"Any cheers or jeers regarding the recent Hulk vs. Fin Fang Foom comic? I didn’t pick it up because I was already buying enough, and I had the reprint it featured. Peter David wrote it, however, so I’m tempted to go back. "

I thought it was funny as all heck.

I never said we shouldn’t say he wrote a bad comic

I know. I didn't think we were having an argument. You asked, I answered.

What were they?
I always had my eye on him as I was a big fan of his Swamp Thing run (I still talk to the other three occasionally).

Personally I'd stick his Swamp Thing run at the top of that list - but obviously you wouldn't.

But what I found really funny is that in talking about Final Crisis, he says it won't be a "mega-event" with a bunch of spinoffs and crossovers and plots spreading throughout the DCU, and then mentions that in the middle of the 7 issue series there will be a one month break with a series of related specials, and there will be two supporting mini-series. One at 5 issues and one at 6. So the 7 issue mini-series with no spinoffs will entail a minimum of 20 issues total. I love that in the warped world of comics today, somehow that is considered self-contained.

If Champagne takes the money for Arena and WWIII, then his name will be associated with the books in the minds of people who brought and didn't like them, and rightly so - he did write it.
I feel sorry for him as, to my knowledge, he is a new writer trying to get in, and DC has a lot of editorially driven stories going on, and so it gets him paying work and an 'in' at the office, which I would believe he hopes will lead to a better gig - but if his name gets associated with putting out dreck in the meantime, well that's just how it goes, because he did.
I mean if a writer had an editorially driven story and they made it work (52 perhaps could work as an example), do we give them a pass and say 'yeah you wrote it, but it was editorially driven so they get all the cred'.

I should point out that I haven't read Arena, WWIII or 52 - you couldn't pay me to go near the first two and only a vague interest in the latter (basically because everyone's like 'they pulled it off' or 'it's better than you expected'. I was expecting a fan-wank train wreck, so being better than that isn't saying much.)

When he started at Marvel, Brian K. Vaughan had a similar record of writing bad assignments that came out bad. And now he’s awesome!

What were they?
I always had my eye on him as I was a big fan of his Swamp Thing run (I still talk to the other three occasionally).
Actually, I think I may prefer it to some of his later stuff - Y: The Last Man started slowing right down early on, but by the time they'd gotten to Australia it was at a standstill and the plots were getting too outrageous, and nothing actually seems to happen in Ex Machina - it's just a collection of political musings and factoids not taken to any form of conclusion, just talked about for five issues to get to a good last line (including the one where the way his powers worked were changed for it).

Is it really so terrible to say that Keith Champagne is writing a bad comic book?

Nah, he shouldn’t get a free pass even if it was an uphill battle from the get go.
He took the project, he took the money, and his name’s on the book - it’s not like it was all changed behind his back, so I don’t see why he should get a pass.

Free pass in what sense, though? Does that even mean anything? How is anyone lobbying for this undefined "free pass"? Sure, you can't say "this comic is fine because it's not the writer's fault", but on the other hand, saying "I'm never giving anything he writes another chance because he was involved in this sh***y thing once" is clearly not, well, non-dickish, shall we say.

But I just don't think that's a sign of how good of a writer he is.

When he started at Marvel, Brian K. Vaughan had a similar record of writing bad assignments that came out bad. And now he's awesome!

JEERS to the fact that Neron and Felix Faust are both back in the game so soon after Ralph Dibney gave up his life in 52 to trap them both “for good.”

Odd thing to do after a very successful series that was meant to be very important for their universe.
Why not just create a new character?
If you need them to be as powerful, and want to explain why they'd never been heard of before, you just write a line about how there was a power vacuum or some such.

But why are so many villains and characters being recycled by the 'big' two?
Is it editorial just wanting to reuse characters so hopefully they can be licensed or some such, or are creators just over creating new heroes/villains if they don't own them?

I will not blame Champagne for Arena, because it was just an awful project to begin with,

Nah, he shouldn't get a free pass even if it was an uphill battle from the get go.
He took the project, he took the money, and his name's on the book - it's not like it was all changed behind his back, so I don't see why he should get a pass.

Other than that, love the coloumn, keep up the good work.

My bad!

Wow, you are not going to let this go, are you? And worst of all, we get a "JEER" for having a difference of opinion!?!?!?

That hurts!

That really, really hurts!!!

Anyways, is not that Batman was acting out of character; the argument was/is that the scene was in poor taste for what I feel is a kids book. And make no mistake about it, dedicating 2 to 3 pages to Beast Boy playing Little Nemo and making bad puns qualifies the book in my mind "as kid friendly".

As for Batman, the argument can be made the Batcave scene, and the delivery boy scene, and Jewel Thief beat down drove the point that he was acting out of character. Beating the tears out of Robin was just overkill. But you know, I guess it's a matter of opinion. I for one, like my comics with more subtlety and less rape.

As for the JLA Classified thing, you don't read that book looking for good continuity. You're lucky if you get a JLA line-up that actually existed at any point in the book's history, much less minor details like Lois and Linda knowing their future husbands' secret identities.

http://www.tgfa.org/comics/other/other9.htm