Excerpts from a Jim Shooter interview:
"So the two bad guys were really going to win, and the only thing that was keeping either of them from consolidating their victories was that they were at war with each other, each one trying to usurp the other. That was the only thing that was giving our heroes a window of opportunity. "
When I first read that interview years ago, I thought "Oh, is that all?" but I still had confidence that the mechanisms of delivering the story would exceed whatever quick summary that had been described in an interview. When I went back and grabbed the quote, I didn't put a lot of thought into it. I did a quick cut and paste. Now that I read it again and I have a year's worth of Defiant web site development behind me I can actually start to imagine a universe where seeing the good guys win is not the normal outcome. At best they can only hope to survive. The only saving grace they have is that evil by nature will destroy itself if left unchecked. If Todd is correct with his analogy comparing the DEFIANT universe to the comics industry, then my site even being here is just further proof that "the bad guys" may be on top, but they will never completely win. They may be on top, but they will always be their own worst enemy. The comic industry's nature has been self-destructive because it's dog eat dog. Jim Shooter called it a lack of honor and his perspective is more clear to me now than it was when I read one of his editorials 10 years ago.
As long as a few people with an indomitable will keep holding onto their confidence in DEFIANT and they place their confidence in a deeper and better type of storytelling, "the good guys" will never lose.
DEFIANT still has untapped commercial potential. It was designed to be more than a comic book company, but only comic book people took it seriously. Seeing the "What The Bleep..." movie made me stunningly aware of what Hollywood could have done with the Dark Dominion concepts had they actually tried to tell more of a story instead of trying to just create a documentary and illustrate the principles of quantum physics visually.
Cartoons, toys, movies, and any other untapped ways of generating revenue are all it would've taken for the creative concepts to feed a profitable company. The River Group was so greedy to make money off the cards, that they ignored the fact the cart has to be pulled by the horse and you won't get the desired results if you expect the horse to be pulled by the cart.
Dark Dominion is not just a 1990's comic book series. It is an original collaborative concept worked out with a creator of Spiderman. Steve Diko may have been dismayed or rather disconcerted with DEFIANT after the first chronological issue, but 25 years earlier he had been disconcerted with Spiderman also. The first Spiderman movie generated revenues in excess of 400 milion dollars. If a movie like Dark Domion were made, it has the potental to make money by mere asociation with the legendary name Steve Ditko.
Spiderman wasn't the only successful comic book movie either, because X-men did exceptionally well also. Jim Shooter may not have created the X-Men, but evidence of his involvement with Marvel echoes all through the X-Men movie. It echoes so much that one of the characters in the movie happens to have the same name as one of Jim's relatives! Why? Because Jim created the character.
Work-for-hire may not earn a creator the greatest glory, but it has created some of the best creative concepts. They are not fueled by one man's vision, but they are filtered and fueled by the tempered mettle of many creative individuals.
My tastes and my attitudes towards comics have nothing to do with site imploding. My will is indomitable and my opinion is the same whether my mouth is silent or open.
If the thought of my site going silent bothers anyone, I'd like to remind people that I am not the voice for Defiant and Broadway comics. I've never made a dime of off of this site and I've spent almost $3,000 of my own money acquiring unpublished artwork and reference materials so other people could see what they thought they were going to be able to buy. I've invested hundreds of hours of my personal time for free to amass the information you see here. This site was simply one fan reminding the rest that there was more to it all.
If I am what validates your appreciation of DEFIANT and Broadway, then I can only sat that it's not acceptable to me. I've never accepted the role of crutch in life and I never will. In the Christian Bible, miracles occurred, but everyone of them required personal choice and personal action on behalf of the recipient. If you want site for Broadway and DEFIANT to exist, and you are unwilling to create one, or discuss it, or contribute, then you are one of the reasons it doesn't exist. If you have discussed the comics and contributed and you rely on me to be the voice, then you've placed more confidence in me than you did the materials you want to see.
I did not create this site to bring attention to myself. I'm pretty good at making an impression upon people either good or bad with or without comic book web sites. I've created other sites unrelated to comics and they've generated millions of web hits. I've had TV and movie celebrities go out of their way to email me. If I wanted to bring attention to myself, I'd have directed everyone to the other site and I'd go back to creating those web pages and explore the fame or notoriety they were bringing me. This site has always been about the comics.
To the fans & creators that have contributed and wonder what more they could have done to make the site last longer, you are asking yourself the wrong question. I can only say believe in what you don't see just as much as you believed in what you do see. There is far more potential in what you don't see and my site being here might have actually limited your abilty and motivation to imagine. It took 10 years for a fan based web site to be created How much faster could it have been manifest if you made the choice 5 years ago? I could be posting on your messageboard. I could be thanking you. I could have $3000 more money in my bank account and I could have less clutter of really cool stuff filling my closet. The only difference between me and anyone else is that I made a choice. I chose to make my DEFIANT and Broadway web site because you wouldn't make yours.
Defiant1
