Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: Comics, dc, gail simone, greg rucka, huntress, new 52, question
The Gail Simone/Greg Rucka Question/Huntress Comic That Never Was
Gail Simone talks about working on the New 52. And why Birds Of Prey was taken away from her.
Part of the idea of the New 52 was to change people's perceptions of long-running characters, to get people to think of them in a new light. That, I can understand and agree with, but the unfortunate thing obviously is that some characters were changed in ways that are hard for me to accept, just like it would be for any fan. For publishers, it's not great when one writer is too closely affiliated with a title-it makes it harder for them to continue that title when that writer leaves, for example, and I think some people had that connection with my name and Birds of Prey. So they wanted to move the characters from being thought of too much with one name. It's understandable, but it's also kind of a drag.
And at a time when Greg Rucka was still willing to work for DC, spilled a detail about a pitched for comic book that never happened, before the New 52 relaunch.
Greg Rucka and I pitched the idea of a Renee Montoya/Helena Bertinelli road trip story that we would write together, but they said they had other plans for Huntress, that's the first clue I got that she was being changed.
What could they have called it? Renee And Helena? Also in the aftermath of promotion for Avengers Arena, Gail reacted;
I don't want to pre-judge something without knowing a thing about it, but I'm pretty sick of death as a selling point for comics. It's just cheap. I'm not dissing Marvel, DC does it as well.
I can remember reading stories where characters died when I was a kid and being genuinely moved. It's harder to do that when it's part of the marketing.