Originally Posted by
pixiedark76
I think that she is a great writer because she is one of the most knowledgeable people on the Dark Tower.
Being knowledgeable about the Dark Tower (which Furth definitely is) does not necessarily translate to being a good writer. Maybe that's what Marvel thought when they chose her, but its two different things.
Originally Posted by
pixiedark76
I think that it is brilliant that Robin Furth used part of the Wizards Rainbow to turn Jonas into an evil person. Using the Wizards Rainbow on Jonas just makes the other parts of the Wizards Rainbow seem more important and they have more of an impact on the story. The Wizards Rainbow also seems more frightening; instead of just being some vague object that was just mentioned as a legend.
First off, Furth's "magic mirror" backstory was nothing original. See The Snow Queen by Hans Christan Andersen:
"You must attend to the commencement of this story, for when we get to the end we shall know more than we do now about a very wicked hobgoblin; he was one of the very worst, for he was a real demon. One day, when he was in a merry mood, he made a looking-glass which had the power of making everything good or beautiful that was reflected in it almost shrink to nothing, while everything that was worthless and bad looked increased in size and worse than ever. The most lovely landscapes appeared like boiled spinach, and the people became hideous, and looked as if they stood on their heads and had no bodies. Their countenances were so distorted that no one could recognize them, and even one freckle on the face appeared to spread over the whole of the nose and mouth. The demon said this was very amusing. When a good or pious thought passed through the mind of any one it was misrepresented in the glass; and then how the demon laughed at his cunning invention. All who went to the demon’s school—for he kept a school—talked everywhere of the wonders they had seen, and declared that people could now, for the first time, see what the world and mankind were really like. They carried the glass about everywhere, till at last there was not a land nor a people who had not been looked at through this distorted mirror. They wanted even to fly with it up to heaven to see the angels, but the higher they flew the more slippery the glass became, and they could scarcely hold it, till at last it slipped from their hands, fell to the earth, and was broken into millions of pieces. But now the looking-glass caused more unhappiness than ever, for some of the fragments were not so large as a grain of sand, and they flew about the world into every country. When one of these tiny atoms flew into a person’s eye, it stuck there unknown to him, and from that moment he saw everything through a distorted medium, or could see only the worst side of what he looked at, for even the smallest fragment retained the same power which had belonged to the whole mirror. Some few persons even got a fragment of the looking-glass in their hearts, and this was very terrible, for their hearts became cold like a lump of ice. A few of the pieces were so large that they could be used as window-panes; it would have been a sad thing to look at our friends through them. Other pieces were made into spectacles; this was dreadful for those who wore them, for they could see nothing either rightly or justly. At all this the wicked demon laughed till his sides shook—it tickled him so to see the mischief he had done. There were still a number of these little fragments of glass floating about in the air, and now you shall hear what happened with one of them."
Sounds familar, doesn't it? Just take out the demon and add Maerlyn, take out God and add in Gan, and viola! Instant Dark Tower backstory!
Second...Jonas's backstory was horrible. He is a human villain, not a supernatural one. Adding supernatural causes to his human evil makes him that much less interesting. The initial idea, that he hates Gunslingers because he failed on his test and was thus sent west a failure, worked just fine. It was interesting, a dark parallel to Roland if you will. Making him evil because he stuck his foot on an EEEVILLL mirror takes that all away.
And if anything, King did a MUCH better making the Rainbow frightening in Wizard and Glass with how it twisted Rhea, how it was addictive and only showed horribile things. Ten times more effective than anything Furth did.
Originally Posted by
pixiedark76
I just don't get it when people complain about the way the comics are written. In the first Arc (Gunslinger Born) people were complaining that it was too much like Wizard and Glass and they felt cheated when they bought it. Then when the other Arcs of the comics came out people complained that it was nothing like the Dark Tower books.
It seems that you just can't please anybody!
People's problems with the comics aren't what you think they are. I don't think ANYONE had a problem with it adapting W&G or expanding on new material--it was how it was executed.