IDW and Spike
Apr. 21st, 2010 12:35 amSo today's not a very happy day for me in the fandom. But I decided to cheer myself up by kvetching about what IDW is doing to the character they call Spike. I want to rant and bash and rant and bash some more cause I just hate every idea they come up with over there. I thought Lynch did OK -- he was off on Spike, but he had enough that was right that I could see why other people like his work. But since then Willingham has taken the things that bugged me about Lynch's Spike and put them on steroids. Willingham is the guy who had a public meltdown about Joss stepping on *his* authorial privilege, a rant a lot of folks on my flist had sympathy with. I find it hard to get worked up about Willingham getting Jossed when Willingham can't be bothered to get to know the characters he's writing. I mean, if he's going to invent a bunch of folks, why not give them their own names and write a comic about them? Why pretend the story is related to AtS?
The offense in question was linked to on Whedonesque and reads as follows:
"The spoiler for this is that Spike from the 'Angel' series has been wondering for some time why prophecy never works out for him, why he's never the good guy," the writer said. "He's been looking into who gets to write prophecy. Do you go to school? Do you get a certificate? Is there a board of prophets that licenses you to?"
Circumstances will soon present Spike with the opportunity to tip prophecies in his favor, according to Willingham.
"One, he comes into a bit of money, and two, he has access to tons and tons of out-of-work Hollywood lawyers, so he starts hiring them to write prophecies where he's the star," he explained.
No, see, this makes total sense because Spike fought Angel for the Shanshu in Destiny, cause, you know, he just wanted to have it. It had *nothing* to do with them working out a century worth of issues. It was cause Spike just wants center stage and will do anything to get it. Spike's all about Spike and wanting to make sure the world's all about Spike too.
I know there are a bunch of people who are terrified about what Joss will end up doing to Spike. But I don't think I could imagine a worse set of stories about Spike than the ones I've been hearing about over at IDW. I'm a very bad person. I want their sales to tank and then tank some more. I'm all about the Schadenfreude when it comes to IDW. Bad, bad, Maggie.
Meanwhile the burning question of the day: which is worse -- a Spike who screws a celebrity vampire with the intention of torturing her for information later; or this? For me, it's this. There's something about the way this completely misunderstands the character that drives me up a tree.