First off, let me say that I love
Jonathan Hickman. Unless there’s something before Nightly News that someone can
tell me about, I have bought and will probably buy everything he’s done and
will do. The range, complexity, and density of his ideas are astounding. I can
think of few other creators who give such bang for buck. He is so good for
comics. I’m really enjoying his ‘What if corporations made superheroes?’ story.

But! One time he wrote into a Word Balloon Bendis Tapes and said something to the effect of (paraphrase! potential misrepresentation ahead!): “I’m great on plot, but character is a relative weakness.” I
have to agree, and here’s why: His characters are all dicks!

Hickman critiques. He does it very well,
it’s always interesting and often illuminating, but that’s what he’s done. He
writes primarily about the elite- the upper echelon and what they do wrong. I
wanna see a story about someone not-rich-and/or-powerful who does something
right. Even when he writes about the underclass (like the monkeys in this
issue), they do stuff that is viscerally cathartic but morally aversive. It
reminds of a lot of movies by Louis Buñuel and Jean Luc Godard: Yes you can
tell me what’s wrong with the bourgeoisie, but can you tell me what’s right
about the proletariat? That old criticism of radicals: ‘You can tell me
what you’re against, but can you tell me what you’re for?’

For Hickman to do a great
character, I want him see him write, and hopefully draw (although J.M. Ringuet
does great expressive acting), someone he believes in, someone who he agrees
with. This hypothetical character doesn’t have to be 100% perfect on a 100%
righteous path. Doing the right thing is always messy and full of failure. But
doing the wrong thing is easy. Doing the right thing is hard and never obvious.
I’d love to see Hickman try to figure it out. Maybe that’s Red Mass for Mars.