a career out of writing. I'm always cheering for folks who are trying to make something better for themselves. I just didn't personally care for the approach in this article, and I thought I'd add thoughts to the mix.

[jonqcitizen]

I agree....but when I read articles like that, I take it with a grain of salt....it's obviously NOT a comic-book genre site, but rather a college site for geeks. Nothing wrong with that, but the opinions are based on getting attention rather than any intelligent analysis.

That said, and as you pointed out in your rebuttal....when you have 3 categories you must fill the 3 categories. It appears to me that the writer just searched wikipedia, and doesn't really have that much knowledge of what he was writing about.