(no subject)
So someone asked about general opinion on Jaime in boostle the other day, and it got me thinking. I haven't bought the comic yet, just read bits from s_d, and I don't think I will probably buy it. Not because it's bad--I mean some people say it's cliche and whatever, but maybe my standards aren't as high, I liked it fine. Plus, there is something very tempting about new characters for a fan who is relatively new and still doesn't know the fandom very well. With other more established characters, there are years or even decades worth of material floating around, it's so hard (and expensive) to catch up. With a new character, you're right there as it all happens and you can know just as much as everyone else in the fandom. And yet, I don't think I'll buy it.
It seems like a vaguely lame excuse to say that he's not Ted, and I liked Ted and don't care about his replacement. Because honestly, I've only been learning to love him post-mortem. Before he died I only had passing knowledge that he existed, the only thing I'd ever seen him in was the Death of Superman. So can I really bitch about him getting killed? Do I really have the right?
With Kon I feel a bit more entitled, because I actually did like him well before he died. The first comic I ever read was the Return of Superman trade (see, when I decided to get into the fandom, I though it was pretty dauntingly huge and thus read about it first in books and online, found out what the major events had been, and then bought a trade for the one that stuck out the most to me. I also got Death in the Family pretty early) and I liked Superboy best of the four temps, and actually knew who he was from the outset of my entry into the fandom. I've been collecting back issues of The Superboy comic for over a year. But I still feel like some newbie fan, because I've only read the recent Teen Titans run, the first 40 Superboy issues, and some scattered YJ. I'm still waiting to read when he gets the name Kon, when tana dies, etc etc.
Which doesn't make me less pissed that he got the axe (though I have more hope for his revival than I do for poor Ted.) But it does highlight why I don't really hate the Crisis as much as I sometimes feel like I should, considering how much other people bitch. It's a chance to catch up, to have a major event under my belt, and to learn the characters over new with everyone else so that I'm not so behind anymore. And I feel lazy for that, and I am afraid that I won't like where they go with it, but I'm still genuinely excited about it.
Which brings me back to Jaime, and contemplating whether or not to give him a chance. While there are the stated advantages in new characters, there are also disadvantages. They're less established, so they have a smaller fan base, and are thus more vulnerable to the shifting whims of authors. I could get attached to him, and then they could go and change him completely or even kill him, because nothing's concrete yet.
Plus, even if I'm a late-comer to the ranks of Ted lovers, I do miss Ted. I don't exactly resent or blame Jaime, but he's not really connected to Ted, so I have no real interest in him either. The only thing that really tempts me is a vague hope that there will be references to Ted, or that Booster will cameo, and neither of those is likely to happen much. *sigh* I don't know. I wish I didn't always fall in love with the doomed/dead characters. Sirius, Archie, Ted, Kon... plus a myriad of smaller characters from movies and stuff that I was only peripherally interested in.