A New Low (updated)

When an internet message board troll who has practically made Didio-bashing a profession gets written into a DC Comics issue to be beaten and embarrassed, I think the people who published that product should be more ashamed than the target.

Honestly.

"Harold Winer".

Who goes on to become "Herald".

A shot at a message board poster who obsesses over D-level and lesser characters on the 'net, with the user name of Herald.

Who happens to be black just like the character in the book.

Who has gotten into arguments with DC Comics creators and had one say that he is well known in the DC offices, where he is regularly laughed at.

Sadly, if you remove this thinly veiled shot at a reader from the equation, the writing involved in making this "Harold Winer" character is even worse. But the thought process behind actually using 5 pages (and possibly more to come) to take a shot at a hater is just impossible for me to come to grips with.

We want to argue that the online fan presence is a vocal minority, right? I've actually started to embrace that idea more over the last year. But when members within that group can have such an effect on you that you have to devote pages to taking them down? Makes me wonder how much the people behind the scenes believe it.

Addendum: Just to add in a few things based on all the internet chatter mentioning the long existing character named Herald and that they feel it is a bit much to draw the conclusion that this is a shot on an internet poster.

The original Herald is now called Vox and doesn't require a horn, this is true. It is possible that this character will become a new Herald in the DC Universe. Sure, the horn doesn't seem to be of the same origin as the one the previous Herald used, but anything is possible  (apparently, this is familiar enough to how Mal Duncan received the horn way back when). I did leave this character's existence open-ended.

But "Harold Winer" and protestations that he "would not change one thing" about a D-list character who is so wounded by the character changing, turned into a character named Herald...I'm saying there is a helluva lot of smoke there. Potentially being turned into a new Herald doesn't negate the possibility that this is a shot at Didio hater. Superboy/man Prime became a somewhat better constructed comment on general fanboy complaining; his continued existence and being some form of legacy character (depending on your definition) doesn't change the meta elements.

It's Good To Be The King

So, Dan Didio approved Dan Didio's pitch to handle a Bat-Family book (of sorts) in The Outsiders.

I approach this book with more trepidation than I would if it was a total unknown being handed the reins. Is it because I have that low of an opinion of Didio's writing? No. Well, I did find his Metal Men strip to mimic all the worst qualities of old school comics, but that may have been a function of him writing it as a Sunday-style strip.

No, the trepidation has nothing to do with how good of a writer he may be, but whether he's getting the gig because he has an interesting take that any other writer would have had an approved pitch from or if it is just that, you know, he's the boss of the people who judge the pitch.

Oh wait...I guess that does boil back down to how good of a writer he may be, to some extent. I guess you can say it is a concern on whether he is truly the right guy for the job or he could have transcribed the phone book, submitted it as a pitch and still got the gig.

Over on the above linked The Source blog post, I said in the comments that it is obviously Geo-Force and Steel, but on further inspection, I believe I'm wrong on that (unless I missed when he started rocking the utility belt).