Out of Balance
The ability to create anything generally considered good is always a struggle, so many production realities to contend with. Take Convergence for example. It is the main series of the ongoing event that has to simultaneously anchor the spin-offs (though that doesn’t seem like much of a problem now), lead into the mini-relauch in June, and tell its own self contained story. That is a lot of plates for television writer, showrunner, and comic writer new guy Jeff King to balance. King has been open about the task that he lucked into, walking into Dan Didio’s office on a tour and spit balling ideas. On a recent appearance on the Nerdist Writers Panel: Comics Edition, King talked about how he turned in a 40+ page script before realizing how exactly full script comics work. This is a very public learning experience and “The Planet Incarnate” has some good ideas just not executed in the cleanest way.
Writing a comic is almost an invisible art, the most outwardly seen example is of course dialog (internal or external) but that’s not where the bulk of it is found. The bulk of the writing is found in the panel descriptions and just figuring out good plotting so that everything works and synergies (hopefully). Dialog can and will likely change once the art is turned in and spatial realities lead to changes in the Letter (Travis Lanham) plan, leading to changes in dialog. For the most part I actually didn’t mind King’s dialog, it had a bit of silver age feel. But more often “The Planet Incarnate” came off as being over written. Not just in the constant Dick Grayson internal retrospection (more on that latter), but in the little one liners/5 word phrases characters say that speak the action instead of letting the art show the action. All the little dialog boxes lead to a cluttered frame but there is the byproduct of it making a clear reading order.
Using Dick Grayson as an in for the reader makes a lot of sense. He isn’t like the Wonders of Earth 2 (yet). He is like one of us, a father who tried to keep his family whole as the world dropped around them. Earth 2: World’s End did no favors to Grayson though in terms of showing him as a character exhibiting a base competency in survival or anything. His suckitiude is exactly why using his retrospective narration makes sense. If he’s going to be important in Earth 2: Society going forward and not come off as a helpless whelp in the battles to come in Convergence, we need to understand him better. And it isn’t like there is much chance of him proving himself in martial combat this issue. The retrospection was just over done, either in his foreshadowing to an audience too often or just plan taking up too much space on the page and not letting the art narrate the story to us.
Take page 20 for example, where in Dick and Thomas enter the Batcave and that Earths Barbra Gordon appears on screen. It is composed of 21 word balloons, 13 spoken 8 Grayson internal. Panels 4 and 5 are the densest. Do we really need Grayson saying “I was frozen we, couldn’t speak –“ when he is drawn in Panel 4 clearly not speaking? The third monologue box “What do you say to your dead wife?” works because that is truly his wonderment.
The meeting between that Earths Batman and Thomas Wayne of Earth 2, is a trickier situation. 13 Grayson monologue boxes over 5 panels. It’s a meeting between Father and Son…sort of. Describing both as wounded father and son “Coming to life from opposite ends on the same path. Facing the only person who could ever truly see them for who they are” is poetic and over wrought in a good way. But it is also a sequence any DC fan has imagined and the art dose a good job of showing their reaction. It’s a tough page, we as reader need to understand the emotional weight of this meeting without actually hearing what is said. A Reddit user edited out Grayson monologue boxes from this sequence, the pages are defiantly cleaner but don’t function with the same weight if some had been left in.
Everything is a fine balance and you don’t really realize the lack of it until you see it. Hopefully going forward Jeff King finds his balance.
