Chuck Dixon memories
I first ran into Chuck Dixon's work when he was writing for Savage Sword of Conan. He was OK I guess.
Then he wrote the Alien Legion revival, and I bought a bunch of those. Old Alien Legion fans complained about him turning it into the Jugger Grimrod show. Maybe so. He wasn't quite the same as Alan Zelenetz. I think his last Alien Legion story was some weird mess with the characters stuck in a time distortion and coming out years later. I was annoyed by it somehow.
He moved on to DC and became the major Batman family writer, starting Nightwing and Robin ongoings. These were OK. I didn't really follow his Batman, but I liked Nightwing and Robin.
One problem with the "Dixonverse," as these titles came to be nicknamed, was that he perhaps overmuch liked the trope of having the one action hero take out a large number of foes implausibly. (His earlier Evangeline series is the same way.)
In the midst of this, he got to be the writer on a new series called Birds of Prey, a revamp of both Oracle and Black Canary. I got some of the specials before it went monthly. Some neat stuff, but his Dinah Lance seemed slightly off to me at first, because I had been a fan of Sarah Byam's Black Canary, which preceded it.
Meanwhile, there was some editor--Gorfinkel?--who shipped Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon, so that looming ship was hanging over his characters in multiple books. I wonder if he would have done something different with Dick and Clancy, or Barbara and Ted, if not for that editor. Hm. Still, a very "family"-oriented run.
And I remember now, back when Byam was doing that series, myself telling an acquaintance who was a big Jugger Grimrod fan that I liked both Alien Legion and Black Canary, and he didn't get why anyone would be a Black Canary fan. So we're full circle!
This entry was originally posted at http://philippos42.dreamwidth.org/125153.html, where Russian botspam is a rarity.
Then he wrote the Alien Legion revival, and I bought a bunch of those. Old Alien Legion fans complained about him turning it into the Jugger Grimrod show. Maybe so. He wasn't quite the same as Alan Zelenetz. I think his last Alien Legion story was some weird mess with the characters stuck in a time distortion and coming out years later. I was annoyed by it somehow.
He moved on to DC and became the major Batman family writer, starting Nightwing and Robin ongoings. These were OK. I didn't really follow his Batman, but I liked Nightwing and Robin.
One problem with the "Dixonverse," as these titles came to be nicknamed, was that he perhaps overmuch liked the trope of having the one action hero take out a large number of foes implausibly. (His earlier Evangeline series is the same way.)
In the midst of this, he got to be the writer on a new series called Birds of Prey, a revamp of both Oracle and Black Canary. I got some of the specials before it went monthly. Some neat stuff, but his Dinah Lance seemed slightly off to me at first, because I had been a fan of Sarah Byam's Black Canary, which preceded it.
Meanwhile, there was some editor--Gorfinkel?--who shipped Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon, so that looming ship was hanging over his characters in multiple books. I wonder if he would have done something different with Dick and Clancy, or Barbara and Ted, if not for that editor. Hm. Still, a very "family"-oriented run.
And I remember now, back when Byam was doing that series, myself telling an acquaintance who was a big Jugger Grimrod fan that I liked both Alien Legion and Black Canary, and he didn't get why anyone would be a Black Canary fan. So we're full circle!
This entry was originally posted at http://philippos42.dreamwidth.org/125153.html, where Russian botspam is a rarity.